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THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
Theism and Evolution: 
 
 AN EXAMINATION OF 
 
 MODERN SPECULATIVE THEORIES AS RELATED 
 
 TO THEISTIC CONCEPTIONS OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSE. 
 
 JOSEPH S. VAN DYKE, D.D., 
 
 Author of '" Through the Prison to the Throne?' " From Gloom to Gladness," etc. 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 
 ARCHIBALD A. HODGE, D.D., LL.D., 
 
 Professor of Theology in Princeton Theological Seminary. 
 
 mte gorfe: 
 A. C. ARMSTRONG & SON, 
 
 714 BROADWAY. 
 
 1886. 
 
 [All Rights Reserved ] 
 
Copyright, 1886, 
 By JOSEPH S. VAN DYKE. 
 
TO MY ESTEEMED FRIEND, 
 JOHN S. DAVISON, 
 
 TO WHOSE ENCOURAGEMENT, ABIDING AFFECTION, AND HELPFUL GENEROSITY THE 
 
 FRIENDS OF CHRISTIANITY ARE INDEBTED FOR THIS ATTEMPTED 
 
 REFUTATION OF ATHEISTIC FORMS OF EVOLUTION, 
 
 gtffrrtiuttately Qtftitnttft. 
 
& w ■""* /,> 
 
 JUL 1 Iff 
 
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 ^/ogicalSe^ 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Preface n 
 
 Introduction 15 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 Evolution 23 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 Is it Atheism ? 36 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 Man's Physical Nature .51 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 Man's Intellectual Nature 71 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 Man's Moral Nature .84 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 Man's Religious Nature 99 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 The Father of the Animal Kingdom 116 
 
viii CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 Darwin's Primordial Germs 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 Haeckel's Pater Familias, the Moneron 145 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 Abiogenesis. ' 161 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 Matter; its Essence 184 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 Matter; its Properties 197 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 Matter; its Origin 212 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 Continuity 23S 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 Force 249 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 Force versus Materialism 275 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 Life and its Relations to Matter 287 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 Life and its Relations to Matter [Continued) . . .314 
 
CONTENTS. ix 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 Mind and Matter 333 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 The Cerebrum the especial Organ of Mind . . . .358 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 Molecular Vibrations in the Brain 378 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 Automatic Activity of the Cerebrum 388 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 The Freedom of the Will 422 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 Science and the Bible: no Conflict 432 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 Science and the Bible: no Conflict {Continued) . . .455 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The outcome of modern scientific speculation, as 
 connected with the system of religious faith deducible 
 from God's Word, is likely to prove beneficial to the 
 human family. 
 
 Having enjoyed the opportunity of weighing the 
 intellectual products of those who have enriched the 
 nineteenth century, we presume to invite the reader 
 to accompany us in an examination of some of the 
 conclusions reached. Whilst conceding that evolution 
 may give a new impulse to embodied Christianity, 
 relieving it of some objectionable features, furnishing 
 attractive arguments in its favor, and teaching the 
 church how to employ new agencies in the elevation 
 of humanity, the writer has undertaken to present an 
 argument against those forms of the evolutional theory 
 which seem to tend towards atheism. We have endeav- 
 ored to cover the entire field as connected with the origin 
 of man, of matter, of force, of life, of mentality, of con- 
 science. While there is difficulty in believing it possible 
 that man's physical nature is an evolution from the lower 
 animals, and still greater difficulty in imagining that his 
 intellectual faculties may be, it is apparently impossible 
 
xii PREFACE. 
 
 to conceive that his moral and religious nature could 
 have been evolved from animals destitute of even their 
 germs. 
 
 The origin of man, however, is by no means the 
 only obstacle to the acceptance of atheistic forms of 
 evolution. If all life evolved from a few primordial 
 germs, can we conceive the possibility of results so 
 numerous and so diverse from causes so insignificant ? 
 Can an " organless speck of plasson " develop the 
 myriad forms of animal and vegetable life ? Is a Su- 
 perintending Intelligence entirely unnecessary ? 
 
 Again: ere evolution is entitled to be regarded as a 
 theory capable of furnishing an explanation of the uni- 
 verse, it ought to account for the origin of matter, which 
 bears evidence of having had a genesis external to itself. 
 This done, it should show that there has been no 
 break in continuity, each present growing naturally out 
 of its antecedent past; — and that a series of changes 
 such as evolution predicates may be infinite. 
 
 This advanced theory meets also with difficulties 
 when it comes to questions involved in the term Life. 
 Is life mere mechanism ? Is it a mode of motion ? Is it 
 the aggregated life of an infinite number of infinitesimal 
 bioplasts ? Is it molecules of matter braided together 
 in inexplicable ways? Is it one side of that "double- 
 faced unity" matter, whose other side is physical ? If 
 there is no Personal God, then life, like matter and force, 
 is an insoluble enigma. 
 
 Once more: if evolution is to assume the role of 
 
PREFACE. xiii 
 
 omnipotence, it should show itself competent to evolve 
 man's faculties, — the intellect, the sensibilities, and the 
 will, — from matter or from physical force; that is, it ought 
 to prove that mind and matter are identical, thought be- 
 ing corpuscular emanations from fibers vibrating under 
 tension, or that mind is a product of matter; or that 
 mind and the ordinary physical forces are identical, or 
 that the former is a product of the latter. It is asked 
 to present incontrovertible evidence that the brain is not 
 the organ of the mind, but is the mind itself, or is the 
 efficient cause of which mind is but an effect. It must 
 then prove that all mental activity is strictly automatic, 
 man being under an inexorable necessity, his motives, his 
 processes of reasoning, his volitions being formed for 
 him, not by him. 
 
 There is no conflict between Science and the Bible. 
 They agree in regarding the Divine Will as the origi- 
 nating cause of all things, in conceding that there has 
 been development, in admitting that there have been 
 breaks in the ordinarily continuous flow of events, in 
 believing that the present arrangements of nature must 
 have had a beginning and will have an end, and in 
 attributing the continued existence of the universe to 
 a Power above nature. 
 
 We hope the volume shall evince the existence of 
 mentality as an entity distinct from matter, for it is 
 inconceivable that oatmeal and beefsteak were so trans- 
 muted by the ordinary physical forces that a relentless 
 necessity elaborated and launched this argument upon 
 
xiv PREFACE. 
 
 the troubled waters of modern discussion. We prefer to 
 believe that will-force had something to do with its pro- 
 duction, and that this will-force was not a product of the 
 granary and the meat-market. The book is a witness, we 
 imagine, to the fact that necessity, generated in gross 
 atoms, has not extinguished individual liberty. 
 
 The Author. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Since the appearance of Charles Darwin's great work, 
 The Origin of Species, the general doctrine of evolu- 
 tion, in one or other of its many forms, has been very 
 generally accepted by scientists as representing the view 
 they have come to take of the operations of nature. 
 This general conception of evolution is as old as human 
 speculation, but it has only now been associated with 
 accurate scientific methods, as a working hypothesis, 
 and its truth supposed to be verified by actual proof. It 
 is typified by the gradual growth under proper conditions 
 of the chicken out of the egg; of the tree out of the 
 seed; of the foetus out of the germ; of the man out of 
 the babe; and the solar systems, with their suns, planets, 
 and satelites in various stages of consolidation and 
 refrigeration, out of the original nebula, "without form 
 and void," to which Scripture as well as Science traces 
 back the birth of the material universe. The things that 
 are, proceed out of the things that were, and in turn give 
 birth to the things that are to be, in unbroken continuity 
 and imperceptible transitions, through the operation of 
 natural laws. This is the very meaning of the old familiar 
 term " Nature," that which is born, and that which gives 
 
xvi INTRODUCTION. 
 
 birth. The natura naturans, the present equilibrium of 
 the universe, producing the in-coming equilibrium of the 
 universe, or the natura naturata. 
 
 Mere science has nothing to do with origins, or causes, 
 or final ends. It is concerned only with phenomena and 
 their fixed relations in time and space. It is obvious that 
 in this definite view of the range of science, the phe- 
 nomena of the physical world at least do present in their 
 ceaseless successions the appearance which the evolu- 
 > tionist describes. The solar system is passing before our 
 eyes through constant changes. The sun as it grows 
 cooler is becoming more like Jupiter, Jupiter more like 
 the earth, and the earth more like the moon. The earth 
 and its zones are passing without interruption along a 
 line of graduated change to which the fauna and flora of 
 all continents are continually being adjusted. The vari- 
 ous species of plants and animals rise from the simplest 
 to the most complex in an ideal order, and new perma- 
 nent varieties spring up before our eyes out of the unity 
 of ancient species under new physical conditions. The 
 human race itself has been differentiated into innumerable 
 varieties by means of differences of climate, and social 
 conditions and the like, and all these changes are pro- 
 gressing in unbroken continuity through our own age 
 into the future, just as they have through all past stages 
 of human history. 
 
 The scientific doctrine of evolution emphasizes this 
 view of the succession of phenomena, and applies it as a 
 hypothetical law, or working hypothesis, in every depart- 
 
INTRODUCTION. xvii 
 
 ment of scientific investigation; to the inorganic king- 
 dom, as cosmical evolution; to the kingdom of life alike 
 vegetable and animal; to the origination of species as 
 well as that of varieties and of individuals; to the king- 
 dom of mind, to account for the origin of ideas, and laws 
 of thought; and to the kingdom of social and political 
 life as traced in the origin and progress of human societies. 
 Now when strictly confined to the legitimate limits 
 of pure science, that is, to the scientific account of phe- 
 nomena and their laws of co-existence and of succession, 
 this doctrine of evolution is not antagonistic to our faith 
 as either theists or christians. It is only when this 
 theory assumes to be a philosophy, or becomes as- 
 sociated with a philosophy supplying the ideas, the 
 causes, and the final ends which give a rational ac- 
 count of the facts collected, that it can challenge 
 our interest as christians, or threaten our faith. Evo- 
 lution as connected with a materialistic philosophy 
 will, of course, as are all phrases of materialism, be in- 
 consistent with natural theism and revealed religion. 
 The same is equally true if the theory of evolution is 
 worked out on a basis of pantheism. If evolution is 
 itself erected into a complete philosophy, and be put to 
 the magical task of tracing the growth of all things out 
 of nothing, and of a rational and all-comprehensive sysf 
 tern of knowledge out of agnostic premises, then of course 
 the result must be equally fatal to human reason and to 
 christian faith. If again, progress along the entire line 
 of biological advance is explained wholly on the hy- 
 
xviii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 pothesis of an all-directioned variation, and the selection 
 of special forms by an accidental environment (the pre 
 cise position of Darwin), then certainly the universe 
 and its order is referred to Chance, teleology is impos- 
 sible, theism stripped of its most effective evidence, and 
 therefore Dr. Charles Hodge was abundantly justified 
 in indicating this phase of evolution as atheistic. More- 
 over a theory of evolution which refuses to coalesce for 
 any reason with spiritual views of man and God and their 
 relations, which admits of the possibility of no interrup- 
 tion at any time or for any end; of no influence of any 
 active agents exterior to the limited group of natural 
 agents subject to the test of experiment, and hence of 
 quantitative determination, will of course lead to a denial 
 of the supernatural, and render prayer a delusion and all 
 religion superstitious. y/ 
 
 But it is evident that any doctrine of evolution which 
 intelligently recognizes the plain facts of man's spiritual 
 nature, his reason, conscience, and free-will, will equally 
 recognize the same attributes as the property of God. 
 Evolution considered as the plan of an infinitely wise Per- 
 son and executed under the control of His everywhere 
 present energies can never be irreligious; can never ex- 
 clude design, providence, grace, or miracles. Hence wel 
 repeat that what christians have cause to consider withl 
 apprehension is not evolution as a working hypothesis i 
 of science dealing with facts, but evolution as a philo- 1 
 sophical speculation professing to account for the origin, ' 
 causes, and ends of all things. Science owes its special 
 
INTRODUCTION. xix 
 
 authority to its close adherence to facts capable of verifi- 
 cation. But the philosophy of evolution has nothing to 
 distinguish it from the great multitude of transient spec- 
 ulations which for thousands of years have been broken 
 on the eternal facts of man's spiritual nature like the tides 
 of the sea are broken upon the granite rock of the coast. 
 The claim for finality and of superior authority put forth 
 by this philosophy is simply absurd. But the conduct 
 of some weak christian apologists who hasten with 
 super-serviceable zeal to abate the claims of revelation, 
 and to adjust the doctrines of Christianity to the demands 
 of the passing mode of thinking of the hour, surpasses all 
 else in absurdity. It is inconsistent with honest faith to 
 fear any possible outcome of genuine scientific pro- 
 gress. True science leads only to the truth, and all 
 truth is congruous with true religion. We should heartily 
 bid science God speed. Since our religion is true, 
 matured science can only confirm and illume it. We 
 have nothing to fear from the ultimate results of the 
 doctrine of evolution as a factor in science. For the 
 same reason it is not becoming the christian faith for 
 its representatives to show haste in bringing forth 
 crude schemes for reconciling our time-tested inter- 
 pretations of Scripture with the transient interpreta- 
 tions of nature presented by science in its hypothetical 
 stage. 
 
 In the meantime, while we wait, it will suffice to in- 
 dicate certain boundary lines which the scientific doc- 
 trine of evolution must not pass; and the passing of which 
 
xx INTR OD UC TION. 
 
 can alone be rightly regarded as a casus belli by the | 
 christian church. 
 
 Every rational doctrine of evolution must recognize j 
 (its own limitations, and presuppose^ creative and ra- 
 Vional basis on which it rests. The evolving agencies | 
 and the laws of their evolution must necessarily precede 
 and can never be accounted for by the process of the 
 evolution itself. 
 
 A true doctrine of evolution can never violate the j 
 fundamental laws of human thought. The universal 
 causal judgment affirms that every new thing coming 
 into being must have been preceded by a cause ade- 
 quate to account rationally for its existence. No possi- 
 ble evolution of molecular mechanics can account for 
 the origin of life, nor for the peculiar properties of living 
 beings, such as organic form, or function, reproduction, 
 heredity, and the like. Much less can such a cause ac- I 
 count for the origin of sensation, consciousness, instinct, 
 or intelligence. 
 
 Much less can any doctrine really scientific pretend 
 to account for the origination of the higher reason of I 
 man, and especially for his conscience and its imperial 
 dictates, by any evolution from preceding non-rational 
 or non-moral existence. The new facts are not com- 
 posites resulting from the synthesis of pre-existing ele- 
 ments. They are ultimate, incapable of analysis, ess< n- 
 tially distinct, and they could have been introduced into 
 the flow of natural evolution only by an immediate act 
 of God, as a new thread is shot by the hand of the 
 
INTRODUCTION. xxi 
 
 weaver into a rapidly evolving web of cloth. Hence it 
 follows that no true doctrine of evolution can pretend to 
 account on its own principles alone for the origin of man, 
 nor for his fall, nor for the great central epoch-making 
 stages of his redemption. The soul of man stands in such 
 marked contrast with all that precedes it as to be evi- 
 dently a new creation, and its advent introduces a new 
 era. Hence the facts recorded in the Scriptures as to the 
 creation of Adam and the formation of Eve are not incon- 
 sistent with the analogy of truth, and must be recognized 
 as historically true. The character of man sets him forth 
 evidently as subject to a law of entirely different grade 
 than that which has been operating in the previous 
 history of the world. New relations are sustained and a 
 new order of events introduced. Henceforth no doctrine 
 of evolution can be tenable which does not make room 
 for a moral government and a redemptive providence, 
 including miracles md the Incarnation of God, and the 
 gracious operations of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 It is not intended in all that has been said to express 
 any opinion as to the truth of evolution in any of its 
 forms, but only to indicate the limits, on the respective 
 sides of which christians, as such, can have no con- 
 troversy, or no truce. 
 
 Dr. Van Dyke has already acquired an enviable reputa- 
 tion as a successful author. He is able, learned, and 
 thoroughly sound in his philosopical and theological 
 principles. The present work is on a subject of uni- 
 versal interest and of vital importance, and is the result of 
 
xxii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 very wide reading and of mature reflection. It is not 
 intended for men of science, but for that large circle of 
 general readers who are interested in such questions. 
 The object is to allay unwarranted fears on the part of 
 christians, and to warn careless speculators of the limits 
 beyond which it is unsafe to go. The undersigned has 
 accepted the honor of contributing this Introduction, not 
 because he agrees with all the positions assumed by the 
 author, but because he sympathizes with his general 
 purpose, and believes the work adapted to be generally 
 useful. The writer of the Introduction, as far as he differs 
 from the author, would have preferred a more imperative 
 affirmation of the limits beyond which science cannot 
 rationally pass, nor pass without conflict with Chris- 
 tianity. This however does not prevent his sincere hope 
 that the book may be greatly blessed in its destined end 
 of confirming true philosophy and revealed religion, and 
 in promoting peace between the men of knowledge and 
 
 the men of faith. 
 
 A. A. Hodge. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 EVOLUTION. 
 
 WHATEVER hopes or fears we may entertain in reference 
 to the issue of the investigations now so assiduously- 
 pursued with the view of confirming the theory of 
 evolution, and to whatever place they may ultimately 
 succeed in assigning man, — whether in nature or above 
 nature,— there can be no question that the conclusions 
 reached and the problems therein involved are well 
 worthy the christian's careful study. The dispassionate 
 discussion of subjects so momentous can only result in 
 good. New facts will be accumulated. Laws hitherto 
 unknown will be discovered, and will secure expression 
 in enduring form. Truth will be eliminated from error. 
 
 It is now conceded that new species have been intro- 
 duced upon the earth' since the dawn of creation, especi- 
 ally during the long geological periods which preceded 
 man's existence; and when once we have been induced 
 to believe that creation has had a history we are irresis- 
 tibly led to inquire after its method. In what way have 
 new specific forms been produced ? To this question 
 varying answers have been given. 
 
 I. New species have been regarded as immediate 
 creations. This is the view widely adopted by defenders 
 of the Bible. It assumes that each plant and animal 
 was created in a primitive stock, which reproduces its 
 like, thereby perpetuating the species; that species is 
 
24 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 traceable backwards to a local origin and a single pair; 
 that all species vary — some more, some less; that their 
 variations are due, partly to the influence of altered 
 circumstances, and partly to constitutional causes, but 
 are limited in their extent and transitory in their nature, 
 the species remaining substantially as originally created; 
 that the sterility of hybrids imposes an effectual barrier 
 against the destruction of species. 
 
 2. It has been argued that new species are results, 
 more or less remote, of spontaneous generation. As it 
 has not been proved that inorganic matter is capable of 
 originating living organisms, we may be excused for 
 questioning whether the forces of nature, acting either 
 from within or from without, could have generated new 
 specific forms either directly or mediately, especially 
 such forms as are acknowledged to have originated in 
 past geological epochs. 
 
 3. It has been assumed that the introduction of new 
 species is a result of the operations of a powerful, uncon- 
 scious cause pervading all things. This explanation 
 may be left to share the fate of the pantheistic system in 
 which it is embedded. 
 
 4. The successive appearances of new species are now 
 explained, with increasing frequency, by the theory 
 which passes under the name of " Evolution." This 
 theory may be briefly outlined as the realization of new 
 specific organisms which were previously potential, their 
 realization being under such conditions as prove them 
 the legitimate outgrowth of anterior organisms. Start- 
 ing with the assertion that species are mutable, and 
 that consequently each may develop new types, which 
 for some unexplained reason are improved forms — that 
 the horse, for example, may have been developed from 
 the zebra, the dog from the wolf, the rose from the daisy, 
 
EVOLUTION. 25 
 
 the bird from the fish — it culminates in the assumption 
 that man by an almost infinite number of insensible 
 gradations has been evolved from the orang-outang, or 
 from the gorilla, certainly from some species of the 
 monkey-tribe. This simial father of us all, it is assumed, 
 was developed from some lower organism, which in turn 
 owed its origin to a still less complex form, and so back- 
 wards to the germ of organic life, the slight changes, 
 always resulting in improvement, having succeeded each 
 other for millions of years ere man as a gibbering savage 
 was ushered upon the w r orld's stage. Varieties are inci- 
 pient species. Species are varieties of a larger growth 
 and an earlier divergence from the parent form; the 
 difference is one of degree, not of kind. Neither was 
 created; both have descended from an ever varying 
 series of individuals, the one being only a more ex- 
 tended and slightly less plastic aggregate of insensibly 
 fine gradations accumulated during an indefinitely pro- 
 tracted period of time. * 
 
 Herbert Spencer, in his First Principles, defines evolu- 
 tion as an " integration of matter and concomitant dissi- 
 
 * Haeckel, whose theory of evolution is decidedly atheistic, maintains that 
 all living organisms have been evolved through millions of years from one or 
 more very simple ancestral forms which issued by spontaneous generation from 
 inorganic matter. He concedes that organic life had a beginning, and asserts 
 that monera were developed by spontaneous generation at the bottom of the sea. 
 Assertion, however, is not proof; nor is it easy to see how the assertion can be 
 made good by satisfactory evidence. 
 
 Sir William Thomson expresses the belief that organic life was communi- 
 cated to the earth by a germ or germs conveyed in a meteor or meteors from 
 some other planet. A simple hypothesis. 
 
 There are other evolutionists who prefer to believe that God, millions of 
 years ago, called a primordial form, a simple cell, into being, and since that 
 time has had no more to do with the universe than if he did not exist. The 
 " clock being once wound up was left to tell off its fated periods. 
 
 "Neither so do their witness agree." 
 
26 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 pation of motion; during which the matter passes from 
 an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity to a definite, co- 
 herent heterogeneity; and during which the retained 
 motion undergoes a parallel transformation" (p. 396). 
 
 This definition is an evolution out of a protracted 
 series of arguments as presented in several consecutive 
 chapters. In its successive stages, it assumed the fol- 
 lowing forms: — " We shall everywhere mean by evo- 
 lution, the process which is always an integration of 
 matter and a dissipation of motion " (p. 286); "Evolu- 
 tion is definable as a change from an incoherent homo- 
 geneity to a coherent heterogeneity " (p. 360) ; " Evolution 
 is a change from an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity, 
 to a definite, coherent heterogeneity, through continuous 
 differentiations and integrations." This last mentioned 
 form Professor Tait translates as follows: " Evolution is 
 fa change from a n oho wish, untalkaboutable all-alike- 
 ness, to a somehowish and in-general-talkaboutable not- 
 all-alikeness, by continuous somethingelseifications and 
 sticktogetherations." 
 
 Even Spencer's most elaborate definition finds itself the 
 victim of the evolutional process, for on page 430, after 
 supposing we had grasped the whole truth, we are startled 
 by the announcement, "The continued changes which 
 characterize evolution, in so far as they are constituted 
 by the lapse of the less heterogeneous into the more 
 heterogeneous, are necessary consequences of the per- 
 sistence of force." Alas, the definition is not through its 
 transformations and improvements; on page 458 we read, 
 " A part-cause of evolution is the multiplication of 
 effects; and this increases in geometrical progression as 
 the heterogeneity becomes greater." Are the flukes of 
 our anchor now fast in the crevices of unchangeable 
 truth ? No; " Evolution can end only in the establish- 
 
EVOLUTION. 27 
 
 ment of the greatest perfection and the most complete 
 happiness " (p. 517). " And thus there is suggested the 
 conception of a past during which there have been suc- 
 cessive evolutions analogous to that which is now going 
 on; and a future during which successive other such 
 evolutions may go on — ever the same in principle but 
 never the same in concrete form" (p. 537). " The one 
 [spirit] no less than the other [matter] is to be regarded 
 as but a sign of the Unknown Reality which underlies 
 both." 
 
 Darwin, who may claim the honor of occupying a 
 foremost rank among evolutionists, holds the generally 
 accepted view of the descent of all the individuals of a 
 species from a single birth-place and from one ancestral 
 form, each species having subsequently established itself 
 as widely as possible. He denies that species are an 
 independent creation, and persists in regarding them as 
 only varieties of a very early date; genera he looks 
 upon as ancient species. The inherent predisposition 
 in plants and animals to vary has sufficed, in conjunc- 
 tion with the causes originating in the intense struggle 
 for existence, to modify all species and to produce the 
 present diversity. All living organisms, he thinks, have 
 been evolved from four or five primordial forms. " I 
 believe," he says, "that all animals have descended 
 from at most only four or five progenitors, and plants 
 from an equal number." Again: "Possibly all the orig- 
 inal beings which have ever lived on the earth are de- 
 scended from some one primordial form into which life 
 was first breathed." He does not regard variability as a 
 necessary contingency of organic beings under all circum- 
 stances; he maintains that there are no species which 
 refuse to vary provided they are placed under conditions 
 favorable to the production of variations, and he affirms 
 
28 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 that when once a species has begun to vary, its varieties 
 are more and more subject to variation. He asks, "How 
 could a savage possibly know, when he first trained an 
 animal, whether it would vary in succeeding genera- 
 tions?" Hence he infers that the animals which sav- 
 ages originally chose for domestication had no extraor- 
 dinary inherent tendency to vary; varieties, he affirms, 
 often vary more under domestication than distinct 
 species in a wild state. 
 
 It may as well be frankly acknowledged that many 
 and serious difficulties environ any hypothesis which 
 we may choose to adopt. If we say that each new 
 species, as it originated in some period subsequent to 
 the dawn of life upon the earth, was an immediate 
 creation of God, we seem to array ourselves against 
 the Mosaic account; we certainly bring ourselves into 
 conflict with the usually accepted interpretation. If 
 we say that species, as they have successively appeared 
 in geological eras, may have originated in spontaneous 
 generation, we not only impose upon ourselves the task 
 of proving that life can originate and actually has origi- 
 nated in certain combinations of inorganic matter, but 
 we take a long stride towards materialism. If we say, 
 new species have been evolved from pre-existing species, 
 without the superintendence of an intelligent agent and 
 without having been previously latent in parental forms, 
 we accept evolution. If we say they are the natural 
 unfoldings of forces originally communicated to the sev- 
 eral species which were called into being by a direct fiat 
 of the Divine Will, we accept a species of evolution and 
 expose ourselves to renewed attacks from those who 
 persist in affirming that if new species may originate 
 in this manner, we ought not to assume that God did 
 more origmally than create one germ of life capable of 
 
EVOLUTION. 29 
 
 evolving all vegetable and animal organisms; indeed, 
 that we ought to concede this. He may have imparted 
 to oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, and carbon, when sub- 
 jected to the influence of electricity, the power of origi- 
 nating protoplasm, or the physical basis of life. 
 
 We cannot insist too strongly that the question 
 under discussion is not what is a possible or conceivable 
 or probable way in which species originated, but what 
 is the particular mode in which they actually originated. 
 It is perhaps possible that the struggle for existence, 
 which some evolutionists imagine they have forced upon 
 the christian church, may yet evolve a second Bishop 
 Butler; if this should 'prove to be the case much of the 
 a priori reasoning- of modern scientists would become, 
 in his intellectual grasp, mere hay, wood, and stubble, 
 in the burning of which new light would be thrown on 
 Final Causes. The questions connected with the origin 
 of new species, if ever settled, must be settled by in- 
 duction, not by a priori arguments. 
 
 This new theory, now so vigorously advocated by an 
 increasing number of those who are making the origin 
 of species a special study, can scarcely be considered 
 a recent evolution from man's fertile brain. It was 
 first propounded, though in crude form, by Aristotle 
 in his Generation and Development of Animals. In 1759 
 Casper Friedrich Wolff, a careful observer and an acute 
 reasoner, presented to the world his Theoria Genera- 
 tions. The publication of this work in reality marks 
 the birth of the theory of evolution. It made very few 
 converts, however, during the life-time of its author, 
 who received liberal installments of embittered prejudice 
 and no small amount of ridicule. The work, however, 
 produced results fifty years later. In 1809 Juan Lamarck 
 presented the same views, in his Philosophic Zoolo- 
 
30 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 giqnc, in more captivating form, though his reasoning 
 was less cogent and his array of facts more wearisome. 
 He attempted to point out the steps by which nature in 
 former times proceeded in her development of one class 
 of beings from another, endeavoring to establish a grad- 
 uated scale with the lowest organisms at one end and 
 the human species at the other. He even essayed to 
 prove that man's intellectual, moral, and religious faculties 
 were the same in kind as those possessed by the brute 
 creation— simply improvements. Fifty years later the 
 world was presented with Darwinism, the popularity of 
 which is in singular contrast with the reception given to 
 the development hypothesis in preceding ages, and is, 
 in the judgment of some, one of the marvels of this cen- 
 tury. It is difficult to explain its rapid progress unless 
 we concede that scientific studies were tending in this 
 direction. The interesting style in which it is presented 
 and the apparent fairness in the methods of reasoning 
 have been efficient agencies, it is believed, in bringing 
 about such extended results in a comparatively brief 
 period of time. 
 
 Whilst evolutionists agree in asserting that new spe- 
 cies have been evolved from pre-existing organisms, 
 there is nevertheless great diversity of opinion as to the 
 agency by which these changes have been effected. The 
 following have been assigned: — 
 
 i. New specific forms have been regarded as the re- 
 sults of a " fortuitous concurrence of circumstances." This 
 is only a wordy method of confessing an inability to ex- 
 plain the phenomena, and reminds one of the old dialec- 
 ticians, who attempted to answer the question, "Has 
 the ideal exemplar of species an existence independent 
 of the individuals which constitute the species." 
 
 2. St. George Mivart believes that species possess an ' 
 
EVOLUTION. 31 
 
 inherent power of producing new species. This solution, 
 though entirely consistent with a theistic view of evolu- 
 tion, is environed with difficulties. To say that in ad- 
 dition to the power which maintains species for such an 
 indefinitely lengthy period of time there is also an innate 
 energy capable of destroying the marks and breaking 
 down the limits of species is a solution which many nat- 
 uralists refuse to consider satisfactory. 
 
 3. We have the theory of Mr. Charles Darwin that the 
 transmutation of species is gradually but surely effected 
 by " natural selection," " the survival of the fittest," " the 
 struggle for existence." This hypothesis, though em- 
 bodying much and explaining not a few of the facts, is not 
 viewed, even by a majority of evolutionists, as an adequate 
 explanation — indeed, not a few careful students of Dar- 
 win deny that he assigns any efficiency to " natural se- 
 lection " in the origination of new species, affirming that 
 he merely regards it as the mode in which unknown 
 causes operate in the production of the results. If 
 he designs it as an agency, St. George Mivart's work 
 furnishes theologians with an unanswerable argument 
 against this particular form of evolution. 
 
 So far at least as regards the agencies by which evo- 
 lution has been effected, the defenders of the Mosaic 
 account of creation can scarcely be called upon to as- 
 sume the defensive till their opponents have agreed, 
 with at least reasonable unanimity, upon some hypothesis 
 that will bear the test of a rigid scientific investigation. 
 That no such hypothesis has been presented is conceded 
 in the fact that so many are engaged in demolishing 
 others' theories in order to clear the ground for the 
 establishment of their own. 
 
 Those who have attempted a refutation of evolu- 
 tion have also undertaken to assign causes adequate 
 
32 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 to produce the changes which are known to have 
 occurred. 
 
 1. It has been maintained that new species are results 
 of some constitutional affection of parental forms. This 
 explanation was pressed with great vigor in the earlier 
 discussions upon this subject. It is now abandoned, it 
 being conceded that sensitive as the reproductive sys- 
 tem is, and many as are the diseases of parent organ- 
 isms, such causes are inadequate to the production of 
 new species. 
 
 2. Others, when the subject was less thoroughly under- 
 stood than it is at present, were disposed to consider 
 the changes as mere freaks of nature, such as produced 
 the porcupine-man and his descendants. This unscientific 
 explanation has had its day and is no longer worthy 
 of mention except as a specimen of the subterfuges to 
 which even profound reasoners will sometimes resort.* 
 
 3. It has been said, the changes result from the ac- 
 tion of climate upon constitutional tendencies. It is 
 admitted that varying degrees of heat and altered modes 
 
 * Francis Turretin, a distinguished Protestant Professor of Theology, whose 
 writings have sustained an enviable reputation even to the present day, asks, 
 " Do the sun and the moon move in the heavens round the earth, while the earth 
 remains at rest ? " He answers, " Yes, in opposition to certain philosophers. 
 First, The sun is said in Scriptures to move in the heavens, and to rise and set. 
 Second, The sun by a miracle stood still in the time of Joshua; and by a 
 miracle it went back in the time of Ilezekiah. Third, The earth is said to bt 
 fixed immovably. Fourth, Neither could birds, which often fly off through an 
 hour's circuit, be able to return to their nests; for in the meantime the earth 
 would have moved four hundred and fifty miles. Fifth, Whatever flies or is 
 suspended in the air ought, by this theory, to move from west to east; but this 
 is proved not to be true from arrows shot forth, atoms made manifest in the sun. 
 and down floating in the atmosphere." 
 
 The same author presents a series of labored arguments to prove that man 
 must have been created in the autumn— if not, he would have starved to death 
 ere he could have raised a crop, or found it prepared to his hand by bounteous 
 nature. 
 
EVOLUTION. 33 
 
 of life may produce new varieties — can it also produce 
 new species? Sufficient evidence to prove this has not 
 been presented.* 
 
 It is not claimed, however, that the doctrine of evolu- 
 tion is refuted by showing that its advocates are unable 
 to agree in reference to the agencies by which new spe- 
 cies are developed from antecedent organisms. It is con- 
 ceivable that they should succeed in establishing a law of 
 evolution without being able to specify the causes which 
 produce the ever changing series of effects; indeed, to 
 regard the theory as absurd, especially in its more mod- 
 est pretensions, is to acknowledge ignorance of the facts, 
 or to confess oneself under the influence of strong pre- 
 judice; on the other hand, to view the theory as fully es- 
 tablished, even to the furthest limits to which it has been 
 pushed, is to proclaim oneself satisfied with evidence that 
 is less than sufficient to enforce conviction. It seems the 
 dictate of prudence to concede that at present it is diffi- 
 cult, practically impossible, to fix the limits of species; 
 more difficult still to fix those of genera; simple folly to 
 attempt to determine those of tribes and families. We may 
 console ourselves, however, with the fact that a system 
 of faith which outlived the scientific dictum of the fixity 
 of the earth can easily display vitality sufficient, if neces- 
 
 * In Corsica, horses, dogs, and other animals become beautifully spotted. It 
 is also said that sheep when taken to the West Indies lose their wool and become 
 covered with hair: in Guinea, they undergo such changes as to bear little re- 
 semblance, except in bleat, to those in Europe, the wool giving place to black 
 or brown hair. Dogs taken to the mountains of India are said to become cov- 
 ered with wool. In Bceotia the herds are generally yellow, in the Roman 
 Campagna uniformly gray, in other parts of Italy commonly red. The camel's 
 hump, as that of the Indian cow, is supposed to have arisen from a fatty de- 
 posit in consequence of exposure to heat, being a deviation, it is asserted, from 
 the original type. European dogs, taken to foreign countries, have been known 
 to degenerate greatly, the ears becoming long and stiff, the bark turning into a 
 hideous howl. 
 
34 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 sary, to survive even after the doctrine of the immutability 
 of species has been reverently laid away in the roomy 
 receptacle of perished beliefs. We shall only be forced to 
 acknowledge that the permanence of species is a doctrine 
 which is in no sense needed for the defence of Scripture. 
 Whilst it would be presumptuous to pronounce the 
 theory baseless, it would be no less so to affirm that it 
 satisfactorily explains all the phenomena; it would in fact 
 be to array oneself against able reasoners who oppose it, 
 not on theological grounds, but on scientific. Professor 
 Agassiz says, " I wish to enter my earnest protest against 
 the transmutation theory." Even Darwin concedes, with 
 a frankness characteristic of his writings, " The transi- 
 tional forms, joining living and extinct species, not being 
 found — the sudden manner in which several groups of 
 species first appear in European formations — the almost 
 entire absence, as at present known, of formations rich in 
 fossils beneath the Cambrian strata — are undoubtedly 
 difficulties of the most serious nature. We see this in 
 the fact that the most eminent palaeontologists, namely, 
 Cuvier, Agassiz, Barrande, Pictet, Falconer, E. Forbes, 
 etc., and all our greatest geologists, as Lyell, Murchison, 
 Sedgwick, etc., have unanimously, often vehemently, main- 
 tained the immutability of species." Again: "Authors of 
 the highest eminence seem to be fully satisfied with the 
 view that each species has been independently created."* 
 
 * Haeckel, who in the preface of his work entitled, The Evolution of Alan, 
 e xpr esses great contempt for so-called revelations and for " the black mischiev- 
 ous host [the defenders of Scripture] against whom modern society has at last 
 taken up the struggle for culture," sees fit to indulge in the following empty- 
 boast:— " When in 1873, the grave closed over 1 the last great 
 upholder of the constancy of species and of miraculous creation, the dogma of 
 the constancy of species came to an end, and the contrary assumption— the 
 assertion that all the various species descended from common ancestral forms— 
 now no longer encounters serious difficulty." 
 
EVOLUTION. 35 
 
 At present, however, it is perhaps safest to concede 
 that the permanent and complete immutability of species 
 has not been proved: neither has mutability been proved. 
 
 In respect to this question, as to many others, it is 
 wise to permit the mind to remain in suspense. It is 
 easy to err. Leibnitz pronounced Newton's theory of 
 gravitation subversive of natural religion. Until a com- 
 paratively recent date two hypotheses in reference to the 
 nature of light claimed the suffrages of the learned. The 
 emission theory, though for a long time vigorously de- 
 fended by a majority of naturalists, has given place to the 
 undulatory. A small minority of reasoners won the vic- 
 tory. The adoption of the wave theory of light soon led 
 to the hypothesis of the correlation and transmutability 
 of light, heat, electricity, and magnetism. This hypoth- 
 esis, after running the gauntlet of an incessant fire is 
 now generally adopted. The nebular hypothesis, though 
 strong objections have been urged against it, many of 
 which are as yet unanswered, is now accepted as harmon- 
 izing accepted facts into a probable and consistent whole. 
 
 Christianity, notwithstanding the accumulation of co- 
 gent arguments and in face of the affirmation boastingly 
 made, "The Bible is refuted," can well afford to wait till 
 its opponents have become reasonably well united upon 
 an accurately defined position. Till this measure of una- 
 nimity is secured, we are not called upon to decide 
 whether we will surrender the Mosaic account, adopt a 
 new interpretation thereof, or undertake a refutation of 
 the theory. Why should we waste our energies upon an 
 imaginary foe whilst the mailed warriors of sin are con- 
 fronting us ? 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 IS IT ATHEISM? 
 
 SINCE then the term evolution is restricted in meaning 
 to the production of new forms of matter, or new living 
 organisms, the question arises, Is evolution necessarily 
 atheistic ? The theist is not called upon to prove that 
 it may not assume an atheistic form; nor to deny that in 
 the hands of some of its advocates it is decidedly hostile 
 to the teachings of Scripture. He is merely called upon 
 to decide whether evolution proper, aside from its unne- 
 cessary concomitants, is essentially atheistic; whether 
 there is such an array of well-established facts, as to 
 preclude the possibility of belief in some theistic form of 
 the theory. May he not accept evolution while still 
 retaining confidence in God's Word ? May he not 
 announce himself an evolutionist without conceding that 
 man has been evolved from a moneron ? If he so elects, 
 is he not at liberty to maintain that evolution is a pos- 
 sible explanation of a large class of phenomena, while 
 he still maintains that it cannot account for man's 
 origin, for the origination of plant-life, for the genesis 
 of animal organisms, for the origin of matter ? 
 
 While conceding that evolution may be an adequate 
 cause for the production of new organisms from pre- 
 existing forms, may he not discover a solution of many 
 questions to which teleology has as yet rendered no 
 satisfactory solution ? Indeed, is it not possible that 
 
IS IT ATHEISM? 37 
 
 he will find evolution an efficient instrumentality in 
 strengthening the foundations of Revealed Religion ? 
 We confidently believe he may. This, Henry Drum- 
 mond, in his Natural Law in the Spiritual World, has 
 made apparent. 
 
 Most of our readers, probably, are prepared to believe 
 that the objections to the theory in question are scientific 
 rather than theological. They are disposed, no doubt, 
 to concur in judgment with the Duke of Argyll, and to 
 reiterate his affirmation, " It [the development hy- 
 pothesis] is not in itself inconsistent with the theistic 
 argument, or with belief in the ultimate agency and 
 directing power of a creative mind. This is clear, since 
 we never think of any difficulty in reconciling that belief 
 with our knowledge of the ordinary laws of animal and 
 vegetable reproduction." If it could be proved that new 
 species, as well as individuals, are produced by being 
 born, it does not diminish, but rather increase the neces- 
 sity of admitting the existence of an Infinite Intelligence 
 as the cause of all we witness in nature. 
 
 The word "create" is susceptible of three significa- 
 tions. I. It may mean to bring into being by the simple 
 exercise of power, without pre-existing material and with- 
 out process — absolute creation. In this sense none but 
 God can create. Did He originate the earth as it now is 
 from nothingness, or did He simply create the materials 
 and the forces which produced it ? Did He, from non- 
 entity, call into being the different species of plants and 
 animals, or did He make preparation for their production 
 by creating one or more primordial forms capable of 
 evolving all living organisms ? Did He simply create an 
 atom of matter capable of evolving a universe ? If scien- 
 tists should succeed in proving that the universe, with its 
 millions of living beings, has been developed from a 
 
3S THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 single atom, they will not have laid an immovable foun- 
 dation for atheism until they have proved that that atom 
 needed no Creator. 2. It may mean to bring into being, 
 through the agency of secondary causes and under estab- 
 lished laws, that which did not previously exist — deriva- 
 tive creation. Were the different species of plants and 
 animals evolved, independent of a direct and immediate 
 divine agency, or is evolution simply the mode of Divine 
 operation ? 3. It may mean to fashion. Did successive 
 species arise in the absolute creation of new germs of life, 
 or did Divine energy simply invest pre-existing forces of 
 life with new forms ? 
 
 These commands — "Let the earth bring forth grass, 
 the herb yielding seed, and the fruit-tree yielding fruit 
 after his kind, whose seed is in itself," " Let the earth 
 bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and 
 creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind" — 
 are apparently an emphatic assertion that God created 
 all the living beings that have peopled the earth. To 
 say the least the interpretation which assumes that God 
 imparted to organisms the potentiality to evolve new 
 forms is as natural as the assumption that the pas- 
 sages were meant to teach that no species has arisen, 
 or can arise, except by the absolute exercise of Divine 
 sovereignty. 
 
 If then it shall hereafter be proved that instead of 
 creating species God merely created, as Darwin thinks, 
 at most not more than three or four cells susceptible to 
 the influence of light, heat, and electricity, and capable of 
 producing all the species of plants and animals that exist 
 or have existed, it certainly does not follow that the 
 foundations of belief in the being of God are destroyed. 
 Professor Huxley says: "It is necessary to remark that 
 there is a wider teleology, which is not touched by the 
 
IS IT ATHEISM? 39 
 
 doctrine of evolution, but is actually based upon the 
 fundamental proposition of evolution." 
 
 Apparently, one chief reason why the theory in ques- 
 tion has been considered atheistical is because most of 
 its advocates, like Darwin, have persisted in attributing 
 the power of originating new species to some supernat- 
 ural and self-existent energy resident in pre-existing spe- 
 cies. They have seemed resolutely determined to account 
 for every modification without assuming the existence 
 of any power out of or above nature, either during the 
 transformation or at the origin of the parent forms. 
 
 Whilst some are endeavoring to destroy belief in the 
 Mosaic account, and to subvert, if possible, the founda- 
 tions of a theistic conception of the universe, others are 
 laboring, with commendable assiduity, in accumulating 
 arguments fitted to prove that there is nothing in evolu- 
 tion which conflicts with Scripture and no statement in 
 the revealed account of creation which militates against 
 the theory of development. Mivart says, " Naturalists 
 generally assume that God acts in and by the various 
 laws of nature." And this is equivalent to acknowledg- 
 ing the doctrine of " derivative creation." With very few 
 exceptions, none deny such Divine concurrence. The 
 Duke of Argyll says in his Reign of Law, " There is 
 nothing in religion incompatible with the belief that all 
 exercises of God's power, whether ordinary or extraordin- 
 ary, are effected through the instrumentality of means — 
 that is, by the instrumentality of natural laws brought 
 out, as it were, and used for a Divine purpose." Pro- 
 fessor Huxley affirms, " The more purely a mechanist the 
 speculator is, the more firmly does he assume a primor- 
 dial molecular arrangement, of which all the phenomena 
 of the universe are the consequences; and the more com- 
 pletely thereby is he at the mercy of the teleologist 
 
40 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 who can always defy him to prove that this primordial 
 molecular arrangement was not intended to evolve the 
 phenomena of the universe." Owen says, " Organisms 
 may be evolved in orderly succession, stage after stage, 
 towards a foreseen goal, and the broad features of the 
 course may still show the unmistakable impress of 
 Divine volition." 
 
 Evidently, progressive development is not neces- 
 sarily hostile to theism, nor to any statement contained 
 in Scripture. The volume of nature, we may be sure, 
 contains no record inconsistent with a revelation direct 
 from the Author of nature. There may be some slight 
 degree of inappropriateness in applying the term "crea- 
 tion " to those organisms which were only potentially 
 called into being, but is there less inappropriateness in 
 employing the term " evolution " unless we concede that 
 what was evolved must have been originally resident in 
 primordial forms ? If, on the other hand, it is affirmed 
 that the power of originating new species was not im- 
 parted to parent germs, then, evidently, the term "cre- 
 ation," as applied to this gradual, ill-defined and causeless 
 process, is as accurate as the term " evolution ": nay, more 
 so, for it does not leave the mind groping for a cause 
 adequate to the production of such mysterious effects. 
 
 To prove the possible or actual descent of species from 
 pre-existing forms by insensibly fine gradations during 
 protracted periods of time is one thing; to disprove 
 theism is another. " The discoveries of science," says 
 Laplace, "throw final causes further back": who can 
 legitimately affirm that they lead logically to atheism ? 
 Do they destroy the argument for the being of God 
 founded upon the evidence of design in the works of 
 nature ? Do they even weaken the reasoning ? Cer- 
 tainly this has not been proved. 
 
IS IT ATHEISM? 41 
 
 Of an efficient cause there are three views which 
 are at once philosophical and theistic. I. The action 
 of the First Cause may be immediate, direct, constant, 
 and though diversified, uniformly according to certain 
 laws. 2. Forces previously communicated may be 
 occasionally arrested and direct action engrafted upon 
 the system, new forces being imparted and unforeseen 
 results produced. 3. Matter at its creation may be en- 
 dowed with forces which produce all the phenomena 
 as the successive centuries roll by. Until we are 
 forced to surrender each of these citadels we need not 
 capitulate. 
 
 The new theories have not ''evolved" a new issue 
 between the atheist and the theist. The issue still is, 
 as it always has been, whether organic nature is the 
 result of design or of chance. Does the adoption of 
 " evolution " affect the doctrine of final causes ? Is 
 Darwinism incompatible with the idea of design in the 
 universe ? Its author rejects spontaneous generation. 
 His hypothesis has to do, not with the cause of the 
 phenomena, but with the mode of their manifestation, 
 thus leaving the question of design untouched. Are we 
 to conclude that the diversification of organic forms, 
 consequent upon the struggle for existence or upon other 
 secondary causes, excludes the possibility of design ? 
 Certainly not. Unless an evolutionist affirms that the 
 causes to which he refers changes are self-sufficient, he is 
 not open to the charge of atheism. For him to make 
 any such affirmation would be imprudent, not merely 
 because the statement may be incapable of proof, but 
 because a theistic view will in measure save him from the 
 necessity of accounting for the absence of intermediate 
 forms: for if the transformations occur accompanied by- 
 design there will of course be no purposeless transitional 
 
42 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 varieties; no senseless productions of fortuity, born but 
 to suffer, and existing but to perish. 
 
 To concede, as has sometimes been done, that the 
 doctrine of evolution destroys the foundations of the 
 teleological argument for the being of God, leaves 
 no alternative but an unqualified denial of the the- 
 ory, and a denunciation of it as unscriptural and athe- 
 istic. To brand scientists as "infidels," "unbelievers," 
 "materialists," "atheists," is as prejudicial to religion 
 as it is to science. There is no argument in opprobrious 
 epithets. 
 
 The wisdom of squarely arraying ourselves against 
 such a body of men is questionable, especially when our 
 own ranks are divided and the disaffected are increasing 
 in number. It is prudent not to assume a hostile atti- 
 tude when in the judgment of able defenders of Scriptural 
 truth it is as probable that all extinct and all living 
 beings have been developed by natural laws of genera- 
 tion from pre-existing forms as that each species owes its 
 existence to a single creative fiat. Is it not wiser to 
 examine whether it is possible to save the argument 
 from design, leaving our opponent to expend his ener- 
 gies in amassing materials which may be of service to us 
 when we shall have driven him routed from the field ? 
 If the theory of evolution is fatal to teleology the cuius 
 probandi rests upon the evolutionists. They may find it 
 a burden too heavy to bear; weightier than the estab- 
 lishment of their theory upon a scientific basis. 
 
 If evolution is true, not all is lost; nay, perhaps some- 
 thing is gained. Is the assumption that there is a ma- 
 terial connection between the members of a series of organ- 
 ized beings inconsistent with the idea that this connection 
 is the result of a force imparted at creation ? Is there 
 any greater difficulty in concluding that the theory in 
 
IS IT ATHEISM? 43 
 
 question is as compatible with a theistic view of the uni- 
 verse as is the theory of gravitation, or the nebular hy- 
 pothesis ? Are those scientists to be pronounced athe- 
 ists who prove that heat, light, electricity, magnetism, and 
 even mechanical power are transformations of one and 
 the same force ? This, which many reasoners concede 
 has been established, and which is regarded as one of the 
 greatest triumphs of science, is not looked upon as athe- 
 istical. Why then regard " evolution " as atheism ? If 
 animals and plants have been endowed with the power of 
 evolving new species after the lapse of centuries, the ar- 
 gument from design is not weaker than when it did noble 
 service in the hands ofPaley; for it cannot be proved that 
 this complicated series of events results independent of a 
 continued divine agency. When it shall be shown that 
 the eye, with its marvels of ingenious mechanism, has 
 been constructed under the operation of natural selection, 
 the struggle for life, continued variation, or the survival 
 of the fittest, s )me future Paley will find no great diffi- 
 culty in proving that the Creator has left upon His handi- 
 work innumerable traces of intelligent design. Suppose 
 two organisms, A and Z, possess evidence of design, will 
 the subsequent discovery that there are intermediate or- 
 ganisms for every letter of the alphabet, each owing its 
 existence to an immediate ancestor, weaken the evidence 
 of design ? If the eye may be developed from a sensitive 
 nerve — the process of formation requiring ages ere it 
 reaches completion — who is logician sufficient to prove 
 that it was neither a part of the original purpose, nor 
 the result of a co-operating Divine Intelligence ? If the 
 hand may be evolved from a rudimentary hoof, through 
 numberless living beings, each succeeding organism pre- 
 senting evidence of slight improvement towards the 
 consummation, who has a legitimate foundation for the 
 
44 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 assertion that this state of things cannot co-exist with 
 design ? If the Creator imparted this power to the 
 original organism, or if this is the mode of construc- 
 tion which in His perfect wisdom He chooses to adopt, 
 who will presume to assert that evidences of design 
 are obliterated ? 
 
 It is true that Darwinism by its apparent substitution 
 of Natural Selection for design seems to have taken a step 
 towards atheism; for if intelligence is unnecessary after 
 certain primordial forms are in existence, we are prompted 
 to ask, Why is it necessary to the origination of these 
 infinitesimal germs ? Some bold speculator may prove, 
 as Haeckel thinks he has, that these were evolved by nat- 
 ural laws from inorganic matter; a still bolder speculator 
 may affirm that inorganic matter is eternal and self-exis- 
 ent. That, however, which passes under the name of 
 Darwinism is not evolution, strictly speaking; but a mode 
 of evolution; and if we shall be forced ultimately to con- 
 cede that Natural Selection is the cause of variation, and 
 not simply the mode, will it be possible to resist the con- 
 viction that there must have been design in its employ- 
 ment ? Besides, if it can be proved that an original germ 
 of life was evolved from matter, we are not compelled to 
 adopt the revolting atheism of Haeckel. The efficient 
 cause is simply removed to a greater distance — run further 
 up the almost infinite chain. 
 
 To prove that all the changes which have character- 
 ized the animal and vegetable kingdoms have occurred 
 without the intervention or directing agency of an Intel- 
 ligent Cause will be difficult; and when this is accom- 
 plished, the argument from design will be in no degree 
 weakened. On the other hand, if these variations are of 
 the nature of origination and occur under the guidance 
 of Divine Omniscience, secondary causes being employed 
 
IS IT ATHEISM? 45 
 
 to produce them, there is an increase of strength imparted 
 to the teleological argument. Consequently we are at 
 liberty to assert that if Darwinism should become an es- 
 tablished theory, if evolution in its widest sense should 
 win for itself an impregnable position in science, there is 
 no just cause for fear. Unlike Othello, the theologian's 
 occupation will not be gone. He is a personage whom 
 the human family could not spare, even if scientists should 
 succeed in forcing him to acknowledge a nearer rela- 
 tionship to the simial family than his inherited notions 
 permit him at present to fancy. 
 
 Pictet says, " Darwin's theory accords very well with 
 the facts of comparative anatomy and zoology — comes in 
 admirably to explain unity of composition of organisms, 
 also to explain rudimentary and representative organs, 
 and the natural series of genera and species — equally cor- 
 responds with many palaeontological data — agrees well 
 with the specific resemblances which exist between two 
 successive fauna, with the parallelism which is some- 
 times observed between the series of palaeontological suc- 
 cession and embryonal development." 
 
 Perhaps the theologians of the future may discover that 
 evolution accords singularly well with classes of facts 
 previously inexplicable. It may possibly be viewed as 
 harmonizing purpose and the adaptation of means to the 
 proposed end, as explaining the unity of type which pre- 
 vails under similar conditions of life, as the complement 
 of the geological theory which maintains that there is no 
 absolute break from the present era back to the azoic, as 
 furnishing a satisfactory explanation of the gradual and 
 steady progression within each class and order, as accoun- 
 ting for the unexplained fact that the species of the ter- 
 tiary period are found occupying the same regions as their 
 descendants now occupy, as encouraging the assertion 
 
46 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 that there is evident design in the existence of rudimen- 
 tary organs, as affording a solution of the singular fact 
 that there is a natural series of tribes, families, genera, 
 species, varieties. Perhaps it may aid also in explaining 
 the fact that propagation by budding or offshoots ex- 
 tends through the lower order of animals as well as plants, 
 that between partheogenesis and sexual reproduction 
 there is a curious and intimate series of gradations, that 
 individuality is not attained by a single leap, that sut- 
 ures which in the skulls of mammals are supposed to have 
 been designed to aid parturition should exist also in birds 
 and reptiles where their presence is certainly no aid to 
 birth, that individuals and even entire races should exist 
 under conditions which evidently might be modified to 
 advantage. 
 
 It may be said, however, in refutation of the reasoning 
 that evolution, if established, would strengthen the argu- 
 ment from design, that of the millions of possible variations 
 only a few are selected which are improvements from a 
 vast number which are not improvements, but perhaps de- 
 generations. To this it may be replied — of the millions 
 of rain-drops that leave the ocean only a few reach their 
 intended destination. Is there no design ? Of the pol- 
 len that is formed each year, for the purpose of perfect- 
 ing seeds in plants, only a small part attains the end of 
 its creation. We do not hence conclude that its exist- 
 ence is purposeless. Myriads of fish-ova float in the 
 water — only a few, comparatively, become fish. Each 
 peach is the representative of perhaps thousands of blos- 
 soms which came to nought. The waste of nature is 
 enormous — seeds, eggs, germs, infant life. The organisms 
 which perish ere they commence individual development 
 vastly outnumber those which leave successors. De- 
 struction is the rule: life the exception. Not one prob- 
 
IS IT ATHEISM? 47 
 
 ably in ten million comes to perfection. Was the design 
 destruction, or was there no design ? Must disteleology 
 be allowed to take the place of teleology ? The light of 
 the sun is diffused in all directions — only a small portion 
 strikes the planets. Is purposelessness written on the 
 leaves of nature's great book ? Why this immense 
 waste everywhere ? Our present teleology can give no 
 answer. The teleology which will be possible, if evo- 
 lution becomes an established theory, shall be able to 
 answer, — Unless there were competing multitudes there 
 could be no struggle for existence; if there were no 
 struggle for existence, there could be no natural selec- 
 tion; if there were no natural selection, there could be 
 no such thing as the survival of the fittest; if there were 
 no survival of the fittest, there could be no improvement 
 in species, no new varieties resulting from adaptation 
 to changed circumstances. 
 
 The new teleology may prove more successful than 
 the old. The theistic view of nature may have a more 
 secure foundation than it now has. Design under exist- 
 ing theories leaves more unexplained than it explains 
 — failures of provision, waste of resources, abortive or- 
 gans, the perfection of certain organs in some species 
 whilst only partially developed in some and functionless 
 in others, the presence of hair on the human body (hair, 
 in unclothed animals, was a necessary covering), the 
 existence of members having at present no physiolog- 
 ical significance — as the membranes, muscles, and car- 
 tilages in and about the human ear (of use in animals 
 which move the ears freely), the crescent-shaped fold at 
 the corner of the eye (corresponding to the nictitating 
 membrane in sharks, and to the third eyelid in birds 
 and some ruminant animals), the free projecting tail of 
 the human embryo at a certain stage in its develop- 
 
48 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 merit,* unused muscles beneath the skin (corresponding 
 to those by which animals wrinkle the skin to remove 
 flies), useless ducts in the vascular system (active blood- 
 vessels in some animals), organs in one sex which are 
 only rudimentary in the other, as seed-ducts in females, 
 ova-ducts, uterus, mammae and mammillary glands in 
 males. If it shall ever be proved that man is descended 
 from apes, we shall possess the means of explaining 
 these and similar facts. At present they are an enigma. 
 Though a theistic view of evolution is possible, we are 
 certainly far from affirming that no evolutionists present 
 it as a theory which is decidedly atheistical. They cer- 
 tainly do. Haeckel, after conducting the reader through 
 a lengthy discussion — fn which the words ontogenesis, 
 ontogeny, phylogenesis, phylogeny, anthropogenesis, an- 
 thropogeny, palingenesis, kenogenesis, etc.,t become 
 inexplicably commingled with insults hurled at those 
 who accept time-honored beliefs — expects the bewildered 
 reader to accept atheism and disteleology. He seems to 
 think that he has forced even reluctance to accept his 
 assertions: " The descent of man from the lower animals 
 
 * " The history of the germ," says Haeckel, " is an epitome of the history 
 of descent: the series of forms through which the individual organism passes 
 during its progress from the egg-cell to its fully developed state, is a brief com- 
 pressed reproduction of the long series of forms through which the animal 
 ancestors of that organism have passed from the earliest periods of so-called 
 organic creation down to the present time." — Natural History of Creation, p. 6. 
 
 f Ontogenesis, the origin of living organisms. 
 
 Ontogeny, germ-history, an account of the changes undergone by germs 
 prior to their entrance upon individual existence, including a history of the 
 human egg. 
 
 Phylogenesis, the origin of tribal germs — species. 
 
 Phylogeny, tribal history, a history of the transmission of germ-forms from 
 an indefinitely remote past 
 
 Anthropogenesis, the origin of man— an ape ancestry. 
 
 Anthropogeny, a history of man's descent from a simple cell, through mo 
 nera, worms, etc.— twenty-one links— to that degree of development to which 
 
IS IT ATHEISM? 49 
 
 is a special deductive law, necessarily following from the 
 general deductive law of the entire doctrine of descent:" 
 "These sure proofs [of man's descent from apes] have 
 been for some time available to all who would open their 
 eyes to see them:" " Many millions of years must indeed 
 have elapsed while the most perfect vertebrate organism, 
 man, gradually developed from the primeval one-celled 
 ancestral organism. The opponents of the development 
 theory, who regard this gradual development of man 
 from lower animal forms, and his original descent from a 
 one-celled primitive animal as incredible, do not reflect 
 that the very same marvel actually occurs before our eyes 
 in the short space of nine months during the embry- 
 onic development of each human individual. — The same 
 series of multivariously diverse forms, through which our 
 brute ancestors passed in the course of many millions 
 of years, has been traversed by every man during the first 
 forty weeks of his individual existence within the mater- 
 nal body:" " The human body includes no single organ 
 which is not inherited from apes, but we can trace the 
 origin down to lower ancestral grades:" " The human 
 mind has been developed with and as the function of 
 the medullary tube:" "AM phenomena are produced by 
 mechanical causes, not by prearranged, purposive causes:" 
 
 phylogeny, the mechanical cause of ontogeny, has evolved him, as is indicated 
 by ontogeny, which is but a recapitulation of -phylogeny. 
 
 Palingenesis, reproduction of forms, inherited evolution. 
 
 Kenogenesis, a vitiation of the history of forms, or vitiated evolution. 
 
 Biogeny, a history of organic evolution, biology being a science of the forces 
 of life in general. 
 
 Heterotopy, displacement of phenomena affecting place. 
 
 Heterochrony, displacement of phenomena affecting time. 
 
 " In all cases the duration of the ontogeny appears infinitely brief when com- 
 pared with the enormous, the infinitely long period during which the phylogeny 
 or gradual development of the ancestral series, took place." "The period is 
 measured by thousands and millions of years." 
 
50 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 " There is no such thing- as free-will in the usual 
 sense." 
 
 Fearing his readers might charge him with entertain- 
 ing materialistic conceptions of the universe, he assures 
 them that his views are as far removed from materialism 
 as they are from spiritualism; that he neither pronounces 
 vital phenomena effects of matter, nor of motive force; 
 that he neither regards matter as preceding force, nor 
 force as preceding matter, but that he adopts " monism," 
 which can as little believe in force without matter as in 
 matter without force, there being no matter which does 
 not possess force, and no forces which are dissevered 
 from matter — those forces which produce motion being 
 designated active, those which produce equilibrium being 
 called latent. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 MAN'S PHYSICAL NATURE. 
 
 HOW does the foregoing theory stand related to the 
 origin of man's physical nature ? Does it furnish a 
 satisfactory answer to the question, Whence came the 
 human body ? Is this garment of the soul the result of 
 an evolution from less complex organisms ? 
 
 The theory, however successful elsewhere, is a con- 
 spicuous failure when it assays the task of explaining 
 man's origin. To affirm that the human family, a new 
 species, has been developed by the transmutation of 
 previously existing species, is an infelicitous mode of ex- 
 pression, it being difficult to assign any reason why the 
 term species should be employed: if the hypothesis be 
 true, it is apparently impossible to determine when the 
 manifestation of the old specific form ceased and that 
 of the new began. Why say, "Man's progenitor was 
 some species of monkey," if the latter by insensible gra- 
 dations glided into the former ? This destroys the idea 
 of species. If the changes pertain to individuals, they 
 cannot be considered as proving the mutation of species. 
 
 Admitting that by care in the selection of individuals, 
 a few more feathers can be developed in the tail of a 
 pigeon, as Darwin succeeded in producing, does this 
 prove that man owes his origin to some lower organism ? 
 Conceding that the lion has been slightly improved dur- 
 ing the last two or three thousand years by the survival 
 
52 THEISM AXD EVOLUTION. 
 
 of the fittest or by the inherent power of species, does it 
 follow that the first man was the son of an ape ? Ad- 
 mitting that mackerel have become larger and better 
 adapted to wage warfare with their enemies, does this 
 furnish any evidence that the moneron was the primeval 
 parent of the human family ? Does it even prove that 
 mackerel were evolved from an inferior organism ? or 
 that they will eventually evolve a new and improved 
 organic form ? 
 
 If species are mutable, why do we fail in discovering 
 evidences that changes have taken place during the 
 period covered by history ? The bee has been industri- 
 ously engaged in extracting sweetness from flowers since 
 the days of Aristotle. The ant, ever since Solomon 
 recommended its example to the sluggard, has been 
 practicing building, and hoarding provisions against a 
 time of need. There is no evidence that either has ac- 
 quired a single new organ, or has more perfectly devel- 
 oped organs previously possessed in rudimentary form, 
 or has unfolded new instincts from potential germs. 
 Egypt, in its mummies as well as in its paintings, has 
 preserved for us a museum of natural history whose speci-l 
 mens were collected thirty centuries ago; and yet in no 
 respect do they differ from species now existing. 
 
 We are asked to believe that the ape-tribe developed 
 new organs, highly intellectual faculties, and even moral 
 perceptions; and yet, though man has been striving after 
 new powers for thousands of years, there is no evidence 
 that he has acquired new faculties, or developed new or- 
 gans; not one single channel has been opened, no new 
 perception has been gained, not one of the five senses 
 has become more extended in its range; nay, even the 
 simial family has lost the power of improvement, having 
 remained stationary for the last thirty centuries. Add 
 
MAN'S PHYSICAL NATURE. 53 
 
 to this the fact that there is abundant evidence that all 
 organisms have remained substantially the same since 
 the earliest historical period, and it seems incredible 
 that the gorilla should be the ancestor of the human 
 family. 
 
 It is assumed that the ape-family, and every species 
 of plants and animals, possesses an innate tendency to 
 improve; this is sometimes pronounced "spontaneous," 
 sometimes it is called " an accidental variability." The 
 existence of the law has not been proved, however, but 
 assumed. Are we not justified in asserting, — The exist- 
 ence of such a law should be established before sweep- 
 ing deductions are made therefrom; at least stronger 
 arguments should be presented than those which connect 
 themselves with Natural Selection, which, for all that 
 appears to the contrary, may be nothing more than an 
 agency which accumulates and preserves slight incre- 
 ments of improvement, but is powerless in producing 
 them, leaving the problem of favorable variations un- 
 solved. Hypothesis, unless it harmonizes with the facts 
 and furnishes a consistent and reasonable explanation, 
 ought not to be regarded as having attained to the 
 dignity of a theory. 
 
 For anything that has been satisfactorily shown, these 
 improvements may be due to reversion, that is, the 
 regain, of lost characters. The struggle for existence, 
 which is pronounced severe, may cause degeneration. 
 Under domestication, or under more favorable conditions 
 in nature, there may be a recovery of lost qualities. This 
 explains the facts as well as Darwinism explains them, 
 perhaps better; and it destroys the basis of the assump- 
 tion that improvement may continue indefinitely. A 
 limit exists. Darwin admits that characters which have 
 been lost may lie in the organism for thousands of gener- 
 
54 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 ations with their powers of redevelopment undiminished, 
 and that under favoring circumstances there is a gradual 
 and constant improvement, an approach towards the 
 lost type.* It would seem, therefore, that neither im- 
 provement nor the preceding degeneration is necessarily 
 due either to selection or to an innate tendency. Ad- 
 vance may result from the presence of conditions favora- 
 ble to improvement; degeneration, from the absence of 
 such conditions. Darwin concedes that the latter has 
 taken place on a very extended scale, having invaded 
 every known species. He seems even to have concluded 
 that all improvements may be results of reversion. 
 
 Nor is evidence wanting that reversion is a law similar 
 to well known laws. There is in nature the power of 
 reparation, even to the extent of reproducing a lost mem- 
 ber. A crystal, when one of its edges has been broken 
 off, if placed in a solution similar to that in which it 
 was first formed, will reproduce its lost edge, repairing 
 its integrity. Until the edge is reproduced there is an 
 imperfect equilibrium of forces. Would it be correct 
 to say, The improvement of the crystal is limitless ? 
 
 Since this progressive development is a virtual de- 
 struction of species, as Darwin's theory of pangenesis is 
 a destruction of individuals, it seems easier to accept the 
 Scriptural account, which, however distasteful, is appar- 
 ently environed with fewer difficulties. 
 
 It is contended, however, that long periods are a 
 necessary factor in these transmutations, the difficulties 
 being diminished or removed by the assumption of an 
 indefinite period through which improvements have been 
 accumulating. How four hundred millions of years could 
 
 * Origin of Species, pp. 160-161. He affirms on page 161, "It must 
 generally be left doubtful what cases are reversions to a formerly existing charac- 
 ter, and what arc new and analogous variations." 
 
MAN'S PHYSICAL NATURE. 55 
 
 aid in removing the difficulty is not easy to see. If it 
 has not been proved that within the historical era any 
 species has passed beyond the barriers which separate 
 it from allied species, there is assuredly little evidence 
 that the mere lapse of centuries would effect any marvel- 
 ous transformations. Moreover, there is a strong proba- 
 bility (quite as strong as the presumption that species 
 are mutable) that the earth has not been adapted to 
 animal life for millions of years — probably not even for a 
 million, a period far too brief, evolutionists would think, 
 for the changes which have occurred. 
 
 In order to account for the phenomena, the theory in 
 question is under the necessity of attributing an almost 
 prescient intelligence to the ape-family; for how else 
 shall we explain the development of human organs 
 during their incipient stages ? And even the highest 
 intelligence conceivable seems inadequate to account for 
 changes which, during their progress, and until the trans- 
 formation was nearly or quite complete, must have been 
 positively detrimental. During the entire period that 
 the fore-feet of the gorilla were developing into hands, 
 he must have been less perfectly fitted to his previous 
 mode of life, and as yet but ill adapted to even the low- 
 est savage-life. In like manner, it is nearly impossible 
 to conceive that he should have possessed intelligence 
 sufficient to perceive the advantages ultimately to arise 
 from assuming a more erect position; and unless he fore- 
 saw these advantages, and in fact deliberately decided 
 on present self-denial for the sake of advantages to his 
 posterity, we are forced to adopt some other explanation 
 quite as unreasonable, chance or an innate power uncon- 
 sciously evincing superior intelligence. Mr. Darwin, per- 
 haps from long experience, seems able to conjure up a 
 personal principle under the term, " Nature," which is 
 
5G THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 assumed to possess the power of controlling the affairs 
 of the animal and vegetable kingdoms. This all-potent 
 intelligence refuses, however, to come at the bidding of 
 non-believers in evolution. Through what agency does 
 unconscious nature operate in producing results which so 
 powerfully remind us of a controlling intelligence ? Has 
 she chosen the "survival of the fittest"? — and is this 
 an instrumentality so well adapted to the improvement 
 of species as to leave upon our minds the settled con- 
 viction that nature, though supposed to be blind, can 
 exhibit marvelous intelligence ? Does the mere survival 
 of the fittest insure improvement ? We think not. The 
 expression has been very adroitly chosen, for there nat- 
 urally slips into it the assumption that the fittest to sur- 
 vive are an advance on their predecessors, whereas they 
 may be the same, or may be more degenerate. That 
 the fittest to survive are an improvement on their ances- 
 tors, has not been proved. In the severe struggle for 
 existence, "more individuals being born than can possi- 
 bly survive," can the fittest do anything more than hold 
 their own ? Is it fair to assume that because the weakest 
 perish, therefore the others are an improved type ? A 
 more legitimate inference would be that those which 
 survive are degenerate. If the conditions of life are so 
 severe that the majority of the individuals succumb, are 
 they not so severe as to weaken those which survive ? 
 The Texan cattle-raiser, on hearing in the spring that 
 the severity of the winter has caused the death of nine- 
 tenths of his herd, does not conclude that the remaining 
 one-tenth has been improved by the causes which de- 
 stroyed the rest. If carefully housed and fed the ensuing 
 year, they might possibly perpetuate a variety slightly 
 more hardy — though this is somewhat doubtful, and if it 
 did occur it certainly could not be legitimately said that 
 
MAN'S PHYSICAL NATURE. 57 
 
 the "survival of the fittest" was the efficient cause; 
 but if the remnant were left to the severe struggle for 
 existence which is going on in nature, it is evident that 
 their survival, far from carrying with it an implication of 
 improvement, would merely justify us in concluding that 
 the more weakened and the more degenerate, or the 
 younger and the older, perished — the less weakened and 
 the less degenerate survived. The causes which pro- 
 duce the survival of the fittest, evidently tend to produce 
 general degeneration; they manifestly have no efficiency 
 in causing improvement. It has not even been shown 
 that the very best individuals which any species can pro- 
 duce are capable of self-improvement if left to the hard 
 conditions of life to which they are exposed when not 
 under domestication. They frequently degenerate. Has 
 there been a sufficiently extensive generalization to jus- 
 tify the assertion that the tendency to improve, under 
 such circumstances, is more potent and more universal 
 than the tendency to deteriorate ? Certainly it has not 
 been proved that the less degenerate go on improving 
 till a new species originates. 
 
 The preponderance of probability is evidently in favor 
 of the assumption that the fittest to survive are them- 
 selves a degenerate class. Conditions of existence which 
 destroy a majority of the individuals of a species must 
 tend to weaken the survivors. If natural selection, 
 under such circumstances, enables them to hold their 
 own, it evidently does well. When summer droughts 
 are so severe as to destroy three-fourths of all living 
 vegetable organisms, the remaining one-fourth is not 
 likely to be above the normal standard. Hence, that 
 improvement is an attendant on the struggle for exist- 
 ence is a purely gratuitous assumption. There is natural 
 selection, unquestionably; but it occurs under circum- 
 
58 THEISM AXD EVOLUTION. 
 
 stances unfavorable to the production of improved varie- 
 ties. The hard conditions do not terminate the moment 
 natural selection has resulted. 
 
 11 The stronger and the more vigorous survive." Yes: 
 but the stronger and the more vigorous compared with 
 what ? — with the individuals which perish manifestly; 
 but it is assumed that they are the stronger and the 
 more vigorous compared with the normal condition 
 of the species. This, however, has not been proved; 
 and until that is done the inference that there will be 
 an improvement in the species is an unwarrantable 
 assumption, indeed, it is tantamount to saying that 
 the harder the conditions of life the greater the 
 improvement. 
 
 Another difficulty: How shall we account for the fact 
 that from an indefinite number of variations, minute 
 and ill-defined in all conceivable directions, and having 
 a natural tendency to destroy one another, certain 
 changes should become so well established as to remain 
 permanent marks of a new species ? Can it be proved 
 that the advances of the gorilla-tribe, if advance has 
 occurred, have proceeded to the extent of developing a 
 new species, man ? The chances are almost infinite in 
 number against the appearance even in one pair of mon- 
 keys through numberless generations, of organs, facul- 
 ties, senses, perceptions, and moral qualities, useless for 
 the time being in the struggle for life and yet converging 
 to the same point, the evolution of a human being. Add 
 *o this the fact that there are a thousand chances to one 
 that if a new species is produced it will speedily revert 
 to ancestral forms, that if slight increments of change 
 acquire permanency, other closely allied species wMl 
 be produced, and we are enabled to catch a glimpse 
 of the improbability of this theory, an improbability 
 
MAN'S PHYSICAL NATURE. 59 
 
 amounting almost to demonstration that no species of 
 ape could have been man's progenitor. 
 
 Even supposing that all these fortuitous variations 
 were improved types, still, some would improve more 
 than others; hence it must result that this ascending se- 
 ries of necessity would have perpetuated branches ©f the 
 simial family in advance of previous forms, thus produc- 
 ing a graduated series between man and his ape-like 
 ancestors. No such gradation of beings exists, however, 
 or has existed, so far as known. And if one species of 
 the ape-family had actually advanced a few steps to- 
 wards manhood, the powerful tendency to revert to the 
 original type would, in all probability, have obliterated 
 the slight improvements long ere the immense interven- 
 ing distance was successfully traversed. The variations, 
 all within narrow limits, which man has been able to 
 produce in animals by the careful selection of individuals 
 possessing transmissible qualities, are very speedily ob- 
 literated when care is relaxed, the old types reappearing. 
 
 Admitting that natural selection does tend to pro- 
 duce variation, and that it accumulates and preserves 
 these slight increments of development; still, can it 
 evolve higher species from lower ? This, confessedly, 
 has not been proved. It has been proved that rudimen- 
 tary organs exist, that new varieties can be produced, 
 but it has not been shown that advance is indefinite, nor 
 that when it occurs it is not a regain of lost characters. 
 Ducks, removed for several generations from water, are 
 said to lose the web from between their toes: placed 
 again for several successive generations near water they 
 redevelop them. Does this prove advance ? If a few 
 pairs of monkeys, more ambitious than their neighbors, 
 should acquire greater facility in the use of their fore- 
 feet as hands, and should assume a more erect posture, 
 
GO THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 and under the operation of natural selection should be 
 capable of preserving and transmitting these acquisitions, 
 it would yet remain to prove that these changes were 
 not a reversion. Even then the problem would not be 
 solved, for it would still be necessary to show that the 
 improvements actually continued till " the human form 
 divine " was evolved from that of the ape, and then 
 acquired such fixedness as neither to advance further for 
 thirty thousand years, nor to revert in one single in- 
 stance to the ancestral form. 
 
 If man is descended from some ape-like progenitor, 
 it is difficult to see why his infant children should 
 have become so helpless as to require years to attain 
 strength and knowledge sufficient to take care of 
 themselves. The human infant is the most helpless 
 [of creatures. Young monkeys are sprightly, active, 
 and self-helpful. 
 
 It ought to be observed, moreover, that the gain of a 
 few individuals is not a net gain to the species; and in 
 nature, where " love " has its own way, what is to pre- 
 vent such a pairing of individuals as shall effectually ob- 
 literate these slight improvements? Manifestly there 
 is an almost absolute certainty that the advances made 
 by the few will, in a state of nature, speedily disappear 
 under the malign influence of the many. If there is any 
 permanent advance, quite manifestly it must be the 
 gradual improvement of the entire species, at least of all 
 the individuals inhabiting an extended region; but how 
 is this possible without leaving monuments along the 
 lengthened pathway through which they must have 
 journeyed ? 
 
 If an improved variety of monkey was "evolved" 
 from some pre-existing lower form, what prevented the 
 individuals from becoming sterile inter sc, the variety 
 
MAN'S PHYSICAL NATURE. 61 
 
 thus disappearing entirely ? It is an established fact 
 that both in plants and animals improved varieties, that 
 is, those which have acquired profitable characteristics 
 bearing but slight resemblance to those of the species, 
 tend to sterility. Precisely the reverse of this is what 
 we should have expected if the differences between 
 varieties really became augmented into the wider dif- 
 ferences between species. Moreover, since two distinct 
 species are almost invariably sterile when their members 
 are united, it follows that the individuals of different 
 varieties should be expected to grow mutually sterile, 
 more and more so as they approached a new species; 
 but the fact is diametrically opposite, varieties of the 
 same species are mutually fertile, and more so than in- 
 dividuals of the same, and especially of an improved, 
 variety. Again: closely allied species, as the horse and 
 the ass, produce offspring which are either sterile or be- 
 come so in one or two generations; which apparently 
 ought to be otherwise if varieties and species are funda- 
 mentally the same, differing only in degree — indeed, 
 hybrids ought to be more fertile, for the offspring of in- 
 dividuals of two different varieties commonly are. Xor 
 is it possible to affirm that this tendency to sterility, 
 either in hybrids or in the offspring of a variety which 
 has been interbreeding too long, may result from the 
 operation of natural selection, for it is inconsistent with 
 the power ascribed to this agency, if not inconceivable, 
 that natural selection should have accumulated and pre- 
 served increasingly advantageous increments of sterility 
 — profitable additions of a negation. Therefore, before 
 the mutation of species can be considered established 
 four hard facts should be satisfactorily explained: — 
 
 I. Why do marked varieties tend to become sterile if 
 new vigor is not imparted by crossing with individuals of 
 
02 THEISM AXD EVOLUTION. 
 
 another variety under the same species ? Darwin says, 
 ** It is a great law of nature that good should come from 
 crossing." Why ? Evolution can give no answer. The 
 advocates of the immutability of species can reply, M The 
 good would seem to come from the contribution to the 
 offspring by each parent of some quality or qualities 
 which the other lacks, or has only in small measure, which 
 qualities are essential to the species under which the vari- 
 eties occur."* In confirmation of this he is able to call 
 attention to the fact that the good is in exact proportion 
 to the amount of positive structural differences in the 
 crossed parents; and that when a variety has all the 
 positive features of its species no advantage results from 
 crossing with another variety. Evolution ought to assign 
 some reason why crossing is so advantageous. It ought 
 also to explain how this tendency to sterility is acquired. 
 It ought to show how an improved variety of the monkey- 
 tribe could pass the immense distance which intervenes 
 between the simial family and the human, without becom- 
 ing extinct, the individuals growing sterile. 
 
 2. Why are distinct species invariably sterile inter se ? 
 If good comes from the crossing of varieties, an actual 
 remedy being thereby furnished for the evils resulting 
 from close interbreeding, and if species are simply vari- 
 eties further removed, it is remarkable that species when 
 
 * Darwin says, " I have collected so large a body of facts, showing on the 
 one hand that an occasional cross with a distinct individual or variety increases 
 the vigor and fertility of the offspring, and on the other hand that very close 
 interbreeding lessens their vigor and fertility, that I must admit the correctness 
 of this almost universal belief among breeders.'* — Origin of Species, p. 2;;. 
 
 " Both with plants and animals, there is abundant evidence that a cross 
 between individuals of the same species, which differ to a certain extent, give; 
 vigor and fertility to the offspring: and that close interbreeding continued 
 during several generations l>et\veen the nearest relatives, especially if these be 
 kept under the same condition of life, almost always induces weakness and 
 Sterility." — Origin of Sfecies t p. 252. 
 
MAN'S PHYSICAL NATURE. 63 
 
 crossed are not fertile. " The view generally entertained 
 by naturalists," says Darwin, " is that species, when inter- 
 crossed, have been specially endowed with sterility, in 
 order to prevent their confusion. This view certainly 
 seems at first highly probable, for species within the same 
 country could hardly have been kept distinct had they 
 been capable of freely crossing." — Origin of Species, p. 
 233. The barriers of species seem fixed with a measure 
 of rigidity which effectually prevents individuals from pro- 
 pagating either monstrosities or new orders of beings.* 
 Individuals of two remote species of the monkey family 
 could not have been the parents of man's ancestors. 
 
 3. Why are hybrids, or the offspring of allied species, 
 sterile, or nearly so ? Darwin says, " I doubt whether 
 any case of a perfectly fertile hybrid animal can be con- 
 sidered as thoroughly well authenticated." — Origin of 
 Species, p. 238. Again: " Hybrids from two species [of 
 plants] which are very difficult to cross, and which rarely 
 produce any offspring, are generally very sterile." — Idem, 
 p. 241. Once more: " A multitude of cases could be 
 given of very closely allied species which will not unite, 
 or only with extreme difficulty." — Idem, p. 241. 
 
 How then could individuals of two closely related 
 monkey species become the progenitors of a hybrid 
 progeny which ultimately evolved the human species, 
 which retains fertility after thousands of generations ? 
 
 * "According to this [Darwin's] view of the origin of many domestic 
 animals, we must either give up the belief of the almost universal sterility 
 of distinct species of animals when crossed, or we must look at sterility, 
 not as an indelible characteristic, but as one capable of being removed by 
 domestication." 
 
 His conclusion is in these words: " Finally, considering all the ascertained 
 facts on the intercrossing of plants and animals, it may be concluded that some 
 degree of sterility, both in first crosses and in hybrids, is an extremely general 
 result; but that it cannot, under our present state of knowledge, be considered 
 as absolutely universal." — Origin of Species, p. 239-240. 
 
64 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 Darwin, it is true makes light of the sterility of hybrids. 
 This he might have done with propriety if sterility had 
 characterized the crossing of varieties, instead of the 
 interbreeding of individuals of an improved variety; if 
 increase of fertility had marked the interbreeding of 
 individuals of an improved variety, instead of the crossing 
 of different varieties belonging to the same species. 
 
 To blunt the force of the argument from sterility, 
 Darwin has invented two hypotheses; {a) Individuals of 
 the same species are susceptible of all degrees of lessened 
 fertility — therefore, sterility is not a special endowment 
 to prevent the transmutation of species; (b) Sterility 
 between different species may have been induced by 
 modifications slowly impressed by unknown causes on the 
 reproductive systems of parent-forms — nothing stands in 
 the way of crossing species successfully except the want 
 of adaptation in genital organs and in the reproductive 
 elements.* 
 
 4. What causes could have produced sterility ? If a 
 species differs from a variety merely in being a more 
 permanent aggregate of characteristics slowly acquired 
 through nearly interminable periods, and if, consequently, 
 
 * " We see that when forms, which must be considered as good and di-tinct 
 species, are united, their fertility graduates from zero to perfect fertility." 
 — Origin of Species, p. 243. 
 
 "The foregoing rules and facts . . . appear to me clearly to indicate that the 
 sterility both of first crosses and of hybrids is simply incidental or dependent on 
 unknown differences in their reproductive systems. . . . And as we must look 
 at the curious and complex laws governing the facility with which trees can be 
 grafted on each other as incidental on unknown differences in their vegetative 
 systems, so I Ix-lieve that the still more complex laws governing the facility of 
 first crosses are incidental on unknown differences in their reproductive systems. 
 . . . The facts by no means seem to me to indicate that the greater or less 
 difficulty of either grafting or crossing various species has been a special endow- 
 ment; although in the case of crossing, the difficulty is as important for the 
 endurance and stability of specific forms, as in the case of grafting it is unim- 
 portant for their welfare."— Origin cf Species, p. 245-246. 
 
MAN'S PHYSICAL NATURE. 65 
 
 sterility is not a special endowment, how could it have 
 originated — to say nothing of the difficulty of explaining 
 why it should be operative where according to the theory 
 it should have been inoperative, and inoperative where it 
 should have been operative ? 
 
 Darwin concedes that natural selection could not have 
 produced sterility; * that no advantages could come to 
 separated species by being rendered mutually sterile, but 
 that it would profit an incipient species if it were ren- 
 dered in some slight degree sterile when crossed with 
 its parent-form, or with some other variety; for thus 
 fewer bastardized and deteriorated offspring would be 
 produced to commingle their blood with the new species 
 in process of formation; that the facts connected with 
 reciprocal crosses are directly in the way of accepting 
 natural selection as an agency in the production of 
 sterility. Forced to acknowledge that his pet theory 
 furnishes no explanation of the facts connected with 
 sterility, he takes refuge in his oft-repeated proposition 
 that sterility is incidental on unknown differences in the 
 reproductive systems of the parent-species. — Origin of 
 Species, p. 248-249. 
 
 It was once thought that the sterility of hybrids 
 might possibly be caused by the commingling of two 
 different constitutions into one, disturbances occurring 
 in the subsequent development. This is now aban- 
 doned, it having been ascertained that sterility affects 
 
 * " The sterility of species when first crossed, and that of their hybrid 
 offspring, cannot have been acquired by the continued preservation of 
 successive, profitable degrees of sterility. " — Origin of Species, p. 233. 
 
 "After mature reflection it seems to me that this could not have been ef- 
 fected through natural selection." — Idem, p. 247. 
 
 " I infer, as far as animals are concerned, that the various degrees of les- 
 sened fertility which occur with species when crossed cannot have been slowly 
 accumulated by means of natural selection." — Idem, p. 247. 
 
66 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 the offspring of dimorphic and trimorphic forms, as in 
 plants which present two and three forms which differ in 
 no respect except in their reproductive systems. Why 
 are these, whose organisms are precisely the same, infer- 
 tile i?iter se, when the pollen of the one is artificially 
 communicated to the stigmas of the other, the diffi- 
 culties connected with their reproductive systems being 
 thereby obviated ? Lo, they are as sterile as two distinct 
 species. 
 
 If in the vegetable world there had been no sterility be- 
 tween separated species, it seems evident that there must 
 have been confusion inexplicable. If the stigmas of each 
 flower and each blossom could have been fertilized by the 
 pollen of any plant, it would have been impossible to 
 determine what kind of fruit any particular tree would 
 bear. A garden in which there were fruit trees — peach, 
 apple, cherry, and plum; small-fruit — strawberries, rasp- 
 berries, blackberries, etc.; vegetables — peas, beans, pota- 
 toes; flowers — roses, fusias, pinks, etc., what would be 
 its products in the autumn ? Who could tell what pollen 
 would fertilize each blossom ? 
 
 Another powerful reason for rejecting this theory is 
 the absence of transitional forms. As we are not asked 
 to believe that the ape-like creature, to which man is 
 said to owe his origin, was the immediate offspring of 
 the simiadae, but that there were numberless insensible 
 gradations, it is certainly strange that no connecting 
 links have been discovered, either among the living or 
 the fossil dead. According to evolutionists, apes ranged 
 over the continent of Europe as far back as the upper 
 miocene period; and yet, what they are now they were 
 then, there being no remains of improved forms. Still, 
 we are expected to believe that the gorilla went on im- 
 proving for thousands upon thousands of years till at 
 
MAN'S PHYSICAL NATURE. 67 
 
 length man was born, and then forsooth the improved 
 species died out, and all the intermediate forms disap- 
 peared, leaving only the silly monkey and his disowned 
 children, the human family, all record of the intimate 
 relationship between them having been effectually oblit- 
 erated. Assuredly, we may count on being excused for 
 expressing the regret that at least one fossil hand, or 
 skull, or thigh-bone, or pelvis, belonging to a transi- 
 tional form, was not preserved; but no, we have simply 
 gorilla's bones and man's bones, no bones from interme- 
 diate links. 
 
 Great as is the improbability that there should be no 
 record of the transition from the ape to man, the improb- 
 ability is greater that all species should have varied dur- 
 ing the long geological periods without leaving one single 
 fossil of a transitional form, not even in situations and 
 under conditions where almost everything seems to have 
 been preserved. Why is there such a number of perfectly 
 similar specimens of so many species of plants and ani- 
 mals, and no graduated links; and yet, in order to the 
 gradual development of species, the number of variations 
 must have been far greater than the number of individ- 
 uals in any one variety ? It seems therefore more prob- 
 able that no two specimens preserved would be of the 
 same variety, than that numberless specimens of one va- 
 riety should be found and absolutely none of the connect- 
 ing varieties. It is almost inconceivable that no record 
 should be preserved of all the incipient stages in the 
 development of new organs; and yet, though thirty thou- 
 sand specimens of extinct animals have been collected, 
 not one has been proved to be a transitional form, but is 
 considered as belonging to an independent species, the 
 few once claimed as intermediate forms having been 
 proved to be distinct. 
 
G8 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 This objection, it has been said, though of force against 
 evolution in general, has no force against the Darwinian 
 hypothesis, since the absence of transitions is a conse- 
 quence of his doctrine, the stock whence new species 
 spring not being necessarily intermediate between two 
 pre-existing species, as is evident from the fact that the 
 carrier-pigeon and the fan-tail came from the rock-pigeon 
 without any intermediate links. If there is any cogency 
 in this argument, it is singular that Darwin did not observe 
 : t; and if his pupils are to employ it, it is unfortunate that 
 their teacher so frequently laid stress upon the aphorism, 
 " Natura non fecit saltum." If nature makes no jumps 
 there certainly ought to be transitional forms. 
 
 Sir Charles Lyell (who after long resistance has be- 
 come an advocate of evolution and as well of the savage 
 theory of man's origin) undertakes, in his Antiquity of 
 Man, to blunt the edge of this adverse criticism by 
 reminding his readers that search for the missing links 
 between man and apes has not yet been made upon the 
 proper pages of nature's great book. They must be 
 sought, he says, not in miocene or eocene strata, but in 
 pliocene and pleistocene and in equatorial regions. In 
 these latter formations, and in the continents of Africa 
 and Asia, investigation must be made. But he elsewhere 
 affirms that in very remote periods Europe enjoyed a 
 tropical climate and was inhabited by gibbons and long- 
 armed apes and monkeys in large numbers. Why con- 
 clude that the transmutation must have taken place in 
 regions as yet but imperfectly explored ? 
 
 The links in the evolutionist's argument are thus 
 found to be the weakest just where they should have been 
 the strongest. Darwin admits that he should have 
 expected more evidence from geology. The only explan- 
 ation he can give is to insist upon the imperfection of the 
 
MAN'S PHYSICAL NATURE. 69 
 
 geological record — a poor solution, as all must acknowl- 
 edge. He even concedes that all the most eminent 
 geologists, reasoning from this absence of intermediate 
 forms, believe in the immutability of species. He be- 
 lieves, however, in the mutability of species; and yet, 
 if varieties differ from species only in degree, the suc- 
 cessive steps ought to have been chronicled in the rocks 
 by a connected series of slightly improved individuals; if 
 indeed, instead of a record of the existence of distinct 
 species, there ought not to have been clear traces of 
 utter confusion in nature. It is true that fossils from 
 successive formations are more closely related to each 
 other than the fossils of two remote formations; it is also 
 true that the tendency in recent geological researches is 
 to adopt the theory that there has been no sudden and 
 extensive changes; but there are gaps, nevertheless, as 
 few presume to deny. 
 
 Though it is now generally conceded that the trans- 
 formations which have taken place were seldom, perhaps 
 never, sudden, complete, and simultaneous; still, evidence 
 is not wanting that they were in fact new creations. For 
 example, the silurian rocks contain fossils in abundance, 
 but there are no fishes and no forms giving evidence of 
 the capability, or even possibility, of developing fish. In 
 the next epoch, lo, fishes are found in vast numbers, and 
 even in perfect types. If there was an almost infinite 
 number of gradations between mollusks and fish, why 
 are there no deposits containing testimony to this fact ? 
 Why is the proof so strong that there have been suc- 
 cessive creations ? 
 
 Why do the changes, which in many instances are not 
 slight, bear evidence of having been produced by a power 
 outside or above the ordinary course of nature ? " The 
 evidence of geology to-day," says an eminent naturalist, 
 
70 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 u is that species seem to come in suddenly and in full per- 
 fection, remain substantially unchanged during the term 
 of their existence, and pass away in full perfection, other 
 species take their place, apparently by substitution, not 
 by transmutation." 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 MAN'S INTELLECTUAL NATURE. 
 
 It is more particularly as it relates to the origin of man's 
 moral, intellectual, and religous nature, tha.t the christian 
 has to do with the theory of evolution. The idea of a 
 relationship between man and the lower animals is con- 
 ceivable, as far as the mere animal frame is concerned. 
 Confessedly, there are many close resemblances in ana- 
 tomical structure; indeed, there is nearly absolute identity, 
 bone for bone, muscle for muscle — some muscles occur- 
 ring in man which are of no use, though of use in apes. 
 Similar organs perform like functions. The apes, as well 
 as man, love and hate, perceive and feel, remember and 
 imagine, will and reason, have definite ideas and the 
 means of communicating them. Professor Agassiz attri- 
 butes to animals " an immaterial principle similar to that 
 which, by its excellence and superior endowments, places 
 man above animals." When we are asked to believe, 
 however, that our mental faculties, which are capable of 
 such improvement, have been evolved from those of the 
 simiadae, too heavy a tax is laid upon our credulity. Most 
 persons, even those who do not believe in the christian 
 religion, are disposed to accept the account given in the 
 Bible, one of the crowning glories of which is that it rec- 
 ognizes, in all its fullness, the essential dignity of the 
 human family. It presents God as the Author of our 
 being, and the Preserver of our existence, our Strength 
 
72 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 in the struggle with sin, our Comfort in sorrow, and our 
 Hope in death. 
 
 We should err were we to confine this ennobling con- 
 ception of the Fatherhood of God to those who possess 
 His revealed Will. It has found a place in many systems 
 of faith. Elsewhere than under the influence of Hebrew 
 forms of philosophy, even in nations less cultured than 
 the Greeks and less intellectual than the Romans, has 
 the peasant boasted of a divine parentage. To others, 
 as well as to the Athenians, Paul might have said, " As 
 certain also of your own poets have said, ' For we are his 
 offspring.' " 
 
 A theory of man's origin therefore which is honorable 
 and ennobling, and which comes to us sacred with years 
 and consecrated by the faith of generations, may be ex- 
 pected to be so entrenched within our affections that 
 powerful arguments will be needed to shake the convic- 
 tion that we are made in God's image — our intellectual 
 faculties being a copy, faint though real, of God's un- 
 clouded intelligence — our moral nature a transcript, dim 
 indeed but genuine, of God's approbation of right and His 
 condemnation of wrong. It would seem as though the 
 unbiased investigator must accept the affirmation of M. 
 Quatrefagas, as given in his work on the Unity of the 
 Hitman Species: "Man must form a kingdom by himself 
 if once we permit his moral and intellectual endowments 
 to have their due weight in classification." 
 
 Does the theory in question possess arguments suffi- 
 ciently potent to counteract these predilections ? Does 
 it satisfactorily account for man's higher nature ? It is 
 conceded that here the theory is weak. Professor Huxley 
 himself admits that the difference between man and the 
 lower animals amounts to an "enormous gulf," to "a 
 divergence immeasurable — practically infinite." Those 
 
MAN'S INTELLECTUAL NATURE. 73 
 
 therefore who are inclined to believe that the theory of 
 evolution may be so stated as to contain nothing neces- 
 sarily antagonistic to Revelation will be disposed to limit 
 it to man's physical nature, maintaining that in other 
 respects at least he was not only made in God's image, 
 but was created without the intervention of natural causes: 
 and since- the possibility of the mutation of species is as 
 yet unestablished,and man's descent even in his bodily 
 organism from the monkey rests on inconclusive testi- 
 mony, most persons will also deem it unnecessary to as- 
 sume two origins, one for the lower, the other for the 
 higher nature. 
 
 Unless God is our Creator how shall we account for 
 that subtle force we denominate mind ? To say nothing 
 of the difficulty of accounting for the origin of the mind 
 of brutes — of'perceiving how intellectuality can be evolved 
 from matter — how shall we be put in possession of evidence 
 sufficient to induce the belief that " the human mind has 
 gradually developed in the course of millions of years 
 from the mind of the lower-skulled animals " ? How is it 
 possible to believe that from sources so inadequate those 
 faculties could have been evolved which have compelled 
 nature to unlock her storehouses, affording clothing of 
 every variety and food in abundance; faculties, which 
 have devised means of protection against beasts whose 
 fleetness, strength, and agility surpass those of man, thus 
 giving the weak an easy dominion over the strong; which 
 have made nature man's servant, controlling her actions 
 or bringing his into harmony with hers ? Improvable 
 reason is man's peculiar and exclusive endowment. 
 
 The dominion of mind over matter, however, marvelous 
 as it is, is not the strongest proof of man's supernatural 
 origin. The wonderful creations of the human intellect, 
 in musical harmony, in poetry, in painting, in sculpture, 
 
74 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 in architecture; its marvelous powers, of induction, analy- 
 sis, synthesis, generalization; its ability to form abstract 
 ideas — space, goodness, sin, immensity, truth, honor, 
 eternity, the absolute and the unconditioned, — infinite 
 conceptions struggling for expression in human language, 
 — these testify to the existence of faculties which it is 
 almost impossible to conceive could have been developed 
 from lower animals. In like manner, the capability of 
 receiving pleasure from mathematical demonstrations — 
 in fact the ability to prosecute them — and the perception 
 of cogency and beauty in an argument felicitously ex- 
 pressed, certainly afford evidence of an immense chasm 
 between man and the most gifted of the inferior animals. 
 This " immeasurable divergence" becomes even more 
 apparent as we contemplate the achievements of the 
 astronomer, who, in his study of the systems of worlds 
 which move through the unheralded pathways of a uni- 
 verse, has ascertained facts and established laws which 
 reason seems to say must forever have remained beyond 
 the grasp of a being whose mind was evolved from " the 
 medullary tube of the lancelet." To measure the dis- 
 tances, to estimate the size, and to determine the move- 
 ments of bodies so far distant as to appear mere specks 
 in the depths of immensity is quite manifestly a task too 
 great for any brain that could have been developed from 
 that of the lowest vertebrate. As in imagination we place 
 ourselves at the center of the solar system, seeing the 
 planets as they move in their noiseless pathways; as in 
 fancy we station ourselves at Alcyone, the apparent cen- 
 ter of our nebulous system, ascertaining the length of 
 time required for its revolution and learning that it burns 
 with a brilliancy twelve thousand times greater than that 
 of our sun, it will require a logic trenchant indeed to con- 
 vince us that man owes his origin to anything less than 
 
MAN'S INTELLECTUAL NATURE. 75 
 
 the direct volition of an Infinite Intelligence. Wondering 
 at the conquests of the human intellect we instinctively 
 exclaim, " It is the handiwork of God." 
 
 The mind of man is capable of yet greater triumphs. 
 With the assistance of the largest telescope — itself a mar- 
 vel of mechanical and scientific genius — the beholder can 
 number, it is said, eighty million suns; some of which are 
 so far distant that the light which they reflect requires 
 more than a million years to reach the eye; nay, burning 
 specks have been resolved into suns, each shining with 
 splendor equaling that of our sun. Furnished with a 
 knowledge of the higher mathematics, it is even possible 
 to measure their distances from each other, their distance 
 from the earth, and their periods of revolution. As we 
 concentrate our thoughts upon these and similar displays 
 of mental power the overawed soul asks with the em- 
 phasis of a well-founded faith, Can man be less than the 
 direct creation of an Omniscient Intellect ? Most per- 
 sons would no doubt concur In the opinion that it requires 
 no small measure of credulity to believe that the " sur- 
 vival of the fittest " of monkeys could have evolved an 
 intellect capable of such mental processes, even though 
 the survival should have been uninterruptedly carried on 
 during four hundred millions of years; that the intellect 
 of him who has weighed the stars and compelled the 
 lightning to transmit his thoughts has been developed 
 from that of the silly brute which wanders in the forests 
 of tropical countries and obtains a precarious subsistence 
 by feeding upon the uncultivated products of the soil; 
 that because man's framework approaches that of the ape- 
 family, therefore his intellectual faculties are the same in 
 kind, differing only in degree. Assuredly it is easier to 
 believe the declarations, "God made man in his own 
 image:" "The Lord formed man of the dust of the 
 
7G THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; 
 and man became a living soul." 
 
 Having called attention to the greatness of the human 
 intellect as evinced in the achievements of astronomy, it 
 may not be inappropriate to note evidences of its exist- 
 ence where, according to evolutionists, we ought least to 
 expect it, in the language of the Hottentots. We are 
 informed on the authority of Mr. E. Norris, that though 
 remarkably simple, their language is yet comprehensive 
 and expressive. The nouns have two genders, distin- 
 guished by termination. There are four numbers, singu- 
 lar, plural, and two duals, one appropriated to a pair, the 
 other to two individuals. Not merely is the nominative 
 case clearly distinguished from the accusative, but there 
 is a copious declension. Its numerous pronouns, all com- 
 pletely and regularly declined, have "distinct forms for 
 every conceivable modification of meaning," the second 
 person distinguishing the gender and the first person 
 plural having two forms, one including, the other ex- 
 cluding, the person addressed in the " we." The verbs 
 are conjugated by the addition of syllables. Even con- 
 junctions, which are supposed to characterize highly 
 cultured languages, are quite numerous. Assuredly, 
 on the theory of evolution, is seems remarkably strange 
 that even the lowest savages should evince so great 
 intelligence. 
 
 Facts such as these come in strong conflict with the as- 
 sertion of Haeckel, " All philologists who have made any 
 'progress in their science now unanimously agree that all 
 human languages have developed slowly and by degrees 
 from the simplest rudiments. The natural evolution of 
 language is necessarily evident to the student of nature. 
 For speech is a physiological function of the human or- 
 ganism, developing simultaneously from its special organs. 
 
MAN'S INTELLECTUAL NATURE. 77 
 
 the larynx and the tongue, and simultaneously with the 
 functions of the brain." 
 
 When once the conviction has forced itself upon us 
 that man's intellectual faculties must be the immediate 
 creation of a Supreme Being, we are disposed to concede 
 that his physical organism most probably had the same 
 origin, since there is a correlation between the two. Man 
 is not a duality, but a unity, all his organs being adapted 
 to the purposes for which the mind employs them. If 
 there are reasoning faculties, so also there is a corres- 
 ponding cranial development. If there exists the ability 
 to invent new machinery, there is also a skillful hand to 
 execute the mechanical part of the work. If there is the 
 capability of receiving correct impressions of external ob- 
 jects, and reasoning in reference to their relations, there 
 are also organs and senses adapted to convey accurate 
 representations of these objects. Suppose that by some 
 inexplicable fortuity the mind of Sir Isaac Newton had 
 been given to a gorilla, could that fortunate, or rather 
 unfortunate, specimen of the simial family have been the 
 renowned philosopher ? The very supposition is its own 
 refutation, and for this simple reason, that the gorilla 
 would have been destitute of the organs correlated to a 
 mind so different from that of his ancestors. Its clumsy 
 hand and unwieldy arm are indeed correlated to a brain 
 whose servants they are, and are adapted to the uses 
 for which they are needed; but no amount of brain-power 
 could wield them in penning the Principia. Its brain 
 of twenty-nine and one-fourth cubic inches (the average 
 gorilla brain), or thirty-five cubic inches (the largest go- 
 rilla's brain yet measured), bears an inseparable relation 
 to the mind that employs it, but would very poorly an- 
 swer the purposes of a mind that employed a brain of 
 one hundred and fourteen cubic inches. In like manner, 
 
78 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 the nervous system of the ape no doubt answers the ends 
 for which it was given, but it does not follow that it would 
 be equal to the demands of a philosopher. So also the 
 tongue, the lips, and the larynx of the simiadse are cor- 
 related with the functions they are to discharge, but are 
 unfitted to pronounce articulate sounds expressive of 
 definite ideas. As Professor Max Miiller has aptly re- 
 marked, " There is between the whole animal kingdom 
 on the one side, and man, even in the lowest state, on the 
 other, a barrier which no animal has ever crossed, and 
 that barrier is language." Again: " Show me an animal 
 that can think and say ' Two,' and I should say that 
 as far as language is concerned, we cannot oppose Mr. 
 Darwin's argument." 
 
 Nor is it pertinent to answer, This argument merely 
 proves that mind must be the result of progressive devel- 
 opment as well as the physical organism is, the two main- 
 taining intimate and mutually helpful relations: for, aside 
 from the fact that anatomists have resolutely maintained 
 that in an anatomical point of view the transmutation of 
 the ape into man is an impossibility, and aside from the 
 difficulty of evolving man's mental and moral faculties 
 from the simial family, an additional and very serious 
 element of difficulty is introduced, namely, that the men- 
 tal and physical improvement of the gorilla should go for- 
 wards simultaneously, maintaining an accurate correla- 
 tion during all the stages. Shall the budding of a new 
 faculty, if indeed that is possible, first suggest the pro- 
 priety of developing a new organ, or shall the incipient 
 stages of a new organ invite the mind to prepare for 
 expansion ?— expansion in what direction ? Or must 
 the dawning of the two be strictly synchronous? 
 In this case, whence comes the suggestive impulse? 
 Surely we seem driven to admit the assertion of those 
 
MAN'S INTELLECTUAL NATURE. 79 
 
 evolutionists who affirm that progress is " by insensible 
 gradations produced by a fortuitous concurrence of 
 circumstances" — a wordy explanation which explains 
 nothing. 
 
 Intelligence and instinct, it has been said, stand in 
 inverse ratio to each other. Some, accordingly, have 
 maintained that the higher animals have gradually 
 evolved intellectual faculties from their instincts. But 
 no such inverse ratio exists. Those animals have the 
 most instinct which are the most intelligent, as the 
 beaver, the dog, etc. This would seem to stand in the 
 way of the assumption that instinct may be transformed 
 into intellect, unless transformation can proceed without 
 lessening that which is transformed until the transfor- 
 mation becomes nearly or quite complete, when sud- 
 denly intellect almost entirely displaces instinct. If, as 
 is conceded, instinct becomes more powerful in animals 
 in exact proportion as they become more intelligent, 
 how, if man's intellect came from the lower animals, does 
 instinct happen to be feeble in man though intellect is 
 powerful ? It is difficult, as all know, to draw a line 
 of demarkation between instinct and reason; but there 
 certainly is no evidence that the former develops into 
 the latter. 
 
 Herbert Spencer thinks the dawnings of intelligence 
 were developed " through the multiplication and co-ordi- 
 nation of reflex actions." This mysterious agency has been 
 acting, however, upon baboons for unnumbered centuries 
 under the eye of man. Have they made any perceptible 
 progress in ability to reason ? Have they attained that 
 degree of intellectual development which enables them 
 to understand what Spencer means by this all-potent law 
 through whose operation their more honored relatives 
 became, in ancient times — about four hundred million 
 
80 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 years ago — the anthropomorphous ancestors of home 
 sapiens t Darwin says: 
 
 "These [the intellectual] faculties are variable; and we have every 
 reason to believe that the variations tend to be inherited. Therefore, if 
 they were formerly of high importance to primeval man and to his ape-like 
 progenitors, they would have been perfected or advanced through natural 
 selection. ... It is, therefore, highly probable that with mankind the intel- 
 lectual faculties have been gradually perfected through natural selection. ... It 
 deserves notice that as soon as the progenitors of man became social (and this 
 probably occurred at a very early period), the advancement of the intellectual 
 faculties will have been aided and modified in an important manner, of which 
 we see only traces in the lower animals, namely, through the principle of 
 imitation, together with reason and experience. Apes are much given to 
 imitation, as are the lowest savages." 
 
 In his lengthy and interesting discussion of the subject, 
 this last mentioned author undertakes to point out re- 
 semblances in structure between man and apes, similar 
 processes of development, like functions of organic mem- 
 bers, and even the possession by lower animals of the 
 rudiments of almost every human faculty — sympathy, 
 conscience, reason, will,. memory, imagination, the sense 
 of beauty as exhibited in the Bower bird, etc. The 
 argument, shorn of its irrelevent though interesting facts, 
 rests on the following syllogism: — I. Man's physical 
 organism was probably developed from the lower animals, 
 since they have correspondences; 2. His mental powers 
 may possibly have been evolved from the germs which 
 seem to exist in inferior animals, as in the ape- family; 
 3. The two, as is necessary, may have been concurrently 
 developed; Therefore: 
 
 "Man is descended from a hairy quadruped, furnished with a tail and 
 pointed ears, probably arborial in its habits, and an inhabitant of the Old 
 World. This creature, if its whole structure had been examinc.l by a naturalist, 
 would have been classed among the quadrumana, as surely a; would the com- 
 mon and still more ancient progenitor of the Old and New World monkeys. 
 The quadrumana and all the higher mammals are probably derived from an an- 
 cient marsupial animal, and this through a long line of diversified forms, either 
 from some reptile-like or some amphibian like creature, and this again from 
 
MAN'S INTELLECTUAL NATURE. 81 
 
 some fish-like animal. In the dim obscurity of the past we can see tha^ the 
 early progenitor of all the vertebrata must have been an aquatic animal, pro- 
 vided with brachial, with the two sexes united in the same individual, and with 
 the most important organs of the body (such as the brain and heart) imperfectly 
 developed." * "At the period and place, whenever and wherever it may have 
 been, when man first lost his hairy covering, he probably inhabited a hot country 
 and this would have been favorable for a frugiferous diet, on which, judging 
 from analogy, he subsisted. We are far from knowing how long ago it was 
 when man first diverged from the catarhine stock; but this may have occurred 
 at an epoch as remote as the eocene period ; for the higher apes had diverged 
 from the lower apes as early as the upper miocene period. " f " It is some- 
 what more probable that our early progenitors lived on the African continent 
 than elsewhere." J " The simiadae branched off into two great stems, the New 
 World and the Old World monkeys; and from the latter, at a remote period, 
 man, the wonder and glory of the universe, proceeded." §. 
 
 The above " summary " would probably be considered 
 by most reasoners as a large yield of" conclusion " from a 
 small outlay of premises (albeit, the discussion is suffi- 
 ciently extended). 
 
 For fear we may be charged with doing injustice to 
 this eminent author, we append a few of the interesting 
 resemblances pointed out by him as existing between 
 man and apes — similarity in the relative positions of the 
 features, similar movements of the muscles and skin in 
 the display of emotions, resemblance in the external ears 
 and nose, the possession of beards, the abundance of hair 
 on the head, nakedness of the forehead, the presence of 
 eye-brows, the arrangement of the hair on the arms in 
 converging lines towards the elbow, the same senses 
 and intuitions, the same emotions and faculties which 
 though varying in degree are the same in kind, capability 
 of improvement, etc. Though it would be unfair to leave 
 the impression that Darwin considers these and similar 
 resemblances necessarily the result of unbroken inheri- 
 tance, and equally unfair to assume that he rests his 
 
 * Descent of Man, vol. ii. p. 372. f Idem, vol. i. p. 192. 
 
 % Idem, vol. i. p. 191. § Idem, vol. i. p. 204. 
 
82 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 argument mainly on these, it nevertheless cannot be 
 denied that he lays great stress on slight analogies — 
 much greater, apparently, than is warrantable. Such 
 resemblances neither justify us in charging the Deity 
 with want of originality, nor in inferring that those organ- 
 isms in which they occur must stand related to each 
 other as progenitor and offspring, or must have descended 
 from a common ancestry. It is extremely difficult to 
 conceive that there should have been an entire absence 
 of resemblances between man and the lower animals, if he 
 was to possess a physical nature: apparently there was 
 no necessity for entire dissimilarity; nay, the very similar- 
 ity of organs in two beings, which are nevertheless separ- 
 ated from each other by an " almost infinite divergence," 
 tends rather to heighten the conviction that at least the 
 faculties of the higher, if not those of the lower, must be 
 the direct creation of Divine Intelligence. 
 
 In contrast with this theory — which is in fact but an 
 hypothesis searching for facts upon which to rest — how 
 honorable is the Scriptural account of the origin of the 
 human family. Man's existence is due to divine power, 
 his continuance in being to Him who upholds systems, 
 worlds, suns, myriads of forces; to Him who cares for the 
 minutest insect that flutters away its brief life in the 
 morning sunbeam; who, to tiny creatures, has given not 
 only limbs, mouths, digestive organs — all the parts 
 requisite to success in the struggle for food — but has 
 given an eye so perfect, though no larger than the point 
 of a needle, as to be capable of producing forty thousand 
 images of the face of the beholder. " Marvelous are 
 thy works, O Lord." In the list of wonders infinite, 
 stand these the foremost: u God created man:" " He 
 prevents him from sinking back into annihilation." 
 
 If man is an evolution from the anthropoid apes, at 
 
MAN'S INTELLECTUAL NATURE. 83 
 
 what point in his gradual, and almost infinitely protracted 
 improvement, did he become possessed of immortality ? 
 — or are we to conclude that he perishes ? At what 
 point did he become distinguishable as man, beastiality 
 giving place to humanity ? 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 MAN'S MORAL NATURE. 
 
 Wide as is the divergence in intellectual faculties be- 
 tween man and the lower animals, in moral nature the 
 chasm is still broader. It is not merely a difference in 
 degree, but in kind, animals being entirely destitute of 
 moral qualities properly so called. True, they possess 
 social instincts, and in the exercise of these occasionally 
 manifest qualities resembling those which in the human 
 family are denominated ethical. The horse, which car- 
 ries forward a process akin to reasoning, and remem- 
 bers places which it has frequently visited, seems also to 
 have a measure of affection for its companion, and even 
 for its owner. The elephant, which may be teased into 
 a frenzy of rage, is also capable of appreciating kind 
 treatment, and possibly feels an impulse slightly akin to 
 gratitude. The lioness, fierce as her nature is, has affec- 
 tion for her whelps. A monkey has been known to come 
 to the rescue of its keeper when he was attacked by an 
 enraged baboon, thereby seeming to manifest a disposi- 
 tion to requite remembered kindnesses. Cattle, though 
 sometimes far from manifesting sympathy with each 
 others' sufferings — as when the wounded are driven from 
 the herd — have nevertheless been seen to stand gazing 
 on a dying or dead companion. The queen-bee, though 
 she kills her fertile daughters, evidently has sympathy 
 with all the members of her well-regulated household. 
 
MAN'S MORAL NATURE. 85 
 
 It is no unusual thing to see birds expressing extravagant 
 joy over the nest which contains their happy young; some 
 even build houses which are designed and exclusively 
 used for social pleasures. Insects, as well as puppies 
 and lambs, sport and wrestle and enter with zest into 
 amusements, sympathizing with the joys of others. Crows 
 have been known to feed a blind companion, thereby 
 giving evidence of possessing the rudiments of what man 
 regards as the highest virtue, unselfish care for the aged 
 and the helpless. The baboons of Abyssinia, before set- 
 ting out to plunder a garden, choose a leader and enjoin 
 obedience to orders on the members of the company; if 
 any one on the journey makes a noise, so endangering 
 success, his nearest companion gives him a slap to remind 
 him of the impropriety of disobeying orders. 
 
 Not only do animals appear to possess, though in but 
 slight measure, love, gratitude, sympathy, obedience — 
 qualities usually considered as possessing moral bearings — 
 but also manifest courage, and in some circumstances the 
 spirit of self-sacrifice. The bear, with intelligence ade- 
 quate to the procurement of food for her cubs, will also 
 rush between them and danger. When a troop of mon- 
 keys is attacked by dogs, the males will hasten to the 
 front, showing valor and a readiness to sacrifice them- 
 selves for the good of the company: so successfully can 
 they cover the retreat that even the youngest and the 
 feeblest commonly- reach the mountains in safety; there 
 they receive the praise which gratitude prompts the 
 rescued to bestow. 
 
 Perhaps the nearest approach made by the inferior 
 animals to what we denominate conscience is the appar- 
 ent sense of shame, bordering on remorse, which the 
 whipped cur seems to experience as he cringingly 
 supplicates a return of his master's favor. Professor 
 
$$ THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 Agassiz thinks that dogs possess a faculty closely akin 
 to conscience. 
 
 Without questioning the truth of these and similar 
 facts, we do not hesitate to affirm that there is in the 
 lower animals no quality and no combination of qualities, 
 from which the sense of right and wrong, as it exists 
 among men, could have been evolved. In this affirma- 
 tion we are sustained by the facts of the case and by the 
 testimony of naturalists well qualified to express an 
 opinion. Mr. George Mivart, though an ardent advocate 
 of progressive development (not, however, of natural 
 selection, nor of the derivation of man's mental and 
 moral faculties from the lower animals), boldly asserts: 
 " There is no trace in brutes of any action simulating 
 morality which is not explicable by fear of punishment, 
 by the hope of pleasure, or by personal affection." * 
 
 Those evolutionists who pursue their theory to the ex- 
 tent of developing man's higher faculties from the sim- 
 iadae hold that though the moral sense constitutes the 
 most important difference between man and the lower 
 animals, still, even here, the difference is one of degree 
 and not of kind; that though there is a wide diver- 
 gence between the two conceptions, "the expedient" 
 and ''the morally obligatory," they are nevertheless the 
 same in origin; that those apes which possessed an 
 instinctive liking for practices useful to the community, 
 have, through natural selection, perpetuated a more 
 numerous offspring than those possessing tendencies in 
 an opposite direction; that the liking ultimately became 
 " innate," and in man has gone on improving, though 
 moral sense is feeble in savages, till it has culminated in 
 the dictum, " Fiat justitia, ruat caelum." 
 
 The advocates of this theory have different methods 
 
 * The Genesis of Species x p. 211. 
 
MAN'S MORAL NATURE. 87 
 
 of designating the bond that unites moral sense, as exist- 
 ent in man, with the germs thereof as they exist in infe- 
 rior animals. Some maintain that it has had its origin in 
 the principle of selfishness. This Darwin pronounces 
 absurd {Descent of Man, vol. i. p. 94), and affirms that 
 " the moral sense is fundamentally identical with the so- 
 cial instincts," which " have certainly been developed for 
 the general good of the community,'' " Thus any animal 
 whatever {Descent of Man, vol. i. p. 68.), endowed 
 with well-marked social instincts, would inevitably ac- 
 quire a moral sense or conscience, as soon as its intel- 
 lectual powers had become as well developed, or nearly 
 as well developed, as in man." Again: "The first 
 foundation or origin of moral sense lies in the social 
 instincts, including sympathy. . . . The social instincts 
 would give the impulse to act for the good of the 
 community." Mr. Herbert Spencer evolves conscience 
 from the principle of utility, as existent in inferior 
 animals. He declares, " There have been, and still are, 
 developing in the race, certain fundamental intuitions, 
 and, though these moral intuitions are the result of ac- 
 cumulated experiences of utility gradually organized and 
 inherited, they have come to be quite independent of 
 conscious experience." Others evolve it from the regard 
 manifested by animals, to the highest happiness of the 
 largest number. In the opinion of Sir John Lubbock, the 
 author of Prehistoric Times, the moral sonse has its 
 origin in " deference to authority." This, on examination 
 turns out to be simple utilitarianism; since, unless there 
 is such a thing as absolute morality (which he denies), 
 obedience must be produced either by the hope of re- 
 ward, or the fear of punishment, or the mere pleasure 
 arising from obeying — the motive must be utility. 
 
 It thus becomes evident that conscience, if developed 
 
88 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 irom the social instincts o{ inferior animals, must be 
 regarded as having its genesis in selfishness, in the desire 
 to secure the greatest good to the community, or in a 
 regard to the highest happiness of the largest number, 
 no other sources of moral principle existing in animals— 
 if indeed these exist and are possible sources of moral 
 intuitions. 
 
 As already intimated, the advocates of this theory 
 admit that it is difficult to account for the moral element 
 in man; that this, which Darwin designates " the most 
 noble of all the attributes of man," causes him to differ 
 most profoundly from the simial family. He says: 
 
 "A moral being is one who is capable of comparing his past and future 
 actions or motives, and of approving or disapproving of them. We have 
 no reason to suppose that any of the lower animals have this capacity. . . In 
 the case of man, who alone can with certainty be ranked as a moral being, 
 actions of a certain class are called moral, whether performed deliberately after 
 a struggle with opposing motives, or from the effects of slowly-gained habit, or 
 impulsively through instinct."— Descent of Man, vol. i. p. 85. 
 
 Surely, then, we are justified in affirming that it will 
 require a large induction of facts, larger than has yet been 
 made, to establish the proposition that animals possess- 
 ing social instincts inevitably acquire a moral sense, when 
 there is a corresponding development of the reasoning 
 faculties. 
 
 We are ready to concede that there may be adduced 
 from the animal kingdom examples of acts simulating 
 morality, as the care taken of the young, the feeling of 
 love between members of the same fraternity, the post- 
 ing of sentinels to guard against the approach of danger, 
 hunting in company, obedience to the commands of 
 leaders, etc. But acts which are merely conducive to the 
 good of the community are not necessarily moral; indeed 
 they may be positively immoral, and instead of tending 
 to quicken the sense of right and wrong, may tend to 
 
MAN'S MORAL NATURE. 89 
 
 blunt it. By a community of thieves, who secure their 
 booty not infrequently through murder, indifference to 
 the sufferings of the helpless may come to be considered 
 advantageous. If, as we are told, cruelty is characteristic 
 of savages, who are declared to be an intermediate link 
 between the ape-family and the human, how are we to 
 account for man's intense sympathy with suffering ? How 
 explain his care of the weak, the mentally imbecile, the 
 aged, and the worse than useless ? Certainly it is not bene- 
 ficial to society, and never has been, that the feeblest 
 members should impose burdens upon the strong, and 
 even leave enfeebled children as a legacy of woe to pos- 
 terity. What then could have been the origin of man's 
 noblest charities ? How does it happen that his tender- 
 est emotions prompt to self-sacrifice in the erection of 
 hospitals, and insane asylums, and inebriate homes, and 
 Magdalen retreats. How has kindness towards animals, 
 even towards those which are useless to man, ever come 
 to be regarded as a virtue ? It is conceded by Mr. Dar- 
 win that a high standard of morality gives no advantage 
 to individuals {Descent of Man, vol. i. p. 159); and 
 when, as in these cases, it is clearly detrimental to the 
 welfare of society, how could it have become established ? 
 Is the difference one of degree and not of kind ? We 
 are conducted through a labored argument the design 
 of which is to prove that the more enduring instincts 
 conquer the less permanent. Birds, yielding to the more 
 powerful impulse, migrate when the season arrives, leav- 
 ing their helpless young in the nest. Who, it is asked, 
 can say that the joys of their new home in the south 
 are not clouded, in measure at least, by the remembrance 
 of their deserted young in the chilly north? It is con- 
 jectured that they may suffer from remorse, deeply regret- 
 ting their weakness in yielding to what for the time was 
 
90 THEISM AND EVOLUTI 
 
 a more potent desire. To civilized men, " duty " is indeed 
 the most powerful word in the language; but why may 
 we not say that the hound " ought " to hunt without any 
 regard whatever to present or prospective advantages ? 
 
 We are thus given to understand that conscience, 
 in its highest functions, when it acts regardless of self- 
 interest, is to be viewed as but the exercise of an in- 
 herited habit. The retriever " ought" to bring his game 
 and lay it at his master's feet, because he " ought " to 
 obey an impulse transmitted from his ancestors. Man 
 ought to do right even though it may not conduce to 
 personal advantage, for he has inherited a habit which 
 was laboriously evolved from the social instincts of the 
 lower animals. 
 
 In answer to this specious theory we may very properly 
 ask, Are the acts to which conscience prompts always 
 instinctive ? — has the moral sense no more enduring 
 foundation than an inherited habit ? — does it not testify 
 to the existence of an eternal law of right and wrong ? — 
 do not its mandates come to us bearing the seal of a 
 just God ? — is remorse nothing more than the transient 
 pain which results from disregarding the promptings of 
 inherited habit ? — this anguish, which poets have depicted 
 in such vivid colors, and from which the guilty seek to 
 escape, is it nothing more than an unpleasant sensation 
 arising from the perception that one instinctive impulse 
 has been yielded to rather than another ? Before these 
 and similar questions can be answered in such a way as 
 to cast discredit upon conscience as an independent and 
 heaven-delegated power there must evidently be a more 
 extended array of arguments, and those more potent, 
 than any yet adduced. Logic has an arduous task to 
 perform before a majority of the human family will 
 believe that the moral sense of men and the social 
 
MAN'S MORAL NATURE. 91 
 
 instincts of inferior animals are essentially one, differing 
 in degree but not in kind. Though, from the argument 
 as presented, we are expected to infer that man may feel 
 remorse such as conscience is fitted to produce, simply 
 because he has yielded to a stronger instinctive desire, 
 thereby doing what judgment pronounces detrimental 
 to the good of the community, we resolutely refuse to 
 gratify the cherished expectation. 
 
 Most persons believe in " absolute morality," main- 
 taining that notion of conscience which makes it to 
 differ from even the noblest of mere animal instincts. 
 It is viewed as erecting its own standard of right and 
 compelling one, as he views past conduct, to approve or 
 condemn. For a course of conduct which an awakened 
 moral sense disapproves, no matter how powerful were 
 the temptations, the transgressor is forced to feel regret, 
 sometimes keen and long-continued remorse. In this 
 respect man differs from the animal creation almost as 
 widely as it is possible to conceive. 
 
 As already intimated, the acceptance of the proposed 
 theory carries with it the belief that " the right" and " the 
 useful," two distinct ideas, are essentially identical and 
 have a common origin. Even on this hypothesis, the 
 task of proving that the moral sense of man was developed 
 from the social instincts of apes would be an arduous 
 one; for to speak of social instincts having their origin 
 in selfishnesss and ripening into self-denial appears 
 absurd; nor is there less absurdity, in assuming that a 
 regard to the highest happiness of the largest number 
 could have evolved a conscience sufficiently sensitive 
 to condemn practices which a majority of every commu- 
 nity must have considered conducive to the well-being 
 of all; and the absurdity, though perhaps less easily 
 comprehended, is but little diminished, indeed in the 
 
92 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 minds of some is augmented, by supposing that the 
 social instincts of brutes developed a moral sense capable 
 of enacting and enforcing laws which no amount of in- 
 telligence, without the assistance of lessons from expe- 
 rience, could pronounce well-adapted to promote the 
 good of society, being destructive, apparently, to the 
 prospective as well as to the present interests of a large 
 majority. How, for example, could man have acquired 
 his ideas in reference to honesty ? " Honesty," as Mr. 
 Hutton says, " must have been associated by our ances- 
 tors with many unhappy as well as many happy conse- 
 quences, and we know that in ancient Greece dishonesty 
 was openly and actually associated with happy conse- 
 quences." How came our ancestors, in the days of 
 " miserable savagery," or in their previous ape-condition, 
 to look upon marriage within certain degrees of con- 
 sanguinity as improper ? "Savages," says Mr. Wallace, 
 " choose their wives for rude health and physical beauty." 
 It is highly improbable, even if they were able to per- 
 ceive resultant evils, that they could be induced to 
 condemn incestuous intercourse, much less to discontinue 
 it. And yet, among many savages, so great is the 
 repugnance to such unions that they are rigorously 
 forbidden, though the will of the husband alone de- 
 termines the duration of the marriage contract. Among 
 the Fiji-Islanders, brothers and sisters, mothers and 
 sons-in-law, fathers and daughters-in-law, brothers-in- 
 law and sisters-in-law are forbidden to speak to each 
 other or to eat from the same dish. In Australia, a man 
 may steal another man's wife, but he may not have a 
 woman of the same name as his own, lest possibly she 
 may be a remote relative. The Eskimos frequently ex- 
 change wives as an act of friendship, but care is taken 
 to prevent the union of blood-relatives. This abhor- 
 
MAN'S MORAL NATURE. 93 
 
 rence of intercourse within prohibited degrees could 
 hardly have originated among savages; and to conjec- 
 ture that it may have arisen in the simial family is to 
 ignore the fact that monkeys of every class are in a 
 pre-eminent degree exempt from sensitiveness upon such 
 subjects. 
 
 Nor is it less difficult to perceive how "the advan- 
 tageous" could have been transmuted into self-sacrifice; 
 into temperance, chastity, truthfulness, gratitude, etc. 
 Regard to the well-being of society is not the only 
 element in these and kindred virtues. They evidently 
 include devotion to God. It is perhaps possible to con- 
 ceive that feelings of approbation or of disapprobation, 
 sufficiently powerful to prove advantageous to a limited 
 community, may have been transmitted through natural 
 selection. But as the stream cannot rise higher than 
 the fountain, it is impossible to conclude that these 
 feeble emotions could have developed the ennobling con- 
 ception of duty. The distinction between " the advan- 
 tageous " and the "obligatory" is so fundamental that 
 the idea of benefit does not enter into the idea of right. 
 " The advantageous " and " the pleasurable " are not 
 contained in the idea of " duty," not even in germ-form. 
 This is conceded by Herbert Spencer, the philosophical 
 exponent of evolution, though he nevertheless maintains 
 that "the experiences of utility, organized and consoli- 
 dated through all past generations of the human race, 
 have been producing corresponding nervous modifications 
 . . . which have no apparent basis in the individual expe- 
 riences of utility." 
 
 It is moreover worthy of note that the theory in ques- 
 tion proceeds upon the assumption that apes, and even 
 inferior animals, possess what man has not attained to, 
 an unerring instinct telling what is for the good of the 
 
9-1 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 largest number; nay, more, it assumes that they are cap- 
 able of ignoring the lessons of experience and even con- 
 vincing their companions that more conscientious courses 
 would result in greater good, not to the individual, pos- 
 sibly not even to the existing generation, but to the race 
 in the lapse of centuries. 
 
 To believe that the social instincts were the germi- 
 nating principle of man's moral nature, and that, by the 
 aid of the intellect and through the force of unconquer- 
 able habit, they ultimately issued into the golden rule, 
 requires a degree of credulity which few can hope to 
 reach; and to conceive, as this theory does, that devotion 
 to God and self-sacrifice, and even gratitude, have been 
 developed from. the unselfishness necessary to the better 
 preseveration of brute communities is, in the opinion of 
 most persons, a simple impossibility. 
 
 The point of the foregoing process of reasoning is not 
 blunted by saying, The result merely ensues from the 
 survival of the fittest; for how, we may ask, could any 
 considerable number within the limits of the same tribe 
 become possessed of the moral qualities ? Evidently 
 they could not; and the remainder of the tribe being in- 
 capable of appreciating this high moral tone could not 
 transmit it; nor could the few, since the powerful influence 
 of the many would destroy the slight advances made by 
 a small minority. The variations of individuals become 
 eliminated by the mere force of numbers. Thus the lives 
 of the more moral (rendered more moral to benefit com- 
 munity), would be a self-sacrifice without the faintest 
 hope of benefitting succeeding generations — a martyrdom 
 such as man has never been called upon to undergo. 
 
 Darwin, perceiving the cogency of this line of reasoning, 
 assigns two agencies through the operation of which he 
 thinks a large number of the members of any tribe might 
 
MAN'S MORAL NATURE. 95 
 
 have become possessed of these social and moral qualities; 
 namely, the perception that assistance is the loan for 
 assistance, and the effect of praise and blame. These, 
 however, must be powerless just where potency is 
 needed. 
 
 If we were to admit that well-defined moral qualities, 
 having their foundation in utility, may possibly have been 
 acquired by a few members or by a majority of some tribe, 
 could it be shown that these qualities would probably be 
 transmitted from generation to generation ? — could it be 
 proved that they actually were transmitted? Neither, as we 
 think. It is difficult to discover any ground for the be- 
 lief that a majority of any monkey tribe could transmit 
 moral qualities which have an origin no nobler and a 
 character no more enduring than that imparted to them 
 by the survival of individuals having infinitesimal measures 
 of increased regard to the good of the community. 
 Moral qualities, such as connect themselves with a law 
 inwoven with human nature, are indeed transmissible. 
 It is undeniable, however, that senseless customs, super- 
 stitious practices and meaningless moral distinctions, 
 though widely prevalent and powerful for centuries, can- 
 not be transmitted from parents to children. The Hin- 
 doo father does not transmit his horror of unclean food, 
 though he may transmit his detestation of falsehood. 
 The Mohammedan mother has been known to transmit 
 her inclination to theft — as have also wealthy parents in 
 civilized society, as is testified to by kleptomania — but 
 she has not been known to transmit, except by instruc- 
 tion, her shame of appearing in public with unveiled face. 
 The children of the Hottentot may indeed inherit his 
 veneration of some higher power, but not his supersti- 
 tious reverence for meaningless religious customs. Facts 
 such as these, and they are numerous, would certainly 
 
9G THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 seem to indicate that moral laws are an essential and 
 not an accidental part of human nature; that they are 
 an indestructible portion of man's constitution and not 
 something engrafted thereon. 
 
 That the moral sense possesses an authority such as 
 is not possible to inherited tendencies, even should they be- 
 come a powerful bias regularly transmitted, is the nearly 
 unanimous conviction of moral philosophers. The ap- 
 proval of right and the disapprobation of wrong are ac- 
 companied with a deep-seated persuasion of supernatural 
 authority. Truth, honesty, the spirit of self-sacrifice — 
 all the virtures — are considered praise-worthy and oblig- 
 atory, not merely, nor mainly, because the noblest of the 
 human family have commended them, but in a pre-emi- 
 nent degree because they are believed to have the sanc- 
 tion of a Supreme Being, by whom the love of them was 
 inwoven with man's better nature. In like manner, false- 
 hood, envy, selfishness, rascality — all the vices — are 
 deemed despicable, not simply because moralists have 
 dared to condemn them, nor because of a wide-spread 
 conviction that they are poorly adapted to secure either 
 present or future advantages, but because most persons 
 are forced to conclude that man's nobler nature, as it 
 came from the hand of its Creator, involuntarily con- 
 demns them. It would be difficult to assign any other 
 satisfactory reason. Certainly the most brilliant success 
 has sometimes accompanied craft, dissimulation, knavery, 
 and selfishness. 
 
 Again: if the social instincts are the basis of con- 
 science, all persons, or nearly all, ought to approve what 
 society recognizes as right. Such, however, is not the 
 case. Every person, besides being capable of forming 
 estimates respecting his own acts, also forms judgments 
 in reference to the conduct of others, thoroughly persuaded 
 
MAN'S MORAL NATURE. 97 
 
 that right is right and wrong is wrong independent of 
 man's beliefsand practices. His judgment is independent. 
 He believes himself accountable to God alone. As a 
 right delegated from heaven he exercises the privilege of 
 holding others to a standard of rectitude, though he admits 
 that man's conceptions of duty vary, owing to prejudice 
 and ignorance. Whilst deeming it folly to condemn the 
 conduct of brutes, because they possess no moral sense, 
 he is impelled by an inward necessity to entertain an 
 opinion respecting the moral acts of every sane person. 
 Convinced that all possess conscience, which, though 
 often resembling a palace in ruins, yet speaks of a more 
 glorious past and invites to a nobler future, he considers 
 no argument necessary to prove that it is an original ele- 
 ment in human nature. The denial of this, on the part 
 of an occasional reasoner, has little or no effect in de- 
 stroying his faith in the validity of the argument. Athe- 
 ists exist. They have advanced labored arguments to 
 substantiate their position. This has not induced theo- 
 logians to concede that there is no argument in the 
 testimony of the human family to the existence of a 
 Supreme Being. 
 
 Will any one pretend to affirm that this " social in- 
 stinct " theory accounts for the fact that an act is deemed 
 praise-worthy in exact proportion to the unselfishness 
 that characterizes it ? The existence of unselfish qualities 
 in our ape-like progenitors would have impeded the 
 improvement of the species. The development of useful 
 qualities is perhaps conceivable, but the development of 
 qualities tending to deterioration is irreconcilable with 
 the theory. We may safely challenge the evolutionist 
 to furnish an instance in which " the disadvantageous " 
 has been transmuted into conscience. His chances for 
 success are slight. 
 
98 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 So cogent is the argument which we have attempted 
 to outline, that most persons, even those who deny a 
 supernatural revelation, are ready to admit that the 
 clearest evidences of man's having been created in God's 
 image are found in his moral nature. To see beauty in 
 goodness, and charity, and forgiveness, and love; to 
 admire them even when they are not permitted to mold 
 the life; to condemn wrong-doing, even when practicing 
 it,— these are strong proofs that conscience is an essential 
 element of human nature, the direct workmanship of " a 
 hand divine." 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 MAN'S RELIGIOUS NATURE. 
 
 It is nearly impossible to resist the conviction that the 
 hypothesis of man's origin from the ape-family is en- 
 vironed with difficulties more numerous and more serious 
 than those which connect themselves with the theory of 
 his immediate creation. Nor is any one disposed to deny 
 that difficulties which are formidable in connection with 
 the assumed transmutation of animal instincts into rea- 
 son and conscience become nearly or quite insurmount- 
 able in conjunction with the question, " Is man's religious 
 nature an evolution ? " Moreover, every unbiased in- 
 vestigator will be inclined to concede that the arguments 
 presented by the advocates of the development-theory 
 become fewer and feebler in exact proportion as the more 
 intricate portions of the problem come under review, the 
 reasoning being weakest just where it should be the 
 most powerful. The greatest force is laid upon the evo- 
 lution of the physical nature, where confessedly man ap- 
 proximates most nearly to the brute-creation; less, upon 
 that of the mental, where manifestly the difference is 
 wider; still less, upon that of the moral, where the di- 
 vergence is even greater; least of all, upon that of the 
 religious, where the difference amounts to a measureless 
 chasm. This will become apparent if we present in 
 succinct form all the arguments we have been able to 
 discover in the many books which assert or assume 
 
100 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 man's evolution from inferior animals. These arguments, 
 as we might expect, proceed upon the assumption that 
 civilized man, in reaching his present advanced position, 
 has passed through a state of absolute savagery. 
 
 The task now before us is to answer the following 
 argument: — 
 
 " There is no evidence that man was aboriginally en- 
 dowed with the ennobling belief in the existence of an 
 Omnipotent God " (Darwin's Descent of Man, vol. i. 
 p. 62). "There is abundant evidence .... that nu- 
 merous races have existed and still exist, who have no 
 idea of one or more gods, and who have no words in 
 their language to express such an idea " {Idem, p. 63). 
 The Paraguay Indians, according to Azara, had no ideas 
 of religion. Sir John Lubbock says, " According to the 
 missionaries, neither the Patagonians nor the Arauca- 
 nians had any ideas of prayer, or any vestige of religious 
 worship" [Prehistoric Times, p. 536). Among the 
 Fuegians, Admiral Fitzroy " never witnessed or heard 
 of any act of a decidedly religious nature " {Idem, p. 
 541). According to Crantz, the Greenland Eskimos 
 " have neither a religious nor idolatrous worship, nor so 
 much as any ceremonies to be perceived tending thereto." 
 Heme states that the North American Indians had 
 no religion: Colden, that the celebrated "five nations" 
 of Canada had no religion and no word for God. " Bur- 
 net," says Lubbock, "found no semblance of worship 
 among the Comanches." " The Andaman Indians are 
 stated," says Lubbock, " to have no idea of a Supreme 
 Being" {Prehistoric Times, p. 437). "The Austra- 
 lians have no systematized religion, nor any worship or 
 prayer" {Idem, p. 447). Some savages, it thus appears, 
 have been discovered who have no religion whatever- - 
 some say very many. What follows? "Such," says 
 
MAN'S RELIGIOUS NATURE. 101 
 
 Lubbock, "was probably the condition of primeval man." 
 Why draw this inference ? " Because it is difficult to 
 believe that any people who once possessed religion 
 would ever entirely lose it." Wherein consists the diffi- 
 culty ? " Religion appeals so strongly to the hopes and 
 the fears of men, it is so great a consolation in times of 
 sorrow and sickness, that it is hard to think that any 
 nation would ever abandon it altogether." Though so 
 many savage tribes are utterly destitute of religion, still, 
 " if we include under the term religion the belief in 
 unseen or spiritual agencies, the case is wholly different; 
 for this belief seems to be almost universal with the 
 less civilized races " (Darwin's Descent of Man, vol. i. 
 p. 63). Though a savage is utterly incapable of expe- 
 riencing religious devotion, which consists in love, sub- 
 mission, fear, and gratitude; nevertheless, as he passes 
 from savagery to civilization, he converts belief in unseen 
 influences into fetishism, polytheism, pantheism, mono- 
 theism. Thus the higher forms of religion are evidently 
 products of human thought, man's religious ideas becom- 
 ing more complex and more spiritual as he advances in 
 intellectual and moral attainments. To this spiritual 
 sentiment we have some distant approach in the deep 
 love of a dog for his master. Indeed, Professor Braubach 
 " goes so far as to maintain that a dog looks on his 
 master as a god." 
 
 The first sentence in the above paragraph is a sweep- 
 ing assertion adroitly worded and quite manifestly de- 
 signed to clear the ground preparatory to the establish- 
 ment of an opposite theory. Prone, as evolutionists too 
 frequently are, to assign existing effects to causes which 
 have not been proved adequate, Mr. Darwin seems dis- 
 posed to consider it unnecessary to account for man's re- 
 ligious nature — simply denying that it was an original 
 
102 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 endowment and leaving his readers to conclude that of 
 course it is a subsequent evolution. Is this denial so 
 easy of acceptance that it may be safely left unsup- 
 ported ? or does it stand unaccompanied with proof be- 
 cause of the difficulty in presenting evidence to substan- 
 tiate it ? " No evidence"? Whence then the basis in 
 which inheres the sense of obligation to moral law ? 
 Whence the conviction, which is quite general, that our 
 relations to Deity are more intimate and more powerful 
 than the tie resulting from commands arbitrarily given ? 
 How does it happen that so many entertain the convic- 
 tion that there is a Supreme Being who possesses moral 
 excellencies which man's constitution forces him to re- 
 vere ? Why is the command, " Thou shalt love the Lord 
 thy God," capable of influencing the human family ? Is 
 it merely because the religious emotions have congealed 
 into a confirmed habit through the operation of Natural 
 Selection ? Then whence came the original germ of 
 these emotions ? These savages, who are declared to 
 be, and to have been through all past generations, entirely 
 devoid of religion, why are they susceptible to spiritual 
 ideas ? How did they become capable of conceiving of 
 God as a being of truth, goodness, love, and power ? If 
 their ancestors were not endowed aboriginally with the 
 ennobling belief in the existence of an Omnipotent God, 
 they must have been endowed with a religious nature, 
 unless we are prepared to admit, contrary to the teach- 
 ing of evolution, that this noblest of faculties may be 
 developed, not by the tardy process of Natural Selec- 
 tion, but in a few months by instruction. To be with- 
 out religion is one thing, to be incapable of becoming 
 religious is another. Which of the two are we to under- 
 stand was man's original condition ? Evidently the lat- 
 ter was not his condition; for the irreligious savage, who 
 
MAN'S RELIGIOUS NATURE. 103 
 
 is declared to be in this respect as far advanced as the 
 first man, cannot only be inspired with a conception of 
 God as the embodiment in infinite measure of all moral 
 excellency, but can be induced to give expression to the 
 reverential feelings of his heart — indeed, he is self-moved 
 to worship. Reveal to him the evidences of divine love 
 exerted in bestowing blessings and he is forced to bow in 
 adoring gratitude. This religious element, to which there 
 is not the slightest approximation in the lower animals, 
 enables his soul to cling to his Father above even as the 
 ivy clings to the rock. 
 
 In reference to those tribes which are said to be desti- 
 tute of religion, there is conflicting testimony; though, 
 even if they were without " the ennobling belief in the ex- 
 istence of an Omnipotent God," and even without any re- 
 ligious ideas, it would not follow that they were destitute 
 of a religious nature. Besides, whether they maybe said 
 to have religion depends upon the definition we give to 
 the term. We are ready to concede that if by religion is 
 meant a reasonably correct conception of a Supreme Be- 
 ing and of accountability to Him, or if the term is in- 
 tended as an equivalent for moral convictions which impel 
 to purer lives, or if it includes definite ideas in reference 
 to the immortality of the soul, and no ideas except those 
 which are definite; then, undoubtedly, there are savage 
 tribes devoid of religion: but we insist that if religion is a 
 term which covers belief in, and fear of, mysterious beings 
 more powerful than men, if it may be applied to a vague 
 apprehension of evil consequences as penalties of wrong- 
 doing, if it bears any relation whatever to witchcraft, 
 if it includes ill-defined notions in reference to the con- 
 tinued existence of the soul after death, then savages, 
 probably without a single exception, are religious. The 
 universality of these beliefs among savages is conceded 
 
101 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 by all, even by Lubbock. " Even in his religion, if he 
 has any, the savage creates for. himself a new source of 
 terror, and peoples the world with invisible enemies " 
 {Prehistoric Times, p. 595). " It is not too much to 
 say that the horrible dread of unknown evil hangs like 
 a thick cloud over savage life, and embitters every 
 pleasure" {Idem, p. 583). 
 
 The Paraguay Indians were believers in witchcraft and 
 in mysterious evil beings. Who is able to prove that 
 these beliefs were not the wretched remnants of a spir- 
 itual worship once enjoyed by their more enlightened 
 ancestors? The inhabitants of the southern portion of 
 South America have a vague notion and a horrible fear 
 of a Supernatural Being who is believed to reside in the 
 thick swampy forests: Falkner affirms that the Patago- 
 nians are polytheists. Though Admiral Fitzroy "never 
 witnessed among the Fuegians any act decidedly relig- 
 ious," they certainly believe in a mysterious being, if the 
 testimony of reliable travelers has any worth. The fun- 
 eral rites of the Eskimos indicate belief in the immortality 
 of the soul. It will require more than the testimony of 
 Heme to prove that the North American Indians had no 
 religion. The almost uniform testimony of those most 
 conversant with the facts leaves little room to doubt that, 
 with scarcely an exception, they possessed religious be- 
 liefs and engaged in acts of worship. 
 
 " Lo, the poor Indian, whose untutored mind 
 Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind; 
 His soul proud science never taught to stray 
 Far as the solar walk, or milky way; 
 Yet simple nature to his hope has given, 
 Behind the cloud-topped hill, an humbler heaven." 
 
 It may be true, as Lubbock affirms, that " the Aus- 
 tralians have no systematized religion, nor any worship 
 or prayer," but, according to his own concession, "most 
 
MAN'S RELIGIOUS NATURE. 105 
 
 of them believe in evil spirits and all have a great dread 
 of the dark and of witchcraft; " and the burial of imple- 
 ments and arms with the dead is considered as testimony 
 to belief in the continued existence of the soul. 
 
 The Fiji-Islanders possessed a mythology resembling 
 that of Greece and Rome — having gods of peace, of war, 
 of agriculture, of good, of evil, etc. They had temples, 
 pyramidal in form, which were erected on terraced 
 mounds as those of Central America. They also vener- 
 ated upright stones, as the ancient Druids did. So strong 
 was their faith in a future state, and so potent their con- 
 viction that as they left this world so would they con- 
 tinue eternally, that children as an act of religion buried 
 their parents alive ere the infirmities of age should come 
 on — the parents cordially and joyously acquiescing. It 
 was a solemn religious duty, a sacred filial obligation. 
 Children and parents were alike interested in securing 
 departure to a better land while strength and health 
 remained unimpaired. The custom we may properly 
 regard as horrible to the last degree, but it testifies to 
 strong faith in the immortality of the soul, and even to 
 kindliness of disposition, though it is indeed a kindliness 
 begotten of a false philosophy. 
 
 We might instance other savages — many of them 
 among the lowest, as the Hottentots and the Bushmen — 
 who undoubtedly possess religious beliefs. Enough evi- 
 dence has been presented, however, to answer our pur- 
 pose. Certainly he who takes the pains to examine the 
 facts will be convinced that a majority of savages, if 
 not all, have some religious ideas and engage in acts 
 of worship, though it is true that these are frequently 
 horrid in the extreme. 
 
 In weighing the testimony presented by Lubbock and 
 others, it is well to bear in mind that travelers may 
 
106 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 easily be mistaken; that some are careless; that others 
 may entertain strong prejudices; that even the most 
 cautious may be deceived, for there are tribes, partic- 
 ularly in Africa according to Livingstone, who con- 
 sider it sacrilege to acknowledge to strangers their faith 
 in the existence of a Supreme Being. Even to hint at 
 His attributes is regarded as likely to entail the most 
 terrible penalties. 
 
 Even suppose it has been proved, or shall be proved, 
 that some savage tribes have no religion whatever, does 
 it follow that " such was probably the condition cf prime- 
 val man " ? Certainly not: for the majority have some 
 form of religious faith. Why infer that the few are more 
 likely to represent the condition of our ancestors than 
 the many ? Is it easier to believe that the many have 
 M evolved " religion than that the few may have lost it ? 
 Is improvement in religion more frequent than deteri- 
 oration ? Is religious faith one of the few things which 
 man has never lost ? The fact that man, whether sav- 
 age or civilized, both collectively and individually, may 
 be destitute of religion, has as much weight in proving 
 that human nature may sneeringly disregard its highest 
 interests till degeneration ensues, as in proving that its 
 aboriginal condition was one devoid of spiritual emotions. 
 Certainly the loss of these, so far at least as they may be 
 operative for good, is not a thing so infrequent as to 
 render it improbable that any barbarous tribes should 
 have abandoned them. Manifestly the appeals of false 
 systems of faith to man's hopes and fears are insufficient 
 to keep the baser nature in subjection. Experience has 
 shown that in many instances even the claims of true 
 religion have been inadequate to prevent the vicious from 
 spitefully disowning them. Are we not justified, there- 
 fore, in concluding that reason sanctions the declaration 
 
MAN'S RELIGIOUS NATURE. 107 
 
 of Paul, made in reference to the Gentile world, " Even 
 as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, 
 God gave them over to a reprobate mind"? ''For this 
 cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they 
 should believe a lie." 
 
 It is conceded that among savages the belief in spirit- 
 ual agencies is almost or q.uite universal. This is granted 
 by both Darwin and Lubbock — indeed, is strongly as- 
 serted. Does not this yield the ground upon which their 
 argument is based ? No one claims that savage races 
 are civilized nations. Their beliefs must correspond 
 with their condition. Degraded in morals and degraded 
 in intellect, could they be otherwise than degraded in re- 
 ligion ? Does the mere fact that there are degraded sys- 
 tems of faith prove that man's progenitors were irreligious 
 savages ? Then the simple fact that there are ennobling 
 systems of faith is still more potent in proving that the 
 first man was an enlightened theist. The former argu- 
 ment proceeds upon the assumption that because the 
 religious element is feeble or perverted in savages, there- 
 fore it had no existence in primitive man; the latter 
 bases itself upon the fact that as the religious element 
 is universal, existing even in degraded barbarians, and 
 powerful in intellectual nations, therefore it must have 
 existed in its noblest form in the person of man's pro- 
 genitor. If the belief of savages in some mysterious being 
 or in some unseen influence establishes the theory that 
 man's primeval condition was one of irreligious sav- 
 agery, then the existence among civilized nations, and 
 especially among the ancient Egyptians, Assyrians, and 
 Tyrians, of elevating religious conceptions, proves that 
 the first man was an intelligently religious being. Since 
 spiritual ideas prevail, in many instances even among 
 savages, they must have descended from pious ancestors. 
 
108 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 It is evident, however, that the concession in question 
 was intended to look in an opposite direction. It was 
 designed to prepare the way for the reception of this 
 proposition, 4< Belief in spiritual agencies would easily 
 pass into the belief in the existence of one or more gods." 
 It was necessary to discover among barbarians a germ 
 from which religion might be developed, for it is some- 
 what difficult to understand how evolution can produce 
 entirely new faculties, though this is a necessary part of 
 its arduous task. The existence among rude tribes of 
 an indefinable dread of some mysterious being, aids our 
 opponents in marking one stage in the journey passed 
 from apedom to manhood. It assists in producing the 
 conviction that during the period prior to the develop- 
 ment of the religious nature, no agencies tending to its 
 production were needed, since in a comparatively few 
 centuries an undefined awe has effected changes so vast 
 and ennobling. If we can be induced to admit that 
 theism has been developed from superstition, it will be 
 easier to admit that superstition has been evolved from 
 an animal's respect for superior power and intelligence — 
 thus the entire religious nature, complex in its character 
 and having vital connections with all man's faculties, 
 will be accepted as a gradual evolution. But does belief 
 in spiritual agencies easily pass, unassisted by instruction, 
 into the belief in the existence of one or more gods ? 
 What savage tribe, unaided by instructors from without, 
 has ever abandoned its superstitions for an intelligent 
 faith ? What tribe has gradually worked itself into poly- 
 theism and through that into monotheism ? 
 
 The feeling of the barbarian towards superior beings 
 is, we arc told, like that of the horse or the dog towards 
 his master. Until this has been proved no notice need 
 be taken of it; when it has been proved christians will 
 
MAN'S RELIGIOUS NATURE. 109 
 
 have fresh occasion for glorying. They will be justified 
 :n rejoicing that Christianity has such potency, being able 
 not merely to evolve theism out of atheism, but capable 
 even of developing the doctrine of the soul's immortality 
 out of the vague conceptions of miserable savages; that 
 possibly the cow, the tree, and the house, as well as man, 
 may continue existence upon the sunny plains of Bolotoo; 
 nay, being even equal to the task of teaching the chris- 
 tian code of morals to those who in their primitive state 
 are incapable of distinguishing right from wrong, and 
 who cannot count more than three. That our opponent's 
 theory furnishes the means of flattering human nature 
 can scarcely be denied; and its advocates have employed 
 it in some instances quite liberally. 
 
 In the face of incontrovertible facts, have we the 
 right to maintain that man has been continuously ad- 
 vancing in religious knowledge ? Most investigators 
 say, No. Max Miiller affirms, " If there is one thing 
 which a comparative study of religions places in the 
 clearest light, it is the inevitable decay to which every 
 religion is exposed." An unbiased examination of those 
 which have prevailed since B. C. 2000 will evidence the 
 difficulty of believing that the christian's ennobling con- 
 ception of Deity is the mere product of human thought. 
 That religions, with few if any exceptions, have deterio- 
 rated is an undeniable fact; that they have become with 
 successive centuries more elevating in their nature, more 
 spiritual in their conceptions, purer in morality, and less 
 meaningless in the ceremonies employed has not been 
 proved. On the contrary it can be shown, we believe, 
 that the earliest religions of which traces exist were com- 
 paratively pure, and simple in their ceremonies — were 
 forms of monotheism. That such was the case in ancient 
 Egypt is generally conceded. As we go backwards 
 
110 THEISM AND EVOLUTION 
 
 through its successive dynasties — through the New, the 
 Middle, and the Old Empires — till we reach the remote 
 period when Upper and Lower Egypt were consolidated 
 into one empire under Menes, we discover more spiritual 
 forms of worship till we reach monotheism. The asser- 
 tion that civilized man has passed successively through 
 fetishism, polytheism, etc., is incapable of proof; nay, it 
 is in the face of well established facts. 
 
 " Religion once was natural, 
 Priests made it mystery, offerings made it gain; 
 To roast fat oxen altars next were reared, 
 And priests ate roast meat while the people starved." 
 
 To say that religion is the product of human thought 
 is to do more than enter a protest against emotional 
 forms of piety; it is a denial that man came from the 
 hand of his Maker a religious being. To consider the 
 knowledge which comes to us through the laws of thought 
 the sole source of religion, is somewhat like tracing the 
 river to the stagnant pool at the foot of the mountain, 
 but refusing to press to the fountain that bursts forth 
 from the sides of the everlasting hills. To believe that 
 religion is man's production may produce a pleasant sen- 
 sation, but it fails to meet the demands of a rigid inves- 
 tigation. If it is the result of human thought, why are 
 all, even lowest savages, susceptible to its impressions ? 
 
 Though there are some reasoners who are disposed to 
 assert that there is in nature, independent of a Superin- 
 tending Being, an orderly arrangement which evinces the 
 existence of an all-pervading intelligence, and that this 
 intelligence, in whatsoever organisms it manifests itself, 
 is self-evolved — the same in kind, differing merely in 
 degree — and that religion is a result of self-acquired 
 knowledge; still, it is safe to affirm that the majority of 
 the human family can never be induced to surrender the 
 
MAN'S RELIGIOUS NATURE. HI 
 
 belief that the spiritual element in human nature is an 
 original and essential characteristic, the immediate crea- 
 tion of the First Cause of all things. 
 
 Even granting that the religious sentiment principally 
 " busies itself with a wish, a hope and a fear," it does not 
 follow that it has no nobler origin. Because a philos- 
 opher employs his reasoning powers upon the meta- 
 physics of religion, are we at liberty to infer that his 
 discursive faculties had their origin in the love of 
 abstract thought ? 
 
 This school of religious thought assumes that a myth 
 is necessary to religious belief in pre-historic periods, and 
 even since in some nations. A myth is defined as an 
 endeavor to realize the unknown as a power to grant or 
 refuse a wish. The motives impelling to this attempt are 
 affirmed to be " an innate consciousness," " a force," and 
 " a succession of changes," with " a yearning to explain 
 existing phenomena." Whence this " innate conscious- 
 ness " ? Whence this indefinable " yearning " ? If we 
 were to affirm that they were implanted at creation, could 
 the statement be disproved ? To say the least, chris- 
 tians have as good a right to ask their adversaries to 
 undertake its refutation as they have to expect us to re- 
 fute their unfounded assertions. Certainly the Scriptural 
 doctrine is as satisfactory and more logical than the the- 
 ory which assumes that religion is a result of evolution, 
 a development without even an original germ of religious 
 feeling. 
 
 Whilst it is patent to all that evolutionists make no 
 effort to show us how the higher forms of human thought 
 have been developed from animal instincts, it is scarcely 
 less evident that in the endeavor to evolve the germs of 
 intellect, of moral sense, and of religious emotion, they 
 proclaim themselves alchemists in psychology, successors 
 
112 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 in a higher sphere of the chemical transmutationists of 
 the dark ages. Mingling animal ingredients, and repeat- 
 ing an incantation composed of fanciful analogies and 
 adroit assumptions, they confidently affirm that they are 
 able to distil human essence, whence may be evolved all 
 the races of men and even the marvelous works of human 
 genius, no Creator being needed unless possibly the 
 hypothesis of his existence may be necessary to account 
 for the origin of one or two primordial germs. Perhaps 
 they may find themselves pursuing a mere illusion. It is 
 possible, however, that like their renowned predecessors 
 they may stimulate investigation, which, notwithstanding 
 the incidental mischief done, may result in establishing 
 truth on an immovable basis. 
 
 With firm faith in the final adoption, even by scientific 
 men, of the Scriptural account of man's origin, we do 
 well to note the fact that evolutionists have chosen a 
 mode of arguing that is unscientific. They have virtually 
 abandoned the inductive method. 
 
 True, they still profess to pursue it while substituting 
 hypotheses and suggestions and analogies and a priori 
 reasoning. They seem to have forgotten the scientific 
 requirement that in interpreting nature only causes which 
 have a real existence and are adequate to the production 
 of the effect are to be taken into consideration. Causes 
 are assumed whose existence cannot be satisfactorily 
 proved, much less can they be shown to possess potency 
 adequate to the production of the effects attributed to 
 them. In not a few instances, the explanations given 
 proceed upon the principle that the effect produces the 
 cause. Mr. Darwin when attempting to account for the 
 origin of human affection, assumes that in animals the 
 desire of caressing springs from the habit of caressing. 
 He also traces the growth of speech to man's mental 
 
MAN'S RELIGIOUS NATURE. 113 
 
 power and the growth of mental power to the use. of 
 language. 
 
 Professor Tyndal boldly defends the a priori method 
 of procedure, claiming free scope for the imagination 
 and unrestricted liberty to the discursive faculties. In 
 this he has the endorsement of Mr. Herbert Spencer, 
 whose method of reasoning is emphatically a priori. 
 Whoever will take the pains to examine his writings 
 will find, amid much that is admirable and not a little 
 that is somewhat misty, clear evidence that the induc- 
 tive method has been abandoned. Thus it happens 
 that though evolutionists have not succeeded in proving 
 that a single savage has descended from the monkey 
 family, nor indeed that such evolution is possible, they 
 nevertheless expect us to believe their theory. If we ob- 
 ject, they assure us that the element of time will certainly 
 work these transformations, though no attempt is made to 
 show that the lapse of time will affect the problem; nay. 
 it is not even proved that these insensible gradations be- 
 come perceptible after the expiration of fifty centuries. A 
 vivid imagination and a strong subjective faith may be con- 
 sidered as dispensing with the necessity of an objective 
 verification. In the place of Tertullian's maxim, "Credo 
 quia impossibile est," they seem disposed to substitute 
 11 Credo quia comprehensibile est." If under the glare of 
 their cherished theory certain propositions are to them con- 
 ceivable, the inference is drawn — especially if phenomena 
 hitherto inexplicable are seemingly solved — that they 
 have removed the veil from nature's laboratory, disclosing 
 the actual processes by which higher forms were suc- 
 cessively introduced till the phantasmagorial procession 
 ended in man's appeara-nce upon the stage as an unclothed 
 savage. Whilst ignoring all parts of the problem except 
 those which may be more readily connected with brute 
 
11 4 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 instincts, they expect us to believe that science enjoins 
 the acceptance of the doctrine that man in all his facul- 
 ties is the natural offspring of some branch of the simial 
 family. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 1. Has it been proved that man's religious nature was 
 not an original endowment ? No. 
 
 2. Has it been proved that because some savages are 
 without religion, therefore this was man's original con- 
 dition ? No. 
 
 3. Has it been proved that man, if he once possessed 
 religion, could not lose it ? No. 
 
 4. Has it been proved that a vague faith in mysterious 
 beings can evolve itself into theism, provided, a few thou- 
 sand or a few million years are thrown in as a co-operat- 
 ing agent ? No. 
 
 5. Has it been proved that religion is a product of 
 human thought ? — that it is the driftwood thrown upon 
 the shore of the agitated ocean of human feeling ? — that 
 it may have had its origin in an ill-defined " wish, hope, 
 and fear " ? No. 
 
 6. Has it been proved that savages have arisen, un- 
 aided, to an adequate conception of their relations to 
 Deity ? No. " Some savages have no religion." Have 
 any of them acquired a system of religious faith by their 
 own exertions ? The theory that a race can advance by 
 its own unassisted efforts from a lower to a higher relig- 
 ious faith is unsupported by facts. It may rise by in- 
 struction; but of what avail is instruction if there is no 
 in-born power ? Some barbarians have religious ideas. 
 How did they acquire them ? The simplest answer is 
 that they were carried clown with them as they sank into 
 moral degeneracy. 
 
MAN'S RELIGIOUS NATURE. 115 
 
 7. Has it been proved that man, if originally an 
 irreligious savage, could have evolved religion ? No; 
 far from proving that man has developed religion, it has 
 not yet been proved that he could do so. 
 
 8. Has it been proved that the earliest races were 
 without a moral and religious nature ? No: it has not 
 even been proved that they were without spiritual ideas 
 and religious ceremonies. 
 
 9. Has it been proved that man's worship is the same 
 in kind as the feeling of a dog towards his master ? No. 
 
 10. Has it been proved that the accepted theory is en- 
 vironed with more difficulties than the new hypothesis ? 
 No. " The old is better." 
 
 It is for our readers to judge to what extent we have 
 aided them in perceiving that the time-honored doctrine 
 is tenable, logical and consistent with facts. 
 
 As a rule attacks upon Christianity, whether meta- 
 physical or scientific, do not so injure it as to obscure the 
 hope of ultimate triumph. Unfortunately, these assaults 
 may prevent its adoption by some, and may weaken the 
 faith of others, but the confidence of God's people is in 
 no respect shaken. As has been beautifully said: " Chris- 
 tianity, like Rome, has had both the Gaul and Hannibal 
 at her gates; but as the Eternal City, in the latter case, 
 calmly offered for sale, and sold at an undepreciated 
 price, the very ground on which the Carthaginian had 
 fixed his camp, with equal calmness may Christianity 
 equal her magnanimity. She may feel sure that, as in so 
 many past instances of premature triumph on the part of 
 her enemies, the ground they occupy will one day be hers 
 — that the very discoveries, apparently hostile, of science 
 and philosophy, will be ultimately found elements of her 
 strength." 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE FATHER OF THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 
 
 At this point in our discussion we are confronted with 
 the oft-repeated assertion that all forms of life owe their 
 origin to one, or at most three or four primordial germs. 
 Who then was the father of this numerous, variously 
 endowed family ? If the trilobite, which inhabited the 
 ocean when there were no shores to interrupt its waves, 
 was elder brother to the latest philosopher who has 
 soared into the regions of speculative thought; if organ- 
 isms possessing the minimum vita; were the parental 
 forms of those endowed with the maximum rationis; if 
 creatures having only par v am scintillam aninti were the 
 progenitors of modern scientists, the latter being but the 
 natural product of the united efforts of millions of pre- 
 existing animals which succeeded after billions of abortive 
 efforts in evolving an intellect capable of recognizing its 
 indebtedness to a long line of self-sacrificing ancestors- 
 apes, fish, worms, monera, etc.,— then the father of us all, 
 however respectable he may have been, evidently occu- 
 pied an humble sphere in life. Who was he, who, as his 
 family came drifting down the stream of time, left col- 
 onies which consented to continue existence that they 
 might point backwards to the beings whence they were 
 evolved and forwards to their ambitious relatives who 
 decided to go on with the process of evolution, hoping 
 that persistency in a course which had already developed 
 
THE FATHER OF THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 117 
 
 marvelous organisms might evolve some Haeckel whc 
 would undertake to write a history of the family, thereby 
 inspiring the hope that in a second period of four hun- 
 dred millions of years man might develop into some being 
 as much superior to homo sapiens as homo sapiens is 
 superior to a tadpole ? 
 
 As Darwin and Haeckel are well versed in the mystic 
 lore of the wonderful genealogical charts left by monkeySj 
 marsupials, lizards, and amoebae, we shall let them tell 
 us who was the father of earth's family of beings. We 
 might also ask them to tell us who was the father of the 
 father of animals, since we might become too much 
 bewildered were we to essay the task of tracing the 
 shadowy line of descent into the numberless species of the 
 vegetable world from some organism of which the first 
 animal ought to have been developed if the theory is true, 
 for vegetable life preceded animal life, and, as is well 
 known, the one kingdom glides into the other by such 
 insensible gradations that even those who know all things 
 worth knowing can scarcely tell where one ends and the 
 other begins. Moreover, to render the investigation 
 complete, we ought to inquire what particular plant was 
 the parent of all the rest. Having obtained a satisfactory 
 answer to this perplexing question we might be reason- 
 ably expected to inquire whence came the germ of life. 
 Did it wiggle itself out of a grain of sand ? Alas, we had 
 supposed that matter was helpless. " The despicable 
 dupes of theology " have been illogical enough to imagine 
 that if we may not regard inertia as a property of matter 
 because it is a merely negative terms, still we are not at 
 liberty to ascribe to matter the power of originating life. 
 Of the powerlessness of matter to change its condition 
 there is abundant evidence even though we may have no 
 more right to say that inertia is an essential property of 
 
118 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 matter than we have to assert that good-for-nothingncss 
 is the mark by which we can distinguish the midge from 
 every other entity in the universe. There is no proof 
 that matter can originate life. You have as much rea- 
 son for affirming that absolute helplessness created the 
 universe as for affirming that inert matter originated life. 
 We are told by Haeckel that life first appeared in " a 
 homogeneous atom of plasson"; by Huxley, that " proto- 
 plasm" is the physical basis of life. Will they ascertain 
 whence life came, what it is, and why it selected so hum- 
 ble a tabernacle in which to make its first appearance on 
 earth ? Neither protoplasm nor a homogeneous atom of 
 plasson is declared to be life, but simply the body it 
 inhabits; even if it could be proved to be life and the 
 parent of all animal and vegetable existences, the problem 
 of man's origin would not be solved, but merely rendered 
 more intricate. Science would then ask, What was the 
 origin of protoplasm ? — what was the origin of this won- 
 derful homogeneous atom ? Was matter, which is so 
 helpless that it cannot move itself when at rest, nor stop 
 itself when in motion ? Can that which is in itself 
 inactive originate a series of acts extending through 
 ages ? When they have forced assent to this, other 
 questions will press for solution. Which material ele- 
 ment gave birth to life ? Did it annihilate itself in the 
 effort ? If not, why has it ceased business ? Or, if all 
 matter is resolvable into one element, then what is that 
 clement ? Why is it no longer turning out products equal 
 to its original gift to the world ? How did that element 
 come into existence ? What are its properties ? Had it 
 more qualities than those which reason decides to be 
 essential to the existence of a*n atom ? Where is the 
 proof that it had any quality not now possessed by mat- 
 ter ? If there is no proof, why assume that it gave birth 
 
THE FATHER OF THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 119 
 
 to life? But it is perhaps said, it must have been subject 
 to certain forces. Well, were those forces inherent in it 
 or were they delegated to it ? In either case, can it be 
 proved that they were capable of producing life ? And if 
 this can be established, can it be shown that matter has 
 lost some force ? But force is indestructible. And yet, 
 if matter once possessed this force, it must have lost it, 
 else life would be still originating in earth's material 
 laboratories, occasionally at least. 
 
 Nor would the difficulty be solved even if it should be 
 demonstrated that life, in infant form, had its origin in mat- 
 ter. Logic, if indisposed to question whether such might 
 not be the case would persist in asking, Whence came 
 matter ? How came it possessed of this life-giving 
 power ? If it is capable, operating with unity of design 
 through centuries, of producing the varied forms of liv- 
 ing things, it could not have originated in chance, for 
 every step in its subsequent evolution is characterized 
 by intelligence, suitable means being employed for the 
 accomplishment of ends predetermined. It could not 
 have been self-created, for the self-creation of matter 
 from nothingness is inconceivable — more so than the 
 origination of the universe ex nihilo by the fiat of 
 Divine Intelligence, which science is disposed to pro- 
 nounce preposterous. It could not have been eternal, 
 for modern reasoning has proved this impossible. Besides, 
 the human intellect finds it more difficult to believe in 
 the eternity of matter than in an eternal God. Moreover, 
 if the various species of animals have been evolved from 
 a few parental forms, and these parental forms were 
 evolved from vegetable organisms, and all species in the 
 vegetable kingdom were evolved from a few primordial 
 germs, and these from inorganic matter, then matter, it 
 would seem, ought to have been evolved from some 
 
120 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 pre-existing substance as inferior to what we designate 
 matter as this is inferior to mind. 
 
 Evolution thus carries us backwards through the 
 cycles of buried millenniums without furnishing a satis- 
 factory solution of man's origin. He has been evolved — 
 that is all it can say. It cannot tell us the origin of this 
 potent principle of evolution by which he was evolved. 
 This must have been evolved from some less complex 
 principle previously existent; this, in turn, from some 
 antecedent, still simpler principle — the succession emerg- 
 ing from the depths of a shoreless infinity. 
 
 Life is brief. Therefore it is prudent to content one's 
 self with endeavoring to trace man's descent from the 
 period when, as evolutionists say, his ancestors were an- 
 imals or at least primordial germs of animal life. 
 
 Having proved in the preceding chapters, as is be- 
 lieved, that the christian, if disposed to accept the prin- 
 ciple of evolution, or if he shall hereafter feel constrained 
 so to do, is nevertheless under no necessity of regarding 
 man as an evolution from the ape-family, we come to a 
 consideration of the following questions: Is the animal 
 kingdom in its various species, an evolution from a few 
 primordial germs ? — Have all species in the lower orders 
 been evolved from the moneron ? — Was the parental 
 form, whether cell, germ, moneron, or atom of matter 
 instinct with life, a product of spontaneous generation ? 
 In the three succeeding chapters, in which the above 
 questions are considered, attention is invited to the sec- 
 ond stage of our argument in favor of the teachings of 
 Scripture in reference to origins. If it has been made 
 apparent that the hypothesis of a God is necessary to 
 account for man's origin; and if, as will scarcely be de- 
 nied, it is improbable that the tardy process of evolution 
 is the mode which Divine Intelligence chooses to adopt 
 
THE FATHER OF THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 121 
 
 in calling man into being, is it not easier to believe that 
 clearly marked species of animals were immediate crea- 
 tions than to believe that they evolved themselves from 
 a few germs, or from a moneron, or slipped into being 
 through the successive changes assumed by some atom 
 of matter that chanced to leap over the barrier which 
 separates the living from the non-living ? Primordial 
 germs, the moneron, abiogenesis — these claim attention. 
 If it shall be proved that all species of animals evolved 
 from a few parental forms, it will still be competent for 
 the theist to stand bowed in reverence at this threshold 
 of life and ask with an emphasis that might ring through 
 immensity, Whence came these potent germs? How 
 came they possessed of such intelligence ? 
 
 Consequently, without attempting a refutation of any 
 form of evolution consistent with theism and preferring 
 to assign a broad field for the operations of this champion, 
 we enter an impregnable fortress when we ask atheistic 
 evolutionists to explain the origin of these germs, to say 
 how they became possessed of such potentialities, to 
 show how they could have managed to commence 
 business, to account for the intelligence displayed in 
 the results. With evolution proper, when restricted 
 to its own province, theology has no controversy. 
 With atheistic forms of the theory the christian is in 
 deadly hostility. They tend to rob him of his sacred 
 inheritance. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 DARWIN'S PRIMORDIAL GERMS. 
 
 Darwin says: — 
 
 " There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been 
 originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one." — Origin of 
 Species, p. 437. 
 
 Again he says: — 
 
 " I believe that animals are descended from at most only four or five pro- 
 genitors, and plants from an equal or less number." — Idem, p. 432. 
 
 " I see no good reason why the views given in this volume should shock the 
 religious feelings of any one." — Idem, p. 428. 
 
 I. Why use the expressions, "a few forms," " four or 
 five"? Was the line of descent traced backwards with 
 certainty to "five"; with probability to "four"; with some 
 evidence to "one "? Why was no account left of the diffi- 
 culty encountered in the effort to insure accuracy ? The 
 author's statements are usually definite. Positiveness oc- 
 curs even where we might expect conjecture. The caution 
 manifested in the above passages contrasts strongly with 
 the boldness exemplified in the following assertions: — 
 
 "The difference in mind between man and the higher animals, great as it 
 is, is certainly one of degree and not of kind." 
 
 " It is quite incredible that man should through mere accident resemble, in 
 no less than seven of his muscles, certain apes, if there had been no genetic con- 
 nection between them." 
 
 "Through his [man's] powers of intellect, articulate language has been 
 evolved." 
 
 "To g.vin this great advantage [standing firmly], the feet have been ren- 
 dered flat, and the great toe peculiarly modified, though this has entailed the 
 loss of the power of prehension." 
 
DARWIN'S PRIMORDIAL GERMS. 123 
 
 "I have at least done good service in overthrowing the dogma of separate 
 creations." 
 
 " If they [the intellect and moral faculties] were formerly of high import- 
 ance to primeval man and to his ape-like progenitors, they would have been 
 perfected or advanced through natural selection." 
 
 " The five great vertebrate classes, namely, mammals, birds, reptiles, am- 
 phibians, and fishes, are all descended from some one prototype." 
 
 " At a much earlier period the uterus was double; the excreta were voided 
 through a cloaca; and the eye was protected by a third eyelid or nictitating mem- 
 brane. At a still earlier period the progenitors of man must have been aquatic in 
 their habits, for morphology plainly tells us that our lungs consist of a modified 
 swim-bladder, which once served as a float. The clefts on the neck in the embryo 
 of man show where the branchiae once existed. At about this period the true kid- 
 neys were replaced by the corpora wolffina. The heart existed as a simple pulsat- 
 ing vessel: and the chorda dorsalis took the place of a vertebral column. These 
 early predecessors of man thus seen in the dim recesses of time, must have been as 
 lowly organized as the lancelet or amphioxus, or even still more lowly organized." 
 
 " Man is developed from an ovule about one hundred and twenty-fifth of an 
 inch in diameter, which differs in no respect from the ovules of other animals." 
 [And yet the little human egg developes into an intelligent being, and the egg 
 of the mammoth turtle into a shell with meat in it, though in the embryonic 
 state "they differ in no respect."] 
 
 " Every animal and vegetable species has arisen only once in the course of 
 time and only in one place on the earth — its so-called center of creation." 
 
 •' Man is descended from a hairy quadruped furnished with a tail and pointed 
 ears, probably arboreal in its habits and an inhabitant of the Old World." 
 — Darwin's Descent of Man, vol. i. pp. ioi, 124, 132, 136, 147, 153, 195, 
 198; vol. ii. pp. 372, etc. 
 
 With such accuracy along the entire line of descent, 
 indefiniteness in reference to the origin of these trans- 
 mutations seems more inexplicable. 
 
 2. If it was possible to trace man's history back so far, 
 it is singular that it could be traced no further. Logic 
 would seem to demand the employment of every available 
 agency of arriving at one primordial germ as the starting 
 point. This would have been simpler and more satisfac- 
 tory. If divergent species can be proved to have origi- 
 nated in a few parental forms, it is remarkable that 
 the line can be traced no further; and yet we are not in- 
 
124 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 formed what insurmountable barrier exists. Evidently it 
 must be a serious obstacle, more serious than the fixity 
 of species, for this has been overthrown, it is claimed. If 
 several starting-points were necessary for the animal 
 kingdom, then we would be naturally inclined to im- 
 agine that the division lines in existing species must be 
 such as to have forced this indefiniteness. A few, at 
 least "four or five," lines must have been sufficiently 
 marked to have been perceptible and impossible to erase; 
 and yet it is said that species is merely a variety slightly 
 more permanent than ordinary varieties. Why then is 
 there any difficulty in setting the complicated machinery 
 of evolution to work in developing all living organisms 
 from one single- germ ? Why imagine that there might 
 have been a few germs, " four or five" ? Was it neces- 
 sary in order that the struggle for existence might result 
 in the destruction of those individuals which did not pos- 
 sess by inheritance a slightly improved structure ? Was 
 advance impossible unless some annihilated others in the 
 race of life ? Hardly; for the struggle could not have 
 been very intense when only a few creatures inhabited an 
 earth already having oceans, continents and an abun- 
 dance of food for the sustenance of animal life. Was it 
 that the theory of natural selection could have scope 
 for its operations ? No; for natural selection can only 
 operate upon favorable variations in individuals of the 
 same species; and manifestly the primordial germs must 
 have been of different species or of course one would have 
 answered the purpose. It is plain, therefore, that nat- 
 ural selection could have possessed no special advantages 
 from having " four or five" primordial germs as the start- 
 ing-point of the animal kingdom. The offspring of each 
 separate species, or of each individual germ, could have 
 been in no way affected, under natural selection, by the 
 
DARWIN'S PRIMORDIAL GERMS. 125 
 
 offspring of the other germs. The improvement in each 
 of the lines was conditioned, according to the theory, 
 upon slight favorable inherited variations. We quote: — 
 
 " Natural selection acts only by taking advantage of slight successive 
 
 variations." 
 
 "Natural selection acts solely by accumulating slight favorable variations." 
 ''Natural selection acts exclusively by the preservation and accumulation of 
 
 variations which are beneficial." 
 
 " Every variation which is not inherited is unimportant for us." 
 
 " Natural selection acts only by the preservation and accumulation of small 
 
 inherited modifications, each profitable to the preserved species." 
 
 " Unless favorable variations be inherited by some at least of the offspring, 
 
 nothing can be effected by natural selection." — Origin of Species, pp. 156, 
 
 413, 63, 80, 75, 9, etc. 
 
 Natural selection is not an agency, according to these 
 quotations, which produces variations, but merely an 
 agency which aggregates and preserves the variations 
 produced by some unknown cause, provided the varia- 
 tions are beneficial to the being preserved. So then it 
 does not require more than one germ with which to be- 
 gin operations. Moreover, the variations which are pro- 
 duced, as is elsewhere conceded, by some unknown cause, 
 must be slight, otherwise " they would almost certainly 
 soon be obliterated by crossing." Accordingly, if a few 
 germs are to prove more helpful to natural selection than 
 one germ, their offspring must resemble each other very 
 closely; but if close resemblance was a necessity, then, 
 one germ would have answered the purpose far better. 
 This, under the operation of the same unknown cause or 
 causes, could have produced slight variations. That each 
 of the several germs has been incessantly producing 
 small favorable modifications, the exigencies of the theory 
 demand. Then one may have done so. Evidently, there- 
 fore, the assumption that animal life may have originated 
 in a few primordial germs is not only less logical, but is 
 also less manageable, under the law of natural selection. 
 
12G THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 than the assumption that all animals had their origin in 
 one germ. 
 
 Will "a few forms" aid "sexual selection" in pro- 
 ducing variations ? No; for evolutionists concur in the 
 opinion that " the primitive vertebrates possessed both 
 ovaries and testes." Consequently, at an earlier period 
 each individual was capable of reproducing itself inde- 
 pendently, the separation of the sexual organs having 
 not yet taken place. Plainly, therefore, the ancient an- 
 cestors of earth's family of beings could not have come 
 under the influence of this law. Moreover, as by hy- 
 pothesis, the first living beings were the lowest in the 
 scale, there manifestly could have been no sexual selec- 
 tion, for there were no eyes to discern beauty, no ears to 
 hear love-calls, no nose to quaff odors, and no sense of 
 touch to excite the determination to exercise choice. 
 Besides, as is claimed by evolutionists, the first appear- 
 ance of animal life was either in the form of a simple 
 cell, " nucleus and protoplasm," or in the form of a 
 cytod, " formless matter not yet differentiated." In 
 either case could sexual selection have aided in develop- 
 ing variations ! 
 
 It is difficult, therefore, to assign any satisfactory rea- 
 son, deducible from either natural selection or from 
 sexual selection, for assuming the existence of more 
 than one germ. 
 
 Nor would a " few germs " furnish man's progenitors 
 with the means of producing variations, for the causes 
 of modifications are pronounced inexplicable. This is 
 conceded: — 
 
 " < h\v ignorance of the laws of variation is profound. Not in one case out 
 of a hundred can we pretend to assign any reason why this or that form has 
 varied." . . . " We are profoundly ignorant of the cause of each sudden 
 and apparently spontaneous variation." . . . "We know not what produces 
 the numberless slight differences between the individuals of each species." . . . 
 
DARWIN'S PRIMORDIAL GERMS. 127 
 
 " What first caused these slight differences cannot be explained any more than 
 why one man has a long nose and another a short one." — Origin of Species, 
 p. 6; Plants and Animals under Domestication, pp. 421, 471, etc. 
 
 3. Why is not the stream of animal descent traced 
 backwards into and through the vegetable kingdom ? 
 This would have furnished a theme for fanciful analogies 
 and etherial speculations, one which some evolutionist 
 would do well to cultivate; and it would, moreover, have 
 been a help to those who, having been repeatedly told 
 that " where faith begins science ends," desire further 
 evidence that inasmuch as evolution does not begin in 
 an assumption, they are not exchanging faith in an intel- 
 ligent First Cause for faith in a miracle-working pri- 
 mordial germ. If the former is to be displaced by the 
 latter, and not by scientific certainty, they are inclined to 
 say " the old is better." 
 
 Man's parentage ought to be traceable backwards 
 through the vegetable kingdom, for plants are proto- 
 plasm, indistinguishable, it is said, from human proto- 
 plasm; as really protoplasm as the animals that feed upon 
 them, and without which every animal organism would 
 speedily perish. As evolutionists concur in the opinion 
 that vegetable life existed on the earth prior to animal 
 life; and as plants alone, to appearances at least, are 
 capable of originating protoplasm from the material ele- 
 ments in nature; and as they have not only a frame-work, 
 about which the tabernacle of life is constructed, but 
 also have a principle of life which is capable of organizing 
 matter into new forms, each new form possessing the 
 power of reproduction by developing a fertilized egg, 
 capable also of originating variations which are accu- 
 mulated and preserved by some agency; and as they 
 assimilate their own appropriate food, extracting from 
 earth, air, and water the materials which can be incor- 
 
128 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 porated into their structure; and as they are sensitive 
 to the external influences of heat and cold, in some 
 instances even to the sense of touch; and as, when 
 living, they can with difficulty be distinguished, in some 
 specimens, from lower forms of animal life; and as, when 
 dying, they surrender the material, from which they con- 
 structed themselves, back to earth, — we are correct in 
 thinking that evolutionists should have traced man's 
 parentage through the vegetable kingdom, telling us 
 which plant was the father of the numerous family of 
 animate existences. 
 
 Having solved this intricate problem, evolution might 
 perhaps have found itself fitted for the task of following 
 the shadowy line of man's descent into and through the 
 mineral kingdom, informing us why plants and not animals 
 are capable of feeding upon mineral substances, why the 
 vegetable kingdom is intermediate between the mineral 
 and the animal, closing the protracted discussion with 
 the announcement, "I have discovered the element from 
 which all nature, in its myriad forms of existence, has 
 been evolved." But no, the wings of speculation, ex- 
 hausted by over-exertion and bedrabbled with the waters 
 of earth-born philosophy, fall powerless. By a process of 
 induction, Lockyer's a priori speculations in reference to 
 the evolution of matter from one element might have 
 been eclipsed. Impetus might have been given to mod- 
 ern investigation. Questions demanding a solution might 
 have been answered. 
 
 If the course here recommended had been adopted, pre- 
 paration might have been made for a still loftier flight. 
 It would have been possible to speculate in refer- 
 ence to the origin of this primeval material germ, con- 
 taining such potentialities. It might have been conjec- 
 tured that it slowly evolved itself from nothingness, which 
 
DARWIN'S PRIMORDIAL GERMS. 129 
 
 must have rolled for ages over the fields of space seeking 
 to annihilate itself in an atom of dust and destined to 
 attain to consciousness when imprisoned in a human 
 being. 
 
 It is impossible to ascertain from which of the "few 
 forms " man descended. Did each of the germs produce a 
 human being, thereby furnishing a basis for the opinion 
 of those ethnologists who divide the family of man into 
 several species ? No; for it is affirmed: — 
 
 "Those evolutionists who admit the principle of evolution will feel no doubt 
 that all the races of men are descended from a single primitive stock. — Descent 
 of Man, p. 220. 
 
 Consequently, it is argued that the races of men con- 
 stitute one species, though it is claimed that for the pur- 
 pose of expressing existing differences, they might be 
 designated distinct species. 
 
 If man's line of descent is to be traced back to one of 
 these germs, then one germ would have answered all the 
 conditions of the problem. As it is, we are unable to 
 determine in which of the several lines to search for our 
 earliest progenitors. 
 
 These primitive germs must have been richly endowed. 
 They must have possessed, (a) the principle of evolution, 
 which we presume was itself evolved during antecedent mil- 
 lenniums; (d) every organism that has since been evolved, 
 for those who believe that Omnipotence cannot produce 
 something from nothing, will not imagine that a simple 
 germ can evolve what it does not contain — evolution 
 implies involution — evolving presupposes a process of 
 involving; {c) intelligence, for man, a lineal descendant, 
 possesses it; (d) mind, since their offspring is in posses- 
 sion of it, call it what you may, " refined matter," "spirit," 
 or " a substantial entity" having properties which no 
 material substance has; (e) conscience and religion, for 
 
130 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 these, even if they were evolved from "the social 
 instincts of the lower animals" and from "a wish, a 
 hope, and a fear," must have been latent in these parental 
 forms, since the principle, " from nothing, nothing- can be 
 produced," is eternal in its nature and universal in its appli- 
 cation. These little germs, though like every other germ, 
 ninety per cent water, must have been " microcosms," 
 little worlds of being. Is it easier to believe that all 
 animal organisms evolved from these than to believe that 
 distinct species are immediate creations ? 
 
 These minute germs are declared to have been simple, 
 and they must have been alike, for the human embryo, it 
 is affirmed, differs in no respect, in its earlier stages, from 
 the embryos of other animals; for example, from that of 
 the dog, the horse, the whale. Though all simple, and 
 in no respect different from each other, being no doubt 
 indistinguishable under the most powerful microscope, as 
 all animal embryos in their first stages are declared to 
 be, they must nevertheless have developed along diver- 
 gent lines. What caused this divergency in the course 
 of their development ? What causes the canine egg to 
 develop into a dog, and the human egg to develop into 
 a man ? If, as is asserted, they differ in no respect so far 
 as their material structure is concerned, then manifestly 
 there must be associated with them a substantial entity, 
 a something which I may denominate " life," which 
 causes them to differ so widely when full grown. For 
 the divergent development there must be a cause. If, as 
 must have been the case, these several primitive germs 
 developed along different lines, and if, as also must have 
 been the case, they "differed in no respect," then they 
 must have possessed an independent principle of life, one 
 which matter could not furnish. They must have been 
 a direct creation, and if creation occurred once, as is 
 
DARWIN'S PRIMORDIAL GERMS. 131 
 
 evident it did, is there anything irrational in supposing 
 it may have occurred more than once ? Darwin's primitive 
 germ is supplied by a direct divine interposition: Haeckel's 
 11 primeval parent of all organisms " is the child of spon- 
 taneous generation. In either case, is it conceivable 
 that these simple germs, ninety per cent water, and dif- 
 fering in no respect from ordinary germs, for " all germs 
 are precisely alike in material constitution," could have 
 possessed concealed powers adequate to the task of 
 developing into species as widely different as man and 
 the ascidian ? 
 
 If the reader is disposed to regard this as incon- 
 ceivable he is prepared to ask, Is it less inconceivable 
 that these primordial germs, which could not contain 
 all the potentialities needed, should acquire during the 
 course of their protracted development fresh materials, 
 or more potent organizing agencies, or new life-prin- 
 ciples, adequate to the task of originating all animal 
 organisms, and acquire them too, independent of Divine 
 Volition ? 
 
 If these original parental forms were dissimilar, and 
 if each was a simple cell, uncompounded and undiffer- 
 entiated, as we are given to understand must have been 
 the case, then the difficulty is increased in exact propor- 
 tion to the number of primitive germs; for, while it is 
 impossible to determine why or how one simple un- 
 compounded cell should or could evolve, it is increas- 
 ingly more difficult to understand how each of several 
 uncompounded and dissimilar germs should happen to 
 differentiate. How can a single substance proceed to 
 become complex ? But the difficulty is increased, for 
 an organized germ, it is elsewhere affirmed, is not " a 
 homogeneous substance throughout." How then can 
 such a heterogenous homogeneity succeed in evolving 
 
132 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 itself into greater complexity ? And yet each of these 
 primitive germs must perform this remarkable feat. 
 
 Nor have we exhausted the catalogue of difficulties. 
 If, as evolutionists would concede, bisexuality must have 
 been an attribute of each primitive animal organism, 
 then how have males and females become distinct ? 
 Certainly a bisexual animal could not have been sud- 
 denly transformed by natural selection into two ani- 
 mals, a male and a female, for natural selection can 
 never take " a great and sudden leap." Hence, if these 
 " individuals capable of reproducing themselves inde- 
 pendently" became the ancestors of unisexual individ- 
 uals, it must have been because natural selection took 
 " advantage of slight successive variations." But it is 
 repeatedly asserted that natural selection can accumulate 
 and preserve no variations unless they are beneficial to 
 the being preserved. Of what conceivable benefit, how- 
 ever, could it be to a bisexual animal to preserve slight 
 modifications tending towards the production of a uni- 
 sexual animal ? Evidently none whatever. Nay, the 
 case is stronger, for injurious variations, it is affirmed, 
 are certain to be eliminated; and unquestionably the 
 smallest variation in a bisexual animal towards the 
 production of a male or a female, or towards becoming 
 either, would prove disadvantageous, destroying the 
 possibility of reproduction, thereby putting an end to 
 the transmission of unisexual peculiarities. Manifestly, 
 such individuals, even if they continued capable of self- 
 reproduction, would not be the fittest to survive, being 
 weakened in one half of their organism without any 
 counterbalancing advantages, unless it might be the faint 
 hope that after millions of self-sacrificing generations 
 -had perished, unisexual animals might exist. What 
 advantage, however, would this be either to the immense 
 
DARWIN'S PRIMORDIAL GERMS. 133 
 
 numbers which in measure unfitted themselves for the 
 struggle of life, or what advantage to the race in gen- 
 eral ? Absolutely none. 
 
 To the numberless perplexing questions which the 
 theory prompts us to ask, the evolutionist presents this 
 invariable reply, " the primitive cells were like those in 
 every living animal organism." Whence then came the 
 life which organizes living cells into a symmetrical body ? 
 It is folly to pretend that the life of an animal is nothing 
 more than the aggregate life of the individual cells. 
 Accordingly, we ought to have been informed whether 
 these assumed cells possessed the life-principle, or were 
 merely a material substance endowed with only that life 
 which belongs to a simple cell. They are denominated 
 simple cells, it is true; nevertheless, they are regarded 
 as the parents of all living organisms. If they were 
 germs capable of producing animal-life — a something 
 distinct from cell-life — then they were not so simple 
 after all. Is it possible that these cells were simple v 
 when, according to hypothesis, they evolved all living 
 beings — evolved them without the aid of natural selec- 
 tion, survival of the fittest, or the struggle for exist- 
 ence ? They must have been a compendium exceed- 
 ingly marvelous. 
 
 Though munificently endowed, how shall they begin 
 to operate ? 
 
 i. Being but germs they must first develop into liv- 
 ing beings. This result must have been effected by the 
 power conferred upon them at creation; for it is impos- 
 sible to believe that they did it by their own unaided 
 exertions. External conditions, it may be, called these 
 inherent powers into activity; but unless they existed, 
 environment could effect nothing. Why not say at once, 
 God created a few animals ? This would have obviated 
 
184 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 many serious difficulties. Moreover, it is injudicious to 
 say "germs," unless one is prepared to show how these 
 evolved animal-life independent of the powers originally 
 conferred upon them. Atheistic forms of evolution are 
 specially called upon to show how uncreated germs 
 could have succeeded in originating the first animal, an 
 animal capable of developing all subsequent animal or- 
 ganisms; it ought to be shown how even created germs, 
 unless endowed with adequate inherent power or under 
 constant direct superintendence, could produce such 
 results. Unless this is possible, an animal should be 
 assumed as the starting-point. This lowest organism 
 should then be proved capable of evolving all higher 
 forms. We ought not to be bewildered by the endeavor 
 to ascertain how evolution became possessed of such 
 powers, and how it transacted such an amount of busi- 
 ness on capital so limited. If it was operative during the 
 cell-period and began the development of an animal out 
 of nucleolus, nucleus, and the enveloping protoplasm — 
 out of an egg ninety per cent water and the remainder 
 mostly a substance indistinguishable from albumen — then 
 as neither water nor albumen is life, the process ought to 
 have begun further back than the material substance 
 which life organizes into a body. If evolution was will- 
 ing to accept the hypothesis of a Creator who originated 
 these germs, it would relieve itself of many difficulties by 
 assuming the creation of at least one animal fully en- 
 dowed with powers to evolve all other animal organisms, 
 or under continued Divine Superintendence during its 
 successive evolutions. How it could otherwise effect 
 the requisite transmutations is an unsolved enigma. 
 
 2. Having, for some inexplicable reason, determined 
 to develop into animals, these germs must next decide 
 which way to evolve, upwards or downwards. If they 
 
DARWIN'S PRIMORDIAL GERMS. 135 
 
 had made a mistake, as many of their descendants have 
 done, we should have had evolution towards greater 
 simplicity. Perhaps, however, it may be said, that as 
 they were simple they could become no simpler. If 
 they were so simple that they could become no simpler, 
 then they were so simple that greater complexity was 
 improbable, for though " evolution is from the homo- 
 geneous to the heterogeneous," it does not follow that 
 the homogeneous invariably evolves into the heteroge- 
 neous. Moreover, as the complex frequently degenerates 
 into the more simple, it would be hazardous to affirm that 
 a germ capable of evolving all living creatures could by no 
 possibility become less heterogeneous. Evidently, there- 
 fore, degeneration was possible, or at least improvement 
 was not certain. No sufficient reason has been assigned 
 why these germs should evolve upwards, — confessedly in 
 subsequent ages organisms have deteriorated. Retro- 
 gression is nearly as frequent as progression. It is 
 strange, then, that in the initial period, evolution, in 
 every instance, was towards higher forms. 
 
 3. Having decided to evolve upwards, as it seems these 
 germs all did, they had next to choose the particular direc- 
 tion they were to pursue and the agencies they were to 
 employ. In which direction shall they push their latent 
 energies ? Is their intelligence, which is inexplicable in 
 its origin and marvelous in its working, equal to the 
 task of answering this perplexing question ? As, by 
 hypothesis, they were the lowest of animals, if animals 
 at all, headless, eyeless, mouthless, limbless — simple 
 sacks with internal organs too minute to be perceptible 
 by the most powerful microscopes, though adequate to 
 the absorption and assimilation of material atoms — evi- 
 dently it was difficult to determine which organs should 
 be evolved first, and still more difficult to effect the evo- 
 
136 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 lution. Possibly one, having formed an abstract idea of 
 a head, undertook its development. The process is con- 
 tinued uninterruptedly through millions of generations 
 till sufficient material has been accumulated in one spot 
 and for one specific purpose, the formation of a head. All 
 temptations to employ this material to form legs or arms 
 have been successfully resisted. A nerve now becomes 
 sensitive to the light. A spot where the skin is thin 
 becomes sensitive to odors. Near this, owing to the 
 stretching of the skin, the absorption of food has become 
 somewhat easier. A mouth is in process of formation; 
 and of course an alimentary canal will follow. Tens of 
 millions of generations have been necessary to attain 
 these results. Myriads of chances of losing these slight 
 increments of improvement, during this protracted period, 
 have come and gone; still, the mysterious process goes 
 on uninterruptedly. Individuals that for tens of thou- 
 sands of generations have been endeavoring to develop a 
 leg have intercrossed with these head-forming individuals 
 and have striven to employ the accumulated material in 
 the formation of some means of locomotion; but the 
 " head "-tendency has been preponent, and now a perfect 
 head crowns the combined efforts of billions, though the 
 happy possession of but one. 
 
 This seems considerably like a miracle. 
 
 What has happened ? A single intelligent design has 
 been effected by the combined agency of millions of 
 unintelligent creatures operating through thousands of 
 years, without Divine Superintendence and under condi- 
 tions in which, in the first transformation at least, no 
 conceivable agency, not even natural selection, could 
 have operated. These individuals, while freely inter- 
 crossing, as they must have done, with the descendants 
 of unimproved varieties, still persisted in the purpose of 
 
DARWIN'S PRIMORDIAL GERMS. 137 
 
 developing a head, accumulating and preserving slight 
 increment's of advancement headward, though, for aught 
 that can be made to appear to the contrary, inter- 
 crossing must have occurred between individuals, one 
 of which was devoting all its energies to evolve a head 
 and the other taxing all its powers to develop a leg. 
 How are we to account for the fact that these antagon- 
 istic purposes did not destroy each other ? Were the 
 descendants of the several germs kept apart till one 
 family had developed a head; another, a pair of legs; 
 another, fins. Or did each family evolve all the organs ? 
 If so, did each develop them concurrently, or each, 
 successively ? or some concurrently, and some succes- 
 sively ? How were all these purposes carried forward 
 to completion without producing confusion ? This 
 is an enigma which evolutionists will find difficulty in 
 answering. 
 
 Nor is this the only difficulty. The tendency to 
 revert to ancestral forms is as powerful as the ten- 
 dency to preserve increments of improvement; and the 
 tendency may lie latent in organisms for thousands of 
 generations. It is affirmed: 
 
 " In every living creature, we may feel assured, that a host of lost characters 
 lie ready to be evolved, under proper conditions. . . . What can be more 
 wonderful than that characters which have disappeared during scoxes or 
 hundreds or even thousands of generations, should suddenly reappear perfectly 
 developed ? . . . This principle of reversion is the most wonderful of all the 
 attributes of inheritance." — Animals and Plants under Domestication, vol. ii. 
 pp. 446, 447- 
 
 Let us suppose that in every thousand individuals, 
 one reverts to the ancestral form. Then in a million 
 individuals, which are seeking to develop a leg, one 
 thousand would become legless by reversion in a single 
 generation. 
 
 In the same generation many more might revert to 
 
138 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 intermediate ancestral forms — indeed we may believe 
 they would. These deteriorated animals, in every con- 
 ceivable stage of reversionary structure, would tend 
 powerfully, by mating with unimproved individuals, to 
 evolve the leg away from all. If, in spite of this barrier 
 to the successful evolution of a leg, some favored indi- 
 viduals, by mating with each other, should succeed in 
 their endeavor, how is it possible to resist the conviction 
 that the less favored individuals, would either have 
 perpetuated their half-legless condition to the present 
 time, or have left traces of their existence in the rocks 
 which contain a full account of past transformations. 
 Strange to say, we have no testimony to the existence of 
 generations that lived while a leg was in process of form- 
 ation, nor to the thousands of individuals, which must 
 have reverted to the transitional stages of leglessness. 
 And yet, as is conceded by evolutionists, not one single 
 transitional form has been discovered. What becomes 
 then of the theory that highly organized animals have 
 been slowly developed through millions of generations 
 from a few germs or from an uncompounded, undifferen- 
 tiated mass of nucleus and protoplasm ? 
 
 4. The theory requires us to believe that through a 
 graduated scale of beings the higher forms of animals 
 have evolved, the process extending through all the in- 
 termediate links from the lowest animal organism up to 
 man and occupying millions of years for its completion. 
 There evidently must have been an intelligent design, 
 a judicious adaptation of means to ends. Where did this 
 intelligent purpose reside ? Manifestly not in material 
 nature. 
 
 Nor could it have resided in the individuals of each 
 succeeding generation, and have been by them trans- 
 mitted to offspring, for how could the polyp have pos- 
 
DARWIN'S PRIMORDIAL GERMS. 139 
 
 sessed an intelligent design in reference to the adaptation 
 of means for the evolution of the first man from ape- 
 like progenitors. Even if he had possessed this remark- 
 able prescience, its transmission through generations, to 
 all of which it must have been a hidden treasure, would 
 have been an impossibility. To believe, as the theory 
 requires, that such wisdom may be resident in the suc- 
 cession of individuals demands a measure of credulity 
 in comparison with which the faith which accepts, in a 
 literal sense, the Biblical account of Jonah's residence 
 for three days in his piscatorial home, without air and 
 without conversion into whale, is a mere child half 
 smothered in rationalism. 
 
 If my neighbor should discover a poem, written in 
 modern English, traced in solid rock underneath several 
 layers of superincumbent earth, the layers evidently being 
 precisely the same in every respect as they were when 
 left by the hand of nature, he would be forced to ask, 
 Whence came these sentences ? I, being an evolutionist, 
 volunteer my solution: Neighbor, animals of the lowest 
 form crawled over that material when it was plastic clay, 
 soon after the close of the azoic period, when as yet life 
 pulsated in no more complex organisms than trilobites. 
 In the infinity of trails possible to be made by these 
 primeval creatures, this poem was one. 
 
 Not convinced, my neighbor responds: It is incon- 
 ceivable: — there are quintillions of chances against one, 
 that these animals should have crawled out intelligible 
 sentences: — besides the English language must have been 
 evolved in comparatively recent centuries, being an illus- 
 tration of the theory of progression under the superin- 
 tendence of the struggle for existence, survival of the 
 fittest, environment, etc.; — like the grass on the grave of 
 your babe, the English language waves over the tomb of 
 
140 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 the dead, and is as unlike any language that went before 
 as that bending blade of luxuriant grass is unlike to the 
 prattling child which you pressed to your bosom when 
 intelligence beamed in its eye, and deposited in its coffin 
 when the throbbing heart ceased to beat. 
 
 I reply: For millions of years animals crawled over 
 this rock when it was mud, crawled in every direction, 
 — can you prove that among the trillions of possible 
 tracks taken by quadrillions of creeping things during 
 chiliads of ages, it was impossible that this sentence, and 
 even this entire poem, should have resulted ? 
 
 My antagonist thoughtfully answers: No, I cannot 
 prove it; but I supposed it was your business to prove how 
 the poem originated, not mine to force reason into the 
 acceptance of an explanation which has a countless 
 number of chances against it and scarcely one in its 
 favor. 
 
 Warming with enthusiasm, I add: Moreover, it is im- 
 possible to determine the potency of physical agencies; 
 nay, impossible to prove that in those remote eras forces 
 were not in operation that have long since ceased to 
 operate; the animal's legs might have been directed 
 by the power which evolved a world out of chaos. 
 
 To return within the circumscribed limits of reason, 
 one is disposed to ask, Is there less wisdom manifest in 
 the construction of an eye, an ear, a hand ? No: there 
 is more. There is, then, an almost infinite number of 
 chances against the assumption that animals, groping 
 in every conceivable direction for improvement, should 
 have stumbled upon and should have subsequently 
 followed the shadowy line which was to issue in the 
 evolution of an eye, an ear, a hand, a heart, a brain, a 
 nervous system; and having evolved each of these com- 
 plicated organs should have manifested wisdom sufficient 
 
DARWIN'S PRIMORDIAL GERMS. Ul 
 
 to transmit them as a permanent, unimprovable legacy 
 to their descendants. He who is capable of believing 
 that primordial germs, without the superintendence 
 of Infinite Intelligence, have evolved all animals from 
 the moneron to Archbishop Butler, ought to main- 
 tain logical consistency by asserting that these primitive 
 germs originated by evolution from inorganic matter. 
 He should make his theory sufficiently extensive to 
 sweep the universe. He ought to conceive that space, 
 impelled by some energy evolved from nothingness, orig- 
 inated an atom of matter, which, being infinitely divisi- 
 ble, diffused itself throughout immensity, filling its fields 
 with an attenuated ether; that this, impressed with forces, 
 commenced to concentrate, dropping at successive inter- 
 vals matter sufficient to form nebulae; that the matter, 
 thus sloughed off from the periphery of the revolving 
 mass to form solar systems, continued the process of 
 concentration, throwing off at convenient distances, the 
 material that was to form worlds, the residuum remaining 
 as a central sun which lighted and governed its material 
 children; that the matter left to form each world contin- 
 ued to concentrate, and after throwing off moon-mate- 
 rial condensed into gas, water, earth, rock; that some 
 earth-atom evolved itself into a lichen, thus originating 
 life, which under the manipulations of evolution has 
 covered continents with vegetable forms, and peopled 
 earth, air, and water with swarming millions of living 
 creatures. 
 
 If we are to adopt a theory of evolution which shall 
 dispense with the necessity of an intelligent First Cause, 
 why not indulge in speculations fitted to foster the hope 
 of reaching realms where reason no longer fetters the 
 imagination ? 
 
 Another objection to the acceptance of the theory 
 
142 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 that all living creatures have a common parentage in a 
 few primordial germs, is the time required for the trans- 
 formations. These must have required, it is affirmed, at 
 least four hundred millions of years, if not, indeed, twice or 
 thrice that period. But unfortunately, there is no evidence 
 that the earth was fitted to sustain life in eras so remote. 
 Confessedly, a measure of heat sufficiently intense to 
 fuse metals is incompatible with any form of life known 
 to us; and according to the careful computation of Sir 
 William Thompson, this planet was a molten mass four 
 hundred million years ago, if not as recently as half that 
 period; and has not been sufficiently cool to admit life for 
 more, at longest, than one hundred million years. This, 
 however, is pronounced too brief for the changes that 
 have occurred. The formation of animals, to say nothing 
 of the formation of plants in an antecedent era, demands, 
 on the hypothesis that they have been evolved from a 
 few primordial germs, a more protracted period. The 
 transmutations of species, implied in the theory, could 
 not have been effected, we are repeatedly assured, in less 
 than four hundred million years, if indeed in a period so 
 circumscribed. In that remote era, ere radiation had 
 lowered the temperature of the solar system, the earth 
 and the sun must have been in a gaseous state, unless 
 the cooling process has been progressing more rapidly in 
 the last few thousand years than in antecedent periods. 
 That this has not been the case may be argued from the 
 uniformity of nature's laws. If the heat of the earth 
 and of the sun was not uniformly more intense through 
 each past millenium some reason should be assigned for 
 the belief that it may not have been. Were these pri- 
 mordial germs evolving new species during the gaseous 
 period ? No; for it is conceded that life could not have 
 been in existence on the earth during this state. Conse- 
 
DARWIN'S PRIMORDIAL GERMS. 143 
 
 quently, it is incumbent to prove, either that these trans- 
 formations could have occurred in a briefer period, or 
 that the Uniformitarian Theory of nature is a delusion. 
 
 By way of rebuttal to the above line of reasoning", 
 it may perhaps be said that there is no satisfactory 
 evidence that the solar system has been undergoing a 
 process of cooling; that there is no such thing as absolute 
 waste in the universe, that consequently heat which has 
 passed from the sun is not wasted, but necessarily exists 
 somewhere, since it cannot become a nonentity, nor 
 remain in vacuo or in empty space, that accordingly 
 there is as much heat in the universe, and probably as 
 much in the solar system, as there ever was; that inas- 
 much as heat is absorbed sunlight and has no existence 
 till light becomes imprisoned in matter, — it is more con- 
 sonant with reason to believe that the heat of the solar 
 system has been substantially the same in amount since 
 the period when planets came into existence. 
 
 Possibly this may be true, perhaps is as near the truth 
 as the conjecture that the solar system is continuously 
 losing heat, and has been during the period of its exist- 
 ence. This, it is true, would dispose of Mr. Thomson's 
 argument to the effect that the earth has not been in a 
 condition to support life for more than a hundred thousand 
 years; but it is equally destructive to the theory, main- 
 tained by nearly all evolutionists, that the matter which 
 now constitutes the solar system was once in a molten 
 state, and antecedently in a gaseous condition. Conse- 
 quently, they must either surrender the hypothesis that 
 the planets are an evolution from pre-existing nebulae, or 
 they must admit that the earth has not been in a condi- 
 tion to sustain life for the period of time which they as- 
 sert is necessary to account for the transmutations which 
 have occurred in the animal and vegetable kingdoms. 
 
144 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 Either material evolution did not occur under the opera- 
 tion of heat, or the world has not been in a condition to 
 sustain life for the protracted period which the theory of 
 transmutation demands. 
 
 Prof. Huxley at one time announced his belief that 
 bathybius, a gelatinous substance found in the bed of the 
 ocean, was the progenitor of all living creatures. Strass 
 affirmed, " Huxley has discovered bathybius, a shining 
 heap of jelly on the sea-bottom. By this the chasm may 
 be said to be bridged and the transition effected from the 
 inorganic to the organic." The existence of bathybius 
 rendered it impossible, in his judgment, for a reasonable 
 man to retain faith in Scripture. Alas, the fruitlessness 
 of human speculation ! The insecurity of pinning faith 
 to the dictum of an erring mortal ! Bathybius, on care- 
 ful investigation, turned out to be sulphate of lime. Prof. 
 Huxley publicly repudiated his child. Poor bathybius, 
 named so grandly, honored so greatly, praised so un- 
 stintingly, has been laid to rest. Though his brief life 
 was an imposing pageant, his birth, it seems, was a blun- 
 der, his old age a burden to his friends, his death the re- 
 moval of embarrassment, and his burial a relief. 
 
 Mr. Darwin's statement, so far as it may be understood 
 as conjecturing that possibly there may have been but 
 one primordial germ, will come under review in Hie suc- 
 ceeding chapter. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 HAECKEL'S PATER FAMILIAS, THE MONERON. 
 
 Professor Haeckel of the university of Jena, though 
 defending evolution with as much pertinacity as Mr. 
 Darwin, nevertheless differs from him in reference to the 
 origin of life, asserting that the moneron, " the lowest of 
 living beings," originated in spontaneous generation from 
 inorganic matter. To appearances, he agrees with La- 
 mark, who, although he knew nothing of natural se- 
 lection, originated the theory of the transmutation of 
 species, and firmly believed that there was no essen- 
 tial difference between animate and inanimate nature, 
 the causes which transform the one being the same as 
 those which transform the other — agencies which may 
 be designated under a natural, uninterrupted, necessary 
 evolution. 
 
 These moriera, spontaneously evolved from inorgana, 
 Haeckel regards as " the primeval parents of all other 
 organisms." He defines the little miracle-workers as 
 follows : — 
 
 " Monera . . . are not only the simplest of all observed organisms, but even 
 the simplest of all imaginable organisms. . . . All trace of organization — all 
 distinction of heterogeneous parts — is still wanting in them. . . . The whole 
 body of these most simple of all organisms— a semi-fluid, formless, and simple 
 lump of albumen — consists in fact of a single chemical combination. . . . 
 Monera ... are organisms not in any way built up of distinct organs, but 
 consist solely of a single chemical combination, and yet grow, nourish, and 
 propagate themselves. . . . We have the simplest of all species of organisms in 
 
146 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 lh c moncra, whose entire bodies when completely developed consist of nothing 
 bat a .semi-fluid albuminous lump. . . . Propagation of the monera is by self- 
 division. A pinching-in takes place, contracting the middle of the globule on 
 all sides, and finally leads to the separation of the two halves. Each half then 
 becomes rounded off, and now appears as an independent individual, which 
 commences anew the simple course of vital phenomena of nutrition and propa- 
 gation. . . . When the moneron moves itself, there are formed on the upper 
 surface of the little mucus globule shapeless finger-like processes, or very fine 
 radiated threads; these are the so-called false feet or pseudopia."— Haeckel's 
 History of Creation, vol. i. p. 186, 330, 334, 344, 345- 
 
 We are safe, we think, in affirming that Professor 
 Haeckel degraded the moneron in order to assist reason 
 in accepting the theory of spontaneous generation. He 
 says: — 
 
 " Only such homogeneous organisms as are not yet differentiated, and are 
 similar to the inorganic crystals, in being homogeneously composed of one 
 single substance, could arise by spontaneous generation and could become the 
 primeval parents of all other organisms. . . . Through the discovery of these 
 organisms, which are of the utmost importance, the supposition of a sponta- 
 neous generation loses most of its difficulties. . . . We can easily imagine their 
 origin by spontaneous generation."— Haeckel's History of Creation, vol. i. pp. 
 185, 332, 187. 
 
 Let us see if he has not degraded the moneron to 
 such an extent as to unfit it for becoming " the 
 primeval parent of all other organisms." Possibly, in 
 pronouncing it so simple that "we can easily imagine 
 its origin by spontaneous generation," he has inad- 
 vertently pronounced it so simple that reason is inca- 
 pable of perceiving how all forms of life could be evolved 
 from it. 
 
 If, as is affirmed, " the moneron is not only the sim- 
 plest of all observed organisms, but the simplest of all 
 imaginable organisms," then it is not a living organism. 
 A crystal, a lump of carbon, a ball of platinum — each an 
 organism — would be pronounced simpler than the mon- 
 eron. It is even possible to conceive that there should 
 
HA ECKEL'S PATER FA MILT AS, THE MONERON. 147 
 
 be a drop of albumen which was not a moneron; and yet in 
 this albuminous lump there is organism, an arrangement 
 of the atoms in reference to each other. If this drop 
 by some mysterious process, known only to spontaneous 
 generation, became possessed of the power of moving 
 itself, or forming " shapeless, finger-like processes," of 
 propagating itself, of developing in the lapse of time all 
 animal existences, it should no longer be denominated 
 " the simplest of all imaginable organisms." In becom- 
 ing possessed of these powers it must have ceased to be " a 
 simple lump of albumen." If after spontaneous genera- 
 tion had done its work it was " nothing but a semi-fluid 
 albuminous lump," then it was not a living organism; for 
 as Huxley avers, "No living creature is throughout of 
 homogeneous substance," and as Darwin asserts, " Each 
 living creature must be looked upon as a microcosm — 
 formed of a host of self-propagating organisms, incon- 
 ceivably minute, and numerous as the stars of heaven." 
 Accordingly, if the moneron is "one single homoge- 
 neous substance," it is not a living creature. If on the 
 other hand, it was a living organism, then the author has 
 slandered it by describing it as " a semi-fluid, formless, 
 and simple lump of albumen," " homogeneous and form- 
 less matter," "homogeneously composed of one single 
 substance," " nothing but a semi-fluid albuminous lump," 
 which " we can easily imagine to have originated in 
 spontaneous generation." For such slander adequate 
 apology is not found in its being twice denominated " a 
 single chemical combination," for this expression must be 
 interpreted to mean "one single substance," "a simple 
 lump of albumen." 
 
 Fewer difficulties would environ the theory if the 
 moneron were described as a simple cell. It is not, how- 
 ever. He affirms: — 
 
148 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 "Cells by no means represent quite the lowest grade of organic individuality 
 . . . There are yet more elementary organisms . . . These are cytods . . . 
 For example, the moncra are cytods of this kind . . . Strictly speaking the 
 elementary organism of the individual . . . occurs in two grades. The first 
 and lowest is the cytod, which consists merely of an atom of plasson. The 
 second and higher grade is the cell, which has been differentiated into nucleus 
 and protoplasm. As a rule the nucleus of the egg is a soft, often vesicular 
 texture. Within this nucleus, as in many other cells, is enclosed a third body 
 which in ordinary cells is called the nucleolus. Lastly, in many, but not in all 
 eggs, within this germinal spot is found another little point, a nucleolinus, which 
 may be called the germinal point . . . The simplest cell consists of at least 
 two parts, the inner firmer kernel, and the outer softer cell -substance or proto- 
 plasm. These two distinct parts can only have come into being by differen- 
 tiation of the homogeneous plasson of a moneron." — HaeckePs Evolution of 
 Man, vol. i. pp. 118, 130. 
 
 It seems as though the initial processes would have 
 been less inexplicable if evolution had begun in a perfect 
 cell with its " protoplasm," its " nucleus,'' its " nucleolus," 
 and its " nucleolinus." The cell, however, is evolved 
 from the homogeneous plasson of a moneron, i. e. t from 
 "a simple lump of albumen." This is not only a living 
 creature but it is capable of differentiating into a hetero- 
 geneous substance. How did the "lump of albumen " 
 transmute itself into " plasson " ? How did the " plasson" 
 evolve a cell with its " inner firmer kernel and its outer 
 softer cell-substance or protoplasm " ? We know what is 
 meant by the differentiation of a germ. This, however, 
 is not one single substance, a simple " albuminous lump." 
 Until we are aided in conceiving how a cytod could have 
 evolved into a one-celled organism, it is difficult to be- 
 lieve that the moneron is "the primeval parent of all 
 organisms," since " all animals, including man, descended 
 originally from a one-celled organism." If the moneron 
 is included in the term "all animals," then it is not 
 " primeval," but some "one-celled organism " is; if it is 
 not included, but is the "primeval parent" of all animal 
 
HAECKEUS PATER FAMILIAS, THE MONEROJV. 119 
 
 existences, then why say, "all animals, including man, 
 descended originally from a one-celled organism " ? They 
 must have descended "originally" from the moneron, an 
 organism more elementary than cells. 
 
 It is also asserted that in the moneron, " all trace of 
 organism, all distinction of heterogeneous parts, is still 
 wanting." " It is nothing, when fully developed, but a 
 semi-fluid, formless, and simple lump of albumen." How 
 then can we conceive it capable of being the progenitor 
 of all animals ? And yet this organless creature has 
 the power of moving, of assimilating food, of self-propa- 
 gation. Can it carry forwards the functions of vitality 
 — locomotion, nutrition, reproduction — without organs ? 
 How can it throw out "shapeless, finger-like processes, 
 the so-called false feet" if " all distinction of heterogen- 
 eous parts is still wanting " ? Wherein resides the power 
 of absorption if there are no organs ? By what agency is 
 the " pinching-in process" carried on till self-division 
 results ? 
 
 As described, the moneron must have organs; and if 
 it has organs there must have been a long series of 
 antecedent organisms. 
 
 Mr. Haeckel affirms: — 
 
 " Every organism, composed of organs, can only have originated from an 
 undifferentiated lower organism by differentiation of its parts and consequently 
 by phylogeny." 
 
 Then the moneron, since it has organs, must have orig- 
 inated by differentiation from an undifferentiated, lower, 
 older, and simpler form, and consequently by phylogeny. 
 By phylogeny ! — there must have been not only one or- 
 ganism anterior to the moneron but many, for he defines 
 phylogeny as the history of the protracted descent of 
 germs from pre-existing organisms. The moneron, if it 
 
150 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 has organs, must be the result of a vast number of trans- 
 mutations on the part of pre-existing species.* 
 
 If to avoid this embarrassing conclusion we lay stress 
 upon the assertion that the moneron is wanting " in all 
 distinction of heterogeneous parts," then we are forced 
 back upon the assumption that a living creature can pos- 
 sess functions of life, can appropriate food, can move, can 
 grow by the assimilation of food taken within its simple 
 lump, can reproduce itself, without any organs whatso- 
 ever. An assumption so absurd needs no refutation. 
 
 The author of The Evolution of Man, The History of 
 Creation, General Morphology, etc., seems to be under 
 a fatal enchantment forcing him, in his philosophical 
 inquiries, into many contradictory statements. As he- 
 is treating profound themes which few presume to 
 handle, and as he discourses upon them fully and with a 
 measure of originality rarely met with, a few contradic- 
 tions might be expected to occur and would be gener- 
 ously condoned, but the antagonistic statements are so 
 numerous, and so palpably self-destructive, that charity 
 finds it difficult to throw her mantle over them. Will 
 
 * "The history of the evolution of organisms consists of two kindred and 
 closely connected parts: Ontogeny, which is the history of the evolution of 
 individual organisms, and Phytogeny, which is the history of the evolution 
 of organic tribes. Ontogeny is a brief and rapid recapitulation of phytogeny. . . . 
 The individual organism reproduces in the rapid and short course of its own 
 evolution the most important of the changes in form through which its ances- 
 tors ... . have passed in the slow and long course of their palaeonfa 
 evolution. The history of the germ is an epitome of the history of descent; or 
 in other words ontogeny is a recapitulation of phytogeny; or somewhat more 
 explicitly, the series of forms through which the individual organism passes 
 ( }„,in i ">m the egg-cell to its fully developed state, is a brief, corn- 
 
 's reproduction of the Long series of form- through which the animal 
 ancestors of that organism have passed from the earliest perio Is of so-called 
 organic creation down to the present time."— Ilacckel, Evolution of .Van, 
 vol. i. pp. i -6. 
 
HAECKEDS PATER FAMILIAS, THE MONERON. 151 
 
 it cover the following ? — After repeatedly affirming that 
 the moneron is " a simple lump of albumen," " one sin- 
 gle substance," "homogeneous matter," " homogeneously 
 composed of one single substance," " nothing but a semi- 
 fluid, formless, and simple lumpof albumen," "the simplest 
 of all imaginable organisms " ; after asserting that " all 
 distinction of heterogeneous parts is wanting," — he else- 
 where affirms, " All animals and all plants, in fact all 
 organisms, consist in great measure of fluid-water." Then 
 the moneron is neither an animal nor an organism unless 
 it has more than " one single substance." He affirms: 
 " In its early stages, the human embryo contains ninety 
 per cent of water. . . . Without water there is no life." 
 If the moneron has any life whatever, it must be com- 
 posed in part of water; but it is one "single substance." 
 It is, however, the " primeval parent of all other organ- 
 isms," and consequently must have been about ninety 
 per cent water — must at least have had some, for 
 "without water there is no life." Apparently "the 
 organless organism," "the simple albuminous lump," 
 is too simple to have been " the primeval parent of all 
 other organisms." 
 
 The author defines ontogeny as the history of the 
 germ, or the recapitulation, in the embryonic state, of 
 phylogeny, that is, of all the successive changes through 
 which a species has passed in its evolution from primitive 
 ancestors. According to this fundamental ontogenetic 
 law every animal, including man, should begin in its 
 embryonic state in a cytod and successively evolve 
 through all the intermediate links to the particular stage 
 of evolution attained by its species. The links between 
 the first living organism and man are declared to be 
 twenty-two, though the reader finds it impossible to 
 determine the several animal forms assumed by the 
 
152 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 human embryo during the period of development. Pro- 
 tracted portions of the history appear totally illegible. 
 Nevertheless, this ontogenetic law is declared to be 
 fundamental — every animal, during its embryonic state, 
 passes through all the changes through which its species 
 passed in its evolution from the primeval parent of all 
 organisms. Strange to say, after half a volume is taken 
 up in the attempt to establish this law, man's history is 
 represented as beginning in a" one-celled organism," and 
 not in a cytod. The argument from ontogeny, which is 
 regarded as original and unanswerable, should have based 
 itself upon irrefragible evidence that all animals begin in 
 a cytod. No, the law is deliberately ignored. Instead 
 of possessing unmistakable testimony that the human 
 embryo, and every other animal embryo, is a moneron in 
 the first stage of its existence, we are confronted with 
 the assertion, "all animals descend originally from a 
 one-celled organism." Of what value is this ontogenetic 
 law in furnishing a recapitulation ofphylogeny, if, instead 
 of reproducing the earliest ancestral form it contents 
 itself with beginning in a complex cell ? And yet, in 
 subsequent eras, the task of " reproducing, in the course 
 of its own evolution, the most important of the changes 
 in form through which its ancestors . . . have passed in 
 the slow and long course of their pahxontological evo- 
 lution," seems to have been insufficient to exhaust its 
 energies, leaving it equal to the profitless labor of fur- 
 nishing the earliest vertebrate animals with large heads 
 in the first stages of embryonic development instead of 
 leaving them headless like their acephalous ancestors. 
 It appears, in subsequent ages, to have possessed power 
 adequate to the reproduction in the stages of embryonic 
 development of what had not been previously produced 
 by phylogenetic evolution ; for example, the embryonic 
 
HAECKEUS PATER FAMILIAS, THE MONERON. 153 
 
 tail of the turtle. It had unemployed energy adequate to 
 the task of enabling the shad to reproduce, during the 
 earlier stages of its embryonic unfolding, its own gill- 
 arches. One would naturally suppose that these — as the 
 animal retains them during its existence and must have 
 received them as a part of its legacy from less complex 
 progenitors — would be a later embryonic evolution. 
 
 We are expected to believe in ontogenesis and to be- 
 lieve also that the moneron is " the primeval parent 
 of all other organisms." If we accept the one, we con- 
 sider ourselves logically forced to reject the other. Still 
 we are asked to believe both, though " where faith begins, 
 science ends." 
 
 How does the phylogenetic law stand related to the 
 venerable head of all living organisms ? This fundamental 
 law is that every organic tribe of beings has a phylogeny, 
 or history of its evolution, which history is reproduced by 
 ontogeny, the compressed history of the series of ante- 
 cedent transmutations. Let us see. The moneron is an 
 organic tribe, extensive, long-lived, and important. It 
 peoples ocean-beds. It has come down to the present. 
 It is declared to be " the primeval parent of all other 
 organisms." It is an organism, for it has the functions 
 of life. It certainly must have had some kind of history 
 during its evolution from inorganic matter, for evolution 
 is invariably by slow and nearly imperceptible stages. 
 The history must be interesting and would be of impor- 
 tance to science. And yet, strange to say, no effort is 
 made to recount it, though this is the point upon which 
 special attention should have been concentrated. If the 
 first moneron came into being by spontaneous generation, 
 every subsequent moneron ought to have furnished us a 
 brief compressed history of the interesting process. It 
 was evolved. It must have a history. That history ought 
 
154 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 to be a recapitulation of the stages through which the 
 first moncron passed in its evolution from inorgana. Why 
 
 has not the moneron been subjected to rigid microscopic 
 inspection during the period of " self-propagation by di- 
 vision," in order to ascertain this phylogeny ? If the 
 charges undergone during this period had been exhibited 
 in charts as the tail and the gill-arches of the human 
 embryo have been, it would perhaps have been possible 
 to perceive the mysterious course pursued by inorganic 
 matter in evolving itself into a living organism. As it 
 is, phylogeny is powerless just where its aid is most 
 needed. The theory would have been strengthened con- 
 siderably, if instead of representing the ascidian as having 
 developed gills and a rudimentary tail long prior to the 
 existence of fishes, it had simply given us the phylogeny 
 of the moneron. This would have relieved the difficulty 
 which now prevails in determining which forms are pro- 
 phetic of improvements, and which are recapitulations of 
 stages through which ancestors passed in the process 
 of evolution. 
 
 Numerous as are the difficulties which connect them- 
 selves with Haeckel's description of the moneron as related 
 to statements found elsewhere in his works, and formida- 
 ble as are the objections to his theory founded upon the 
 extreme simplicity of this structureless organization, we 
 are confronted with still graver difficulties when we 
 undertake to evolve "all other organisms from it." Being 
 of " one single substance," how could it produce varia- 
 tions ? If it had been described as a gaseous substance 
 we might have believed it capable of combining by 
 chemical affinity with other substances, and so differen- 
 tiating. If organs had been assigned to it we might 
 have concluded that slight variations were possible. 
 If instead of being characterized as " a simple album- 
 
HAECKEVS PATER FAM/L/AS, THE MONERON. 155 
 
 inous lump," it had been pronounced "a chemical com- 
 bination," the difficulties would have been less serious. 
 How " one organless substance " could have produced the 
 changes characteristic of evolution, it is difficult to see. 
 Were the variations spontaneous ? The only spontaneous 
 variation conceivable in "a semi-fluid, formless, and 
 simple lump of albumen" is its separation into homo- 
 geneous parts, like the division of a crystal. This, how- 
 ever, would not aid in the development of higher forms. 
 Even if variations could have arisen, how could they 
 have been transmitted when propagation was by self- 
 division ? Any improvement must have been divided, 
 half being retained by the parent and half transmitted to 
 the child. Half an organ, for instance, half an intes- 
 tinal canal, would have been valueless, and must soon 
 have been eliminated from the creature's system as a use- 
 less burden, leaving its descendants to begin ab initio, as 
 its progenitor did. If it is said that, strictly speaking, 
 the moneron does not divide itself but develops another 
 moneron out of its own body; then we reply, it is not, as 
 asserted, "the simplest imaginable organism," nor even 
 the simplest observed organism, for there are worms 
 whose number may be multiplied by simply cutting them 
 into pieces, each piece becoming as perfect as the undi- 
 vided parent. Accordingly, how " the simplest imaginable 
 organism " which propagates itself by self-division can 
 transmit improvements, even supposing it capable of 
 acquiring them, is what evolutionists ought to have made 
 clearer. Acquired advantages, we are told, are trans- 
 mitted by inheritance; but to the uninitiated, it looks 
 like a misapplication of the term "inheritance" to say 
 that the piece, which may be cut from the center of a 
 worm, inherited from its ancestor a head and a tail. It 
 has neither. 
 
156 THEISM AXD EVOLUTION. 
 
 The exertions of the moneron to produce variations 
 could scarcely have been aided by the struggle for exist- 
 ence, for with the entire earth for a home and no living 
 organisms as competitors, the struggle for existence 
 could not have been very intense, certainly not as in- 
 tense as now when monera, though numerous, fail in 
 producing the slightest variations. Nor could survival 
 of the fittest have aided in evolving improvements; for, 
 even supposing there was an appreciable difference be- 
 tween the fittest and the least fit, the latter surely could 
 survive if the first moneron did, since, by supposition, 
 nothing could have been less adapted to survive than 
 "a semi-fluid, formless, and simple lump of albumen." 
 Certainly sexual selection could not have rendered as- 
 sistance, for the little puzzle was bisexual. What then 
 could have caused variations ? If an adequate cause 
 existed, why has it ceased to operate, leaving present 
 monera powerless towards producing even the slightest 
 improvements ? 
 
 In passing, we may note another difficulty, the con- 
 tinuance of unimproved monera to the present day. 
 Darwin tells us: "New and improved varieties will 
 inevitably supplant and exterminate the older." Here 
 is an insolvable enigma; unimproved and unimprovable 
 monera still exist. By the law of evolution they should 
 have been exterminated tens of millions of years since, 
 or should have been taught to improve. They have had 
 time sufficient to become either elephants or archangels. 
 They do nothing, and still live. It thus seems that 
 evolution, the most potent sovereign in the universe, has 
 to succumb to the moneron. It cannot exterminate the 
 creature, nor cause it to vary in the smallest measure, 
 though from its ancient ancestor it evolved a Sir Isaac 
 Newton. 
 
HA ECKEL'S PATER FAMILIAS, THE MONERON. 157 
 
 To return: neither could this power of improvement 
 have been inherent in the moneron, for, as we have just 
 said, this "simplest of all imaginable organisms" still 
 lives; which is conclusive evidence that it did not possess 
 innate powers of preserving increments of advance. If it 
 had possessed this power, if there had been advances, how- 
 ever slight, by this time it would have possessed an eye, 
 an ear, an intestinal canal — would have been a creature 
 more advanced than "a being homogeneously composed 
 of one single substance," "nothing but a semi-fluid albu- 
 minous lump," " a homogeneous atom of plasson." Had 
 it improved its innate powers, it might have been a fish, 
 or a kangaroo, certainly might have been a mosquito. 
 
 Supposing that in some inexplicable manner the an- 
 cient moneron, unlike its successors, did manage to vary 
 could it have preserved the increments of improvement? 
 We answer, No; for Darwin assures us, 
 
 " Monstrosities cannot be separated by any distinct line from slight varia- 
 tions." — Origin of Species, p. 6. Again: "Without separation a single mon- 
 strous variation would almost certainly be soon obliterated." — Variations of 
 Animals and Pla/its, vol. ii. p. 495. 
 
 Evidently, then, the variation of the primeval mon- 
 eron could not have been a monstrosity — it would have 
 been almost certainly obliterated. But if natural selec- 
 tion cannot preserve marked modifications, how can it 
 preserve slight variations ? As a monstrosity is only 
 an augmented variation, how does it happen that instead 
 of having greater power of perpetuating itself it actually 
 has less? If, as Darwin says, "monstrosities cannot 
 be separated by any distinct line from slight variations," 
 and if monstrosities are "almost certainly obliterated," 
 then slight variations are as much more likely to be 
 obliterated as the structural changes are less marked 
 than those in monstrosities. 
 
158 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 With the design, apparently, of making the theory 
 easier of acceptance it is affirmed that not all monera im- 
 proved at the time higher forms branched off, but that at 
 one time and in one place, one moneron, and only one, 
 improved, leaving descendants which carried forwards 
 the improvements till they culminated in a more complex 
 form. Is it rational to believe that if variation is possible 
 it could only occur at one time, and only in one place, and 
 only in the case of one moneron ? If such a change was 
 possible once, then, however improbable its recurrence 
 might be, it ought not to be pronounced impossible. If 
 it occurred once, it might have occurred oftener. If it 
 could not occur a second time, then it is safe to say it 
 could not have occurred the first time. If the process 
 cannot repeat itself, it must be because there is an in- 
 finite number of chances against its recurrence; but there 
 must have been the same number of chances against its 
 occurrence. Consequently, the origin of all forms of life 
 higher than the moneron was once suspended upon this 
 shadowy contingency, equal to an impossibility. If the 
 requisite variation could have occurred but once, then 
 the existence of the entire animal kingdom, including 
 man, is the purest accident conceivable. The strangest 
 part of all is, that this creature which blundered so egre- 
 giously — in violating all law by doing what no other 
 moneron ever has done, or ever can do — neither unfitted 
 itself for its environment, nor lost its increments of im- 
 provement, but was fortunate enough, after its blunder, 
 to retain all acquired advantages till it evolved male and 
 female issue, which neither reverted to ancestral forms nor 
 lost successive advances by inter-crossing. Strange; for 
 we are assured that the variations of single individuals 
 are inevitably and speedily obliterated by the mere force 
 of the number of unimproved individuals, unless the 
 
HA ECKEL'S PATER EAM/LZAS, THE MONERON. 159 
 
 improved varieties are kept separate and so induced to 
 breed inter se. 
 
 By commencing - the process of evolution in a bisexual 
 organism, Haeckel evinced wisdom, for in that class of 
 animals an individual might improve without having the 
 improvements eliminated by the influence of unimproved 
 specimens; but a time must come when improvements 
 could only have occurred by the advance of the entire 
 species, or at least of all inhabiting a particular locality 
 — the individuals being unisexual. 
 
 If there were slight advances in a few monera, and if 
 these advances endured for a time, still the chances that 
 these would be lost, before they were transmitted to the 
 next higher order, must have been millions to one; and 
 in each succeeding stride to the next species above — and 
 the number of species is countless — there must also have 
 been millions of chances of losing the increments of im- 
 provement ere the higher form was evolved, against one 
 chance of retaining them. Nay, according to evolution, 
 which denies the fixedness of species, the improvements 
 could never have reached a point at which they were 
 secure against retrogression. Consequently, there must 
 have been an infinite number of chances, on this count 
 alone, against one chance that improvements could be 
 preserved "till man was evolved." Accordingly, against 
 the assumption that a moneron could have been evolved 
 into a Haeckel we have millions of chances, multiplied 
 by the long line of figures designating the number of 
 marked varieties between the " homogeneous atom " and 
 man. 
 
 He who can believe that man evolved from a moneron, 
 and a moneron evolved from matter, and matter evolved 
 from space, ought not to object to the doctrine of a Per- 
 sonal God. If from nothingness it is impossible that 
 
1C)0 THE I SAT AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 anything should be created by an Intelligent Being 
 possessing omnipotence, then from nothingness it is im- 
 possible that anything should be created by evolution. 
 In its ultimate findings, logic seems to require us to 
 believe, either that matter is eternal and omnipotent, or 
 that there is an Intelligent Personality self-existent in 
 essence and infinite in power. A majority of the human 
 family regard the latter proposition as more reasonable 
 than the former. Some theists, it is true, are disposed to 
 ask, How could even an Omnipotent Intelligence create 
 a universe from nothingness? They prefer to regard 
 everything as an emanation from God— the material 
 universe, His outer garment; life, a quivering drop of 
 His own personality; spirit, the effluence of His being. 
 Others content themselves with the dictum: God exists; 
 everything external to Him owes its being and its con- 
 tinuance to His Unconditional Will. One and all, when 
 conscious of the overshadowing presence of The Eternal, 
 throw down the weapons of reason, and walking softly 
 reverently whisper: The Unfathomable is; bow the knee 
 in worship. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 ABIOGENESIS. 
 
 Having endeavored to show that neither the moneron 
 nor a few primordial germs could have evolved the ani- 
 mal kingdom as it now exists, we desire to direct the 
 reader's attention to some of the difficulties connected 
 with the assumption that life originated in spontaneous 
 generation. We make no attempt to prove that it did 
 not so originate, since that would be to undertake the 
 impossible task of proving a negative; but we hope to 
 present evidence sufficient to make it apparent to any- 
 unbiased investigator that the theory is a simple assump- 
 tion having nothing for its support except the neces- 
 sity — keenly felt by atheistic evolutionists — of possessing 
 a living organism spontaneously generated. Professor 
 Huxley frankly admits that the exigencies of his theory 
 furnish the only available testimony in favor of abiogen- 
 esis, or the origination of the living from the not-living. 
 He says: — 
 
 " The course of modern investigation has distinctly tended to disprove the 
 occurrence of equivocal generation, or abiogenesis, in the present course of 
 nature. . . . The evidence is yet to be adduced which will satisfy any cautious 
 reasoner that ' omne vivum ex vivo ' is not as well established a law of the 
 existing course of nature as ' omne ovum ex ovo.' " — Encyc. Brit., art., 
 " Evolution." " The fact is that at the present moment there is not a shadow 
 of trustworthy direct evidence that abiogenesis does take place, or has taken 
 place, within the period during which the existence of life on the globe is 
 recorded. But it need hardly be pointed out, that the fact does not in the 
 
162 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 slightest degree interfere with any conclusion that may be arrived at deduc- 
 tively from other considerations, that at some time or other, abiogenesis mu-t 
 have taken place. ... If the hypothesis of evolution is true, living matter 
 must have arisen from not-living matter; for by the hypothesis, the condition 
 of the globe was at one time such that living matter could not have existed in 
 it, life being entirely incompatible with the gaseous state. But living matter 
 once originated, there is no necessity for another origination, since the hypoth- 
 stulates the unlimited, though perhaps not indefinite, modifibility of such 
 matter. ... Of the causes which have led to the origination of living matter, 
 then, it may \>e said that we know absolutely nothing. . . . The present state 
 of knowledge furnishes us with no link between the living and the not-living.' 1 
 — Encyc. Brit., art., "Biology." 
 
 It thus appears that a torturing necessity, begotten in 
 the determination to eliminate God from the universe, is 
 the main, if not the only, proof which evolution can fur- 
 nish that life is a result of spontaneous generation. The 
 entire argument may be compressed into this brief as- 
 sertion, — consistency seems to demand it, for a starting- 
 point is indispensable, " If the hypothesis of evolution 
 is true, living matter must have arisen from not-living 
 matter." But alas, for the theory, "there is not a 
 shadow of trustworthy direct evidence that abiogenesis 
 does take place, or has taken place, within the period 
 during which the existence of life on the globe is re- 
 corded." Then there is very little evidence that " the 
 hypothesis of evolution is true." Why cling so tena- 
 ciously to a theory which can only be true, provided a 
 miracle has occurred of which there is confessedly nc 
 evidence whatever; and against which, moreover, the 
 unvarying uniformity of nature's laws," within the period 
 during which the existence of life on the globe is re- 
 corded," enters its determined protest ? Why do ad- 
 vanced evolutionists, while spitefully insisting that the 
 uniformity of nature's laws renders it impossible to be- 
 lieve in the miracles of Scripture, still persist in assert- 
 ing that " abiogenesis," the greatest of miracles, " must 
 
ABIOGENESIS. 163 
 
 have taken place," though of testimony there is abso- 
 lutely none ? 
 
 " But living matter once originated, there is no ne- 
 cessity for another origination." Why? Because, " the 
 hypothesis postulates the unlimited, though perhaps not 
 indefinite, modifibility of such matter." If all that is 
 necessary is to have some hypothesis that will " postulate 
 unlimited modifibility " why not at once fairly meet the 
 demands of the case and squarely assert the " unlim- 
 ited, though perhaps not indefinite, modifibility of such 
 matter" as is denominated inorganic? By asserting 
 that it could modify itself to an "unlimited" extent 
 provision would be made for man's advent upon the 
 stage; and by saying, very guardedly, perhaps inor- 
 ganic matter cannot modify itself to an "indefinite" 
 extent, we would be given to understand that its myriad 
 attempts at " modification " could never result in pro- 
 ducing monstrosities, but of course could easily origi- 
 nate a moneron, an amoeba, a cytod, a homogeneous 
 atom of plasson. This would render " the hypothesis 
 of evolution" quite consistent throughout; for as the 
 subsequent transmutations, which are accounted for by 
 saying the hypothesis "postulates" them, are regarded 
 as spontaneous — there being no intelligent designer and 
 no secondary causes to which they can be attributed — it 
 will of course be quite easy and entirely consistent to 
 affirm that it requires no more faith to believe that 
 animal organisms originated in spontaneous generation 
 than to believe that man evolved himself from anthropoid 
 apes. If apes possessing "unlimited modifibility" gen- 
 erated man through numberless transitional forms, all 
 of which have perished, then manifestly an atom of earth 
 possessing " unlimited modifibility " may have spontane- 
 ously generated a moneron, especially as it enjoyed an 
 
164 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 eternity in which to try, and may have been kept from 
 blundering because its " modifibility was perhaps not 
 indefinite." As there could be no transitional forms 
 between the living and the not-living, one difficulty 
 connected with subsequent transmutations would not 
 cause embarrassment. Of course no intermediate forms 
 would be expected to exist. 
 
 " If the hypothesis of evolution is true, living matter must have arisen from 
 not-living matter." " There is not a shadow of trustworthy direct evidence 
 that abiogenesis does take place, or has taken place, within the period during 
 which life on the globe is recorded." 
 
 " At some time or other abiogenesis must have taken place." 
 "Evolution postulates the unlimited, though perhaps not indefinite, modifi- 
 bility of living matter," 
 
 The argument here outlined, when presented in syllo- 
 gistic form, is as follows: — 
 
 1. If evolution is true, abiogenesis must have occurred 
 at some time; 
 
 2. Evolution may be true; 
 
 Therefore, Abiogenesis may have occurred. 
 
 The premises will warrant no stronger conclusion. 
 The inference may be no broader than the narrowest 
 statement contained in either premise. 
 
 To appearances, the argument comes so near affirm- 
 ing, abiogenesis is true because evolution is true, and 
 evolution is true because abiogenesis is true, that it 
 might legitimately assume the following form: — 
 
 i. Unless abiogenesis has occurred, evolution cannot 
 be true; 
 
 2. " There is no shadow of trustworthy direct evidence 
 that abiogenesis does take place, or has taken place, with- 
 in the period during which life on the globe is recorded "; 
 
 Therefore, There is no trustworthy direct evidence 
 that evolution does take place, or has taken place, etc. 
 
ABIOGENESIS. 165 
 
 If evolution is at liberty to draw conclusions suited to 
 its demands, why may not its opponents do so also ? 
 Logic, with its rules in reference to negative premises, 
 undistributed middle, illicit process, an affirmative con- 
 clusion when one of the premises is negative, a universal 
 conclusion when one premise is particular, etc., is no 
 more binding upon opposers of evolution than upon 
 evolutionists. 
 
 The argument may be made to assume form as 
 follows: — 
 
 1. If evolution is true, living matter must have arisen 
 from not-living matter; 
 
 2. Evolution is true, for it postulates " the unlimited 
 modifibility of living matter"; 
 
 Therefore, Living matter has arisen by spontaneous 
 generation from inorganic matter. Has the "unlimited 
 modifibility of such matter" been proved ? 
 
 The reasoning might assume this syllogistic form: — 
 
 1. Whatever postulates " the unlimited modifibility 
 of matter" is true; 
 
 2. Evolution postulates "the unlimited modifibility of 
 matter"; 
 
 Therefore, Evolution is true. 
 
 i. If evolution is true, abiogenesis must be true; 
 
 2. Evolution is true; 
 
 Therefore, Abiogenesis is true. 
 
 Presented in this dress, effort might have been con- 
 centrated upon the establishment of the first premise in 
 each syllogism. 
 
 To complete the reasoning this might be added: — 
 
 1. Whatever the theory of evolution needs for its es- 
 tablishment must have occurred, either since the origin of 
 life on the globe or antecedent thereto; 
 
 2. Abiogenesis, of which " there is not a shadow of 
 
166 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 trustworthy direct evidence that it does take place, or 
 has taken place, within the period during which the exist- 
 ence of life on the globe is recorded," is necessary to the 
 establishment of the theory of evolution; 
 
 Therefore, Abiogenesis must have taken place prior to 
 "the period during which the existence of life on the 
 globe is recorded." 
 
 If we have failed to prove that the not-living gave birth 
 to the living, or if we have tripped in our effort to show 
 that this miracle occurred ere the present order of things 
 was introduced, it is not because we have neglected to 
 place the argument in the clearest light which it seems 
 capable of enduring. 
 
 Is it conceivable that a living organism, the primeval 
 parent of all other organisms, came into being by a 
 fortuitous aggregation of material elements ? We answer, 
 No: for it is extremely improbable that the constituent 
 elements of a vegetable or animal germ, of a moneron or 
 a lichen, as the case may be, could have come together 
 spontaneously. Professor Huxley informs us that "germs 
 consist of at fewest four elementary bodies; viz., carbon, 
 hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, united in the ill-defined 
 compound known as proteine, and associated with much 
 water and very generally with sulphur and phosphorus 
 in minute proportions." Professor Haeckel assures us 
 that the moneron, the primitive parent of the entire 
 animal kingdom, has the same constituent elements. 
 Then we are to believe that these several material 
 elements came together "spontaneously," and that they 
 came together in precisely the requisite proportions. 
 Even this, however, though a miracle, would not account 
 for the origin of life, for there are dead monera and life- 
 less germs. It has not been shown that these differ in 
 material constitution from those possessing life. It is 
 
ABIOGENESIS. 167 
 
 conceded that the above-mentioned material elements 
 may combine without constituting a living organism. 
 Something more is requisite, — life. If, with the view of 
 rendering the work of spontaneous generation as easy as 
 possible, we regard life as simply a particular arrangement 
 of material molecules we are required to believe that 
 these molecules "spontaneously" arranged themselves 
 in such a manner as to originate life; and as all the varied 
 forms of life must be due, according to the conditions 
 of this hypothesis, to distinct molecular arrangements 
 we are further forced to believe that these molecules 
 so arranged themselves, "spontaneously," as to originate 
 the lowest imaginable organism, a moneron, a lichen, an 
 animal germ, a vegetable germ, or a germ capable of 
 evolving vegetable and animal organisms. Did these 
 three things, — the material aggregation, the molecular 
 arrangement requisite to constitute life, and the specific 
 arrangement necessary to the origination of " the lowest 
 imaginable organism" — concur "spontaneously," being 
 brought about concurrently by unknown forces inherent 
 in these constituent elements ? This requires a large 
 measure of credulity, especially as science is vigorously 
 asserting, and has been for more than twenty years, that 
 since the dawn of terrestrial history no material atom has 
 been destroyed, and no force has been annihilated. 
 
 And yet, strange to say, it is frankly conceded that 
 spontaneous generation does not now occur, cannot now 
 occur, and has occurred but once. Are we to under- 
 stand then that spontaneous generation is causeless 
 generation ? If it is not causeless, why has it oc- 
 curred but once ? The cause which produced it that 
 once still lives, for no force has been annihilated. To 
 say that it was causeless would be unscientific. To 
 concede that we are to understand " the spontaneous 
 
168 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 origination " of life as its origination through unknown 
 causes, is to confess carelessness in the choice of language. 
 Besides, it would not answer the purpose of atheistic 
 evolution; for it would leave its advocates liable to be 
 inflicted with a text of Scripture from the mouth of some 
 modern Paul; "The unknown God, whom ye ignorantly 
 worship, Him declare I unto you." 
 
 If spontaneous generation is inconceivable even on 
 the theory that life is merely a particular molecular 
 arrangement, it is of course no less inconceivable on 
 any higher theory of life. If life is a directing agency 
 capable of organizing matter into a living structure, then 
 how came " the ill-defined compound known as proteine " 
 to possess this directing agency ? How did it happen 
 to become so well fitted to be the primeval parent of all 
 living organisms ? Whence came this directing agency ? 
 Why did it evolve but one ancestral form ? Was it 
 evolved " spontaneously " ? Did it come into existence 
 independently of the material elements constituting the 
 body of the first living organism ? If it did, what 
 produced it, and what associated it with the albuminous 
 lump ? And when associated, why did it happen to 
 constitute or to develop into a homogeneous atom of 
 plasson ? It was protoplasm, and protoplasm can develop 
 into an elephant or a cedar, as well as into " the lowest 
 imaginable organism." Did the undifferentiated lump 
 develop a directing agency through forces inherent in 
 itself? — and is it enough to say that it could as readily 
 develop the directing agency characteristic of a moneron 
 or a lichen as it could develop the life-principle of a tiger 
 or of a mammoth pine ? But some cause must have pro- 
 duced the specific result. That cause, or combination of 
 causes, must have been different, in slight measure at 
 least, from any cause or combination of causes which was 
 
ABIOGENESIS. 169 
 
 fitted to the production of a different effect. It is 
 unscientific for the evolutionists to say that the homo- 
 geneous atom, while still mere matter, can and must 
 proceed to develop the life-principle, unless they are 
 prepared to tell us how it can and why it must. In what 
 does this power reside ? What necessity impels this 
 spontaneous generation ? Those who persist in denounc- 
 ing the hypothesis of an uncreated First Cause, do not 
 expect us to believe that this effect has no cause. 
 
 Again: if we are to view life as an intangible, imma- 
 terial entity, a substance though not matter, then we 
 are forced to inquire whether it originated simultaneously 
 with the aggregated material elements of the creature's 
 minute body or came into being independent of it. In the 
 former case there must have been two acts of spontaneity; 
 in the latter case there must have been three, — the gener- 
 ation of the material in proper proportions, the genera- 
 tion of the immaterial entity, and the union of the two. 
 It thus becomes evident that spontaneous generation is 
 inexplicable whatever we may choose to regard life, 
 whether as molecular arrangement, an organizing prin- 
 ciple, or an entitive substance. In every conceivable as- 
 pect of the case it is a mindless, willess, blind, groping 
 nondescript, with no powers at its command; and yet it 
 is supposed to have produced a result in comparison with 
 which the results of human intelligence seem destitute 
 of design. 
 
 It may perhaps be said that injustice is done to the 
 theory in question by assuming that the term " sponta- 
 neous," as employed in this connection, maybe interpreted 
 as meaning causeless. We candidly concede that this 
 is neither its etymological nor its commonly accepted 
 meaning, and yet, if life is the " spontaneous " result of 
 the internal forces of nature, unassisted by any extra- 
 
170 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 mundane force, it is remarkable that it has not occurred 
 during man's history, and cannot be produced in the lab- 
 oratory. If it occurred but once, and occurred without 
 the intervention of a Personal Will, it would seem as if it 
 must have been causeless. What unassisted nature has 
 done once, it can do again, for its internal impulses re- 
 main unchanged. What it does once, it generally does 
 quite frequently, for the causes which combine to produce 
 one effect are likely to combine in the production of other 
 similar effects. What force of nature, or what concur- 
 rence of forces, can be shown to have operated once and 
 then lapsed into perpetual quiescence ? Certainly the 
 term " spontaneous," as ordinarily employed, does not 
 bear this meaning. Spontaneous combustion does not 
 mean combustion which has occurred but once and " can 
 never occur again." Such combustion we should be dis- 
 posed to denominate " causeless " ; for if it were not, but 
 was effected by agencies resident in nature, it might 
 occur again. The causes which produced it, however 
 complicated, and though undiscoverable by man, might 
 come into operation a second time during the lapse of 
 hundreds of millions of years. But we are told that 
 spontaneous generation has occurred but once, and can 
 never occur again. Then life is the result of a blunder 
 on the part of nature; and yet all nature is fitted to it, 
 and it is fitted to nature. If then spontaneous gener- 
 ation is an act incapable of repetition, is it unreason- 
 able to recommend the substitution of "causeless" for 
 11 spontaneous " ? 
 
 Are we then to understand that the term " sponta- 
 neous " is employed because the first living organism orig- 
 inated in unknown causes ? Were its material elements 
 brought together in proper proportions by some undis- 
 coverable force or forces ? Was the " albuminous lump " 
 
ABIOGENESIS. 171 
 
 subjected to the influence of heat, electricity, light, mag- 
 netism, chemical affinity ? Were all changes affected by 
 external agencies ? Was light, acting upon the homo- 
 geneous protoplasm, converted by absorption into heat, 
 which in turn produced electricity, magnetism, chemical 
 affinity, motion — all the forces of nature, any one being 
 convertible into any other ? It is perhaps said that these 
 agencies may have originated the first living organism, 
 either a plant or an animal; and that we may properly 
 designate the process " spontaneous " because we are 
 unable to determine which was the initial energy, into 
 what it was subsequently transmuted, what potency be- 
 longed to the several co-operating agencies, and whether 
 they could ever again combine to produce a similar 
 result. 
 
 If we are asked to view the case in this light, we may 
 pertinently inquire whether it is not improbable that these 
 energies should have chanced to operate once in the pro- 
 duction of an effect which is without a parallel ? Against 
 the assumption that they so combined we have the un- 
 broken testimony of the ages. The laws of nature, which 
 are uniform in their operation, have persistently refused 
 to repeat the process. Nor have we any human testimony, 
 that vivum ex vivo est is not a law of the universe, one 
 which has never been violated. There is no evidence 
 that any animal originated from inorganic nature, either 
 "causeless," or from the operation of causes inherent in 
 matter. There is unvarying testimony extending through 
 millions of years, that life has invariably originated in an 
 antecedent individual life. Why, then, should some 
 scientists, while rejecting miracles and assuring us that 
 they are at variance with the uniform testimony of ex- 
 perience, still persist in asking us to believe the most 
 stupendous miracle ever presented for man's acceptance? 
 
172 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 They request us to believe, without any evidence what- 
 ever, that life originated spontaneously. 
 
 If no evidence is presented that spontaneous generation 
 has ever taken place; if it has not occurred since man's 
 advent upon earth; if for untold millions of years the 
 forces of nature have been operating in undisturbed po- 
 tency over extensive areas without leaving any evidence 
 whatever which tends to confirm the conjecture that the 
 living may have arisen from the not-living; if no one is 
 able to prove that unassisted nature possesses powers 
 adequate to the task of originating life; if no scientist is 
 able to say, "I saw a cytod which never had an ances- 
 tor," — then why should we be expected to believe a mir- 
 acle which is as much less credible than those of Scripture 
 as the baseless hypothesis that the earth rests upon a 
 huge serpent is less credible than the theory which has 
 displaced it ? 
 
 The improbability that life had its origin in sponta- 
 neous generation is greatly increased by the fact that 
 scientists, though striving earnestly for years, have failed 
 in producing it from inorganic matter, or even from or- 
 ganic substances which have been subjected to sufficient 
 heat to destroy all the germs. If life is a particular ar- 
 rangement of the molecules of ordinary matter — indeed, 
 whatever it may be, if it has come and consequently can 
 come into being "spontaneously" — scientists ought long 
 since to have presented us with at least one throbbing 
 moneron, one living germ, one little lump of palpitating 
 proteine, one quickened atom of plasson, the production 
 of the chemical laboratory. Chemistry has no living 
 children. Strange! Let them originate a living mon- 
 eron, "the lowest imaginable organism" (except the 
 cytod, which is "lower" than the lowest), and they 
 will accomplish more towards the acceptance of their 
 
ABIOGENESIS. 173 
 
 theory than by voluminous, unsatisfactory, and confusing 
 reasoning.* 
 
 The extent to which meats and vegetables are 
 preserved by the process of " canning " is satisfactory 
 evidence that those experimenters are mistaken who 
 imagine that they have discovered bacteria in flasks 
 which, containing organic substances, have been suffi- 
 ciently heated to destroy all germ-life and subsequently 
 rendered air-tight and allowed to remain a few days. 
 Either the heat must have been insufficient to destroy 
 germs of bacteria, or there were no bacteria when the 
 flasks were opened, or they came from the enveloping 
 atmosphere as the contents of the flasks were under ex- 
 amination. If bacteria, or indeed any other form of either 
 vegetable or animal life, can originate where no living 
 germs exist, why are meats, fruits, and vegetables pre- 
 served by "canning " ? The presence of life in these cans 
 would cause decomposition, the contents becomingvalue- 
 less. All germs are either expelled by driving out the 
 
 * H. Charlton Bastian, M. D., F. R. S., made the following experiment: — A 
 strong solution of turnip was rendered faintly alkaline: to this was added a few 
 muscular fibers of cod-fish. The mixture was then put into a flask, the neck 
 of which was hermetically sealed by a blow-pipe flame while the contents were 
 at the boiling point. It was subsequently introduced into a digester which was 
 gradually heated to a temperature of from 270 degrees to 275 degrees F., and 
 kept at the same degree of heat for twenty minutes. The flask, when drawn 
 from the digester, was kept for eight weeks at a temperature of from 70 
 degrees to 80 degrees F. When opened, it was found to contain bacteria of 
 most diverse shapes and sizes — also nucleated spire-like bodies. A similar ex- 
 periment with common cress yielded minute and delicate protomcebae varying in 
 size and creeping with moderately rapid slug-like movements — also bacteria, pro- 
 toplasm, motionless and tailless sperules of different sizes, and active monads of 
 one-four-thousandth of an inch in diameter. It should be noted that organic 
 matter was employed, not inorganic; nor has it been conclusively proved that the 
 amount of heat, great as it was, to which the mixture was subjected, is de- 
 structive of all living organisms. The experiments, it is conceded, were 
 inconclusive. 
 
174 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 air, or they are destroyed. Consequently, the contents 
 are preserved. If lower forms of life could originate 
 "spontaneously" in the air-tight vessel, its contents 
 would be rendered worthless. Some cans " spoil," it is 
 true; but this, as is well known, is due either to imper- 
 fect sealing, to air left in the cans at the time they 
 are closed, or to insufficient heat in the process of 
 preparation. 
 
 It is not possible to attribute the preservation of the 
 contents of properly sealed and well-boiled cans to the 
 exclusion of oxygen, for it has been proved that the pre- 
 sence of oxygen is not necessary for either fermentation 
 or putrefaction. . It cannot be attributed to the fact that 
 the contents were well boiled, for boiled fruits, meats, 
 and vegetables are fermentable and putrescible. Nor 
 is their preservation due to the exclusion of air, for 
 these substances can ferment in vacuo. It cannot be 
 said that bacteria fail to manifest their presence simply 
 because there is no air in which they may live, for 
 bacteria can live without air. What reason, then, can 
 be assigned except the expulsion or destruction of 
 germs ? 
 
 The proposition that living matter may arise from 
 that which has no life — " abiogenesis" — has not been 
 proved. The dictum of Redi: " omne vivum ex vivo," 
 " all life from pre-existing life" — " biogenesis" — is still 
 entitled to respect. Until it has been proved that in 
 one instance at least life has originated without the 
 agency of pre-existing life it is premature, and unscien- 
 tific, to regard spontaneous generation as anything else 
 than a baseless speculation. 
 
 That under the manipulations of the most eminent 
 chemists, as Buffon, Needham, and Bastian, it has not 
 been proved that life may, or has, proceeded from lifeless 
 
ABIOGENESIS. 175 
 
 matter, is frankly conceded by Mr. Huxley. Buffon and 
 Needham maintained that in beef and hay, both dead 
 matter, there were " organic molecules " which were 
 capable of originating life if subjected to the influence of 
 water. These molecules, having the property of life and 
 existing in all living things, and possessing energies dis- 
 tinguishing them from dead matter, were supposed to be 
 equal to the task of producing animalcules, i. e., life under 
 new forms, xenogenesis. Certainly such living things 
 exist in decaying animal and vegetable substances. 
 They are also exceedingly small, the diameter of some 
 being not more than 40000 of an inch. What is their 
 origin? Spallanzani triumphantly proved that if these 
 substances were sufficiently heated and the air success- 
 fully excluded, no animalcules made their appearance. 
 It was then imagined that the action of oxygen on these 
 "organic molecules " was necessary to develop vitality. 
 This theory shared the fate of its predecessor. It was 
 found that air which had been passed through red-hot 
 glass tubes — its quality remaining unchanged though the 
 living germs it contained were destroyed — might come in 
 contact with dead organic matter for an indefinite pe- 
 riod of time and no living thing resulted. The same result 
 has attended the various experiments made with air which 
 has been strained through cotton-wool. If the mouth 
 of the vessel, which contains an infusion fitted for the 
 development of living things, is closed with cotton-wool 
 while heated, no life manifests itself. Indeed, the mouth 
 may be left open, if the neck of the flask is long and 
 turned downwards. The germs of life, of which the air is 
 full, cannot fall upwards. 
 
 Mr. Huxley's summary of the result of the many experi- 
 ments made with a view of solving the question of abio- 
 genesis is as follows: — 
 
176 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 " It is demonstrable that a fluid eminently fit for the development of the 
 lowest forms of life, but which contains neither germs nor any proteine compound, 
 gives rise to living things in great abundance if it is exposed to ordinary air, 
 while no such development takes place if the air with which it is in contact is 
 mechanically freed from the solid particles which ordinarily float in it and which 
 may be made visible by appropriate means." 
 
 " It is demonstrable that inoculation of the experimental fluid with a drop 
 of liquid known to contain living particles gives rise to the same phenomena 
 as exposure to unpurified air." 
 
 " It is further certain that these living particles are so minute that the assump. 
 tion of their suspension in ordinary air presents not the slightest difficulty." 
 
 " Thus the evidence, direct and indirect, in favor of biogenesis, for all known 
 forms of life, must, I think, be admitted to be of great weight." 
 
 " If the results of the experiments I refer to [hermetically sealed fluids, after 
 exposure to heat, yielding living forms of organization] are really trustworthy, 
 it by no means follows that abiogenesis [life without the agency of pre-existing 
 life] has taken place. • The resistance of living matter to heat is known to vary 
 within considerable limits, and to depend, to some extent, upon the chemical and 
 physical qualities of the surrounding medium. But, if, in the present state of 
 science, the alternative is offered us, either germs can stand a greater heat than 
 has been supposed, or the molecules of dead matter, for no valid or intelligible 
 reason that is assigned, are able to rearrange themselves into living bodies, 
 exactly such as can be demonstrated to be frequently produced in another way, 
 I cannot understand how choice can be, even for a moment, doubtful." 
 
 " I see no reason for believing that the feat [the production of life from not- 
 living matter] has been performed yet." 
 
 " The doctrine of biogenesis \omne vivum ex vivo] appears to me ... to 
 be victorious along the whole line at the present day." — Lay Sermons, pp. 363, 
 364, 365, 366, 367. 
 
 But it may be said that we ought not to conclude that 
 spontaneous generation was impossible in former times, 
 because it is apparently impossible now. We are told 
 that there were causes in operation then which do not 
 exist now. 
 
 We answer: It is a purely gratuitous assumption that 
 at the dawn of life upon the earth forces were operative 
 that have since been either annihilated or rendered less 
 potent. Nature is uniform. Her laws are the same in all 
 eras. We are assured by scientists that no force has been 
 
ABIOGENESIS. 177 
 
 annihilated, or indeed can be. If energies existed an- 
 ciently which have ceased to operate since, evolutionists, 
 we presume, ought to be able to determine their nature, 
 in measure at least, by an examination of those still 
 existing, which, if evolution is what it is represented to 
 be, must have been evolved from those which have 
 perished. Forces, it is true, are convertible; but they 
 are not destructible. Consequently, if any existed an- 
 ciently which do not exist now, they must have disap- 
 peared through transformation. Accordingly, those who 
 are able to trace man back to the moneron ought to be 
 able to trace the genealogy of existing forces, and to 
 explain why, contrary to the analogy of the vegetable and 
 the animal kingdom, there has been degeneracy instead 
 of improvement. Why have physical causes become less 
 potent by the lapse of time, whilst vital causes have 
 greatly increased in power ? Why did the moneron go 
 on improving till man was evolved, whilst the agency 
 or agencies which originated it have so far deteriorated 
 that they are unequal to the task of producing a second 
 "homogeneous atom of plasson " ? 
 
 Are light, heat, electricity, magnetism, and chemical 
 affinity lineal descendants of forces that have passed 
 away ? Was there originally but one force, motion, as 
 there was but one animal, the little " organless organ- 
 ization " ? Were all potencies but modes of operation of 
 this one force ? Was this one energy more potent an- 
 ciently than at present ? No: for we are assured that 
 force cannot be annihilated; and its diminution ought to 
 be regarded as a partial destruction. If it is said that a 
 particular energy may be diminished without the annihi- 
 lation of the part that disappeared, we answer, Certainly, 
 for it may assume a new form. There is no less force in 
 the world on that account. When motion is diminished 
 
178 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 by friction, heat is increased to an extent which may be 
 measured by the amount of motion lost. Light may 
 be converted by absorption into heat. Electricity may be 
 transformed into magnetism, etc. But if the sum-total 
 of the forces operating in nature has been diminished 
 since the dawn of life, there has been an annihilation of 
 force, which science has pronounced a thing impossible. 
 
 It is safe to affirm that the preponderance of testi- 
 mony is in favor of the theory that the forces now oper- 
 ative in nature are as potent as those which operated 
 millions of years before the molecules of matter assumed 
 that peculiar arrangement which resulted in the gradual 
 evolution of '* evolution " ; as potential as those which 
 ruled the universe at the time this " albuminous atom " 
 leaped into life. It is perhaps said that forces existent 
 now may have operated anciently under modes unknown 
 at present, or may have constituted a single force, or may 
 have combined as they combine no longer. Such con- 
 jectures are possible, it is true; and effects diverse from 
 those witnessed now may have resulted: but it has not 
 been proved that the physical forces are independent 
 concomitants of matter; that, given the existence of the 
 latter, the former could have been different from what 
 they are; that animate and inanimate nature may be in- 
 fluenced by agencies not now in existence. It has not 
 been shown that conditions existed in ancient times more 
 favorable to the origination of life, nor that matter then 
 possessed powers which have since been lost. The earth, 
 it is true, formerly existed under conditions different from 
 those which prevail now. Cosmical causes have pro- 
 duced cosmical changes. These, however, are supposed 
 to be confined to a succession of tropical and glacial 
 eras — more anciently " to a continued diminution of heat." 
 Neither heat nor cold, however, has aided abiogenists 
 
ABIOGENESIS. 179 
 
 in originating- life. Life is from pre-existing life — such is 
 the testimony of science. 
 
 Professor Haeckel, apparently with the view of render- 
 ing it easier to accept the theory that life originated in 
 spontaneous generation, assures us that, — 
 
 11 We can even positively and with full assurance maintain that the conditions 
 of life in primeval times must have been entirely different from those of the present 
 time. . . . How can we know that in remote primeval times there did not 
 exist conditions quite different from those at present obtaining, and which may 
 have rendered spontaneous generation possible? " — History of Creation, vol. 
 i. pp. 341, 342. 
 
 If " the conditions were entirely different from those 
 of the present time," then the living things which 
 existed must have been entirely different from those 
 which have existed since, for, as is conceded, very slight 
 changes would suffice to destroy all the life at present 
 upon the earth. Were the conditions of life, at the time 
 the moneron leaped into being by spontaneous generation, 
 11 entirely different from those of the present time " ? No: 
 for Professor Haeckel obtained monera, lineal descend- 
 ants of the " primeval parent of all living organisms." 
 The conditions of life, therefore, cannot now be" entirely 
 different " from those which prevailed in primeval times, 
 but must be, if not " entirely," then at least essentially, 
 the same. Darwin affirms, " Some groups [of mollusks] 
 .... have endured from the earliest known dawn of life 
 to the present day." — Origin of Species, p. 239. 
 
 What, then, becomes of this assumption that the con- 
 ditions of life have greatly changed since primeval pe- 
 riods ? Suppose we concede that in primeval eras the 
 condition of the world was very different from what it 
 now is, and that it can be shown that animate organisms 
 lived under conditions exceedingly diverse from those 
 prevailing now — a difficult thing to do, — still it remains 
 
180 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 to prove that the life which then existed was capable of 
 perpetuating itself, under incessantly varying conditions, 
 through an almost infinite series of changes down to the 
 present, and actually so perpetuated itself. Unless this 
 is done no scientific explanation of life as it now exists 
 on the globe has been furnished. 
 
 But Professor Haeckel, hoping to aid us in deeming 
 spontaneous generation credible, proffers this advice: — 
 
 " Think of the enormous masses of carbon which we now find deposited in 
 the primary coal mountains ... At that time, under conditions quite different 
 from those of to-day, a spontaneous generation, which now is perhaps no longer 
 possible, may have taken place." 
 
 Yes, we think of the carboniferous period; and we 
 think it existed millions of years subsequent to the 
 assumed origin of life by spontaneous generation. Con- 
 sequently, we think that carbon, at least the carbon 
 whose " enormous masses we now find deposited in 
 mountains," could not have been the agency through 
 which the primeval moneron acquired vitality. We even 
 think that upon reflection Professor Haeckel himself 
 thinks so, certainly he informs us that " the era of the 
 tangled forests comprises the immense period from the 
 first spontaneous generation ... to the end of the Silu- 
 rian system of deposits." This, which he pronounces 
 " an immeasurable space of time," " much longer than all 
 the other four epochs taken together," actually elasped 
 ere the carbon age began. We think his advice does not 
 aid us in accepting his theory. 
 
 He also affirms, what we are prepared to concede, that 
 11 the impossibility of such a process [spontaneous gener- 
 ation] can, in fact, never be proved." We also can make 
 statements, and devise theories, and indulge in specula- 
 tions, and construct hypotheses, " the impossibility of 
 which can, in fact, never be proved." We assert: God 
 
ABIOGENESIS. 181 
 
 created the first moneron. No one can prove " the impos- 
 sibility of such a process." We offer a new theory: The 
 first moneron was the deteriorated descendant of a fallen 
 archangel, who, after his lapse into moral sin, was forced 
 by the inexorable laws of nature to evolve downward till 
 he could degenerate no further without suffering annihi- 
 lation; thenceforth, he was permitted to evolve upward, 
 and, having already succeeded in reaching the estate of 
 man, is inspired with the hope that after millenniums of 
 ages he may recover his primeval glory. "The impos- 
 sibility of such a process can, in fact, never be proved." 
 We can even speculate in reference to the moneron, 
 whose existence has so troubled scientists. It was let 
 down to the earth from the moon by a spider's web, at a 
 time when the conditions of life and the laws of gravi- 
 tation were "entirely different" from what they now are. 
 "At that time," this spontaneous descent, "which is 
 now perhaps no longer possible, may have taken place." 
 Can an evolutionist prove the impossibility of such a 
 process. Our hypothesis is that some abiogenists have 
 been dealing so long with minute forms of life, and have 
 become so desirous of proving that " the lowest imag- 
 inable organism " evolved spontaneously from lifeless 
 matter, that the smallest argument assumes importance 
 under their microscopic inspection. 
 
 If it shall be proved that abiogenesis is credible, it will 
 still be competent for the teleologist to affirm: God is 
 not eliminated from the problem. Until it is shown that 
 the molecular arrangement constituting life is not an 
 expression of the Divine will, ample basis remains for the 
 assertion: Its origination in this way may have been a 
 part of the original plan. Atheism will find it difficult to 
 substantiate its oft repeated claim. 
 
 Evolutionists have made some damaging admissions: — 
 
182 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 Prof. W. Stanley Jevons has said: 
 
 "I cannot for a moment admit that the theory of evolution will alter our 
 theological ideas. ... I believe that the eye was gradually developed; hut the 
 ultimate result must have been contained in the aggregate of causes; and these, 
 as far as we can see, were subject to the arbitrary choice of the Creator." — 
 Principles of Science, vol. ii. pp. 461, 462. 
 
 Prof. Haeckel acknowledges: 
 
 " Most naturalists of the present day are inclined to give up the attempt at 
 explanation of the genesis of life, and take refuge in the miracle of inconceivable 
 creation." — History of Creation, vol. i. p. 327. 
 
 Again: 
 
 "The theory that man has developed out of lower, and in the first place 
 out of ape-like animals, is a deductive law." — History of Creation, vol. ii. p. 357. 
 
 So also is the theory that he has developed from inert 
 matter by spontaneity. This age, however, demands a 
 careful generalization from well ascertained facts, and will 
 not be satisfied with an endeavor to determine facts, 
 especially in the domain of science, by an a priori process 
 of reasoning. 
 
 As we have already seen, Prof. Huxley concedes: 
 
 " If the hypothesis of evolution is true, living matter must have arisen from 
 not-living matter." 
 
 Spontaneous generation must have occurred, therefore, 
 or evolution is a baseless fabric. 
 But he frankly admits: 
 
 " The present stale of knowledge furnishes us with no link between the living 
 and the not-living, . . . there is not a shadow of trustworthy direct evidence 
 that abiogenesis does take place, or has taken place, within the period during 
 which the existence of life on the globe is recorded." 
 
 Then the theory of evolution rests on an insecure 
 foundation. 
 
 We close with two brief quotations: — 
 Prof. Joseph Cook says very justly: 
 
ABIOGENESTS. 183 
 
 " The chasm between the not-living and the living forms of matter is the 
 fathomless abyss at the rugged edge of which every traveler on atheistic 01 
 agnostic roads at last lifts his foot over thin air. " — Biology, p. 41. 
 
 Prof. Heinrich Frey says: 
 
 11 A deep abyss separates the inorganic from the organic, the inanimate from 
 the animate ... Is it possible, then, to bridge over this gulf? We answer: 
 No, at the present time." 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 MATTER; ITS ESSENCE. 
 
 Having aided the reader, as is hoped, in entertaining 
 the conviction that the origin of man, of plants, and 
 of animals, necessitates belief in the existence of an 
 Intelligent First Cause — even though one concedes 
 that evolution may have taken place in these three 
 provinces — we enter upon a more extended theme: 
 Matter; its essence, its properties, its forms, its changes, 
 its origin. 
 
 It is known that advanced advocates of evolution are 
 not content with confining its operations to the vegetal 
 and animal kingdoms. They assert that it explains 
 changes in the material universe; indeed, those evolu- 
 tionists who are materialists insist that all the changes 
 which take place in the two kingdoms of life are due 
 to purely physical causes. Evolution is exalted to the 
 throne of the cosmos, and is not recognized as an agency 
 in the hand of an Intelligent Personality. Consequently, 
 in order to lay a foundation for the belief that " In the 
 beginning God created the heavens and the earth," and 
 that " In Him we live, move, and have being," it is 
 necessary to enter upon a discussion of the problems 
 imprisoned in the term matter. To a consideration of 
 these we invite the reader in this chapter and in the 
 three succeeding chapters. 
 
 The human mind, from time immemorial, has been 
 
MATTER; ITS ESSENCE. 185 
 
 engaged in endeavoring to solve the mysteries connected 
 with matter, force, life, mind, and spirit. It would be 
 presumption to affirm that success has rewarded these 
 labors; and scarcely less presumptuous to predict that a 
 solution of these tantalizing enigmas will be furnished 
 ere long. On the other hand, to deny that progress has 
 been made, or to question whether the knowledge we 
 now 'possess is either more accurate or more firmly 
 established than that of former times, is to confess 
 culpable ignorance. In solving the perplexing problems, 
 the human intellect has made advances, especially in 
 the last fifty years. Secrets, which since the dawn of 
 time have lain concealed within the recesses of nature, 
 have been wrested from her grasp and made subservient 
 to the interests of humanity. Many problems bequeathed 
 to us by buried generations have been solved. Not all 
 have, however; and it is our present purpose to enum- 
 erate some of the unsolved, and possibly insolvable, 
 mysteries which environ us. We confine ourselves, in 
 this and the four succeeding chapters, to the difficulties — ■ 
 and of these the more superficial — which are imprisoned 
 in the terms matter, force, motion, life, mind, spirit, 
 personality, space, time, etc. 
 
 MATTER. 
 
 What is matter ? This question has received no 
 satisfactory answer, and probably never will. Appar- 
 ently, no adequate answer is possible. We may con- 
 ceive of it as an indefinable something in which a certain 
 set of qualities inhere, and may designate that some- 
 thing as an essence having a probable existence; but 
 scientists do not pretend to understand this essence, nor 
 do they claim that it has been, or can be, defined 
 
186 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 Although quite unanimous in the opinion that there must 
 be a basis in which the properties inhere — matter being 
 something more than an aggregation of attributes — 
 they are nevertheless forced to satisfy themselves with 
 a knowledge of its qualities, if indeed, they are able 
 to determine these with certainty, or to say which are 
 essential to our conception of matter, and which are only 
 its ordinary concomitants. 
 
 It is common to regard matter as that which af- 
 fects the senses. Ganot, in his Elementary Treatise on 
 Physics, defines it — if it be a definition — as " That 
 which possesses the properties whose existence is re- 
 vealed to us by our senses." This, as a phrase intended 
 to be descriptive of matter (certainly it is not a logical 
 definition), is not only exceedingly defective, but is fitted 
 to produce mistaken conceptions. It would seem as if 
 he intended us to understand that matter neither does, 
 nor can, reveal its presence to us. It can reveal its 
 properties to us, not itself. Its own existence, then, is a 
 mere inference — a deduction drawn from the innate 
 conviction that the existence of attributes implies the 
 existence of a basis of attributes. We have, however, a 
 clear intuition that matter exists, and reveals itself to 
 our senses; not indeed independent of its qualities, but 
 that it reveals itself, and not merely certain qualities 
 possessed by it. 
 
 Nor is it accurate to say that M the properties of mat- 
 ter are revealed to us." The most we are justified in as- 
 serting, is that certain properties are revealed to us. We 
 evidently do not know that all its properties evidence to 
 us their presence. Indeed, we are unable to assign a 
 sufficient reason why we should affirm that matter, in 
 every form which it may assume, reveals its existence to 
 us by even one of its qualities. Matter may exist, for 
 
MATTER; ITS ESSENCE. 187 
 
 aught we know, under forms in which no one of its pro- 
 perties affects our senses. In some such forms it unques- 
 tionably does exist. By no sense that we possess can we 
 detect the scent left by the fox in his track, though it is 
 undoubtedly matter, and matter so arranged that the 
 trained dog can determine which way the fox ran. We 
 may tacitly assume that the odor of roses, the scent of 
 mignonette, or the corpuscular emanations from musk do 
 not exist in the atmosphere unless they are in such full- 
 ness as to be perceptible by the senses, or liable to detect- 
 ion by some device of ours, but it is nevertheless a purely 
 gratuitious assumption. They evidently may exist, almost 
 certainly do exist, so attenuated as to elude human de- 
 tection. A solid substance, visible by the naked eye, 
 may be converted into a liquid, then into a gas. In its 
 gaseous state it may not be directly cognizable by any 
 one of the five senses. Its presence, it is true, can gen- 
 erally be detected by some human device. Who is pre- 
 pared to affirm, however, that every gas reveals its pres- 
 ence to us ? Certainly, no one is entitled to affirm that 
 it evidences its presence to us through our senses; and it 
 is unscientific to assert that it invariably reveals itself in 
 some way though frequently the road is very lengthy 
 and exceedingly circuitous. 
 
 Nor does the difficulty terminate here. We have no 
 right to affirm that we are able to detect the existence 
 of any and every possible gas; nor have we a right to af- 
 firm that gases, under chemical changes, may not enter 
 upon a fourth state, as much more attenuated than gas 
 as gas is more attenuated than solids, — a state in which 
 they may affect no human sense, and be discoverable by 
 no human agency, though matter none the less. Who 
 has proved that matter can only exist in one of three 
 states, — the solid, the liquid, or the gaseous? The 
 
188 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 attenuated ether with which scientists persist in filling the 
 fields of immensity, and the interstices of even the dens- 
 est metals as well, has not been proved to have an exist- 
 ence. The existence of this all-pervading luminiferous 
 ether is a pure hypothesis. Whilst insisting upon this 
 hypothesis, why do scientists continue to regard matter 
 as " That which possesses properties whose existence is 
 revealed to us by our senses " ? According to their own 
 concessions, matter exists in one form at least in which 
 it does not reveal its existence to us; exists, and in 
 quantity sufficient to fill immensity, rendering all space 
 a "plenum"; in which shoreless ocean planets may swim, 
 and light may sport itself, and gravitation may pass her 
 unseen cables to distant orbs, and electricity may hurry her 
 fiery steeds on missions to nebulous masses which are just 
 beginning to palpitate with evolutional impulses; in which 
 imaginary sea of attenuated matter liquids and solids 
 may permit their molecules to float, each molecule, in- 
 deed each atom, enjoying the enswathement of a luminif- 
 erous, imponderable, invisible, intangible, undiscoverable, 
 incomprehensible " material substance" whose properties 
 are unknown and whose existence is hypothetical. 
 
 By Descartes, who regarded extension as the only es- 
 sential property of matter, and matter as a necessary 
 condition of extension, ether was regarded as a connect- 
 ing medium between bodies at a distance from each 
 other, rendering all space equally full. This plenum 
 was regarded by the disciples of Newton as indispensably 
 necessary in order to furnish a satisfactory explanation 
 of the laws of gravitation. Huygens employed it to ex- 
 plain the propagation of light. Most scientists follow 
 his example. Faraday conjectures that it is an agent in 
 electro-magnetic phenomena. The authors of the Un- 
 seen Universe (a volume well worthy of careful study), 
 
MATTER; ITS ESSENCE. 189 
 
 are disposed to regard it as a substantial reality, of which 
 the seen universe is but a series of phenomena. Most 
 physicists deem its existence in the atmosphere, in liquids, 
 and in solids, an indispensable condition to the expla- 
 nation of much that otherwise baffles science. Indeed, 
 one may pertinently ask, whether in the ultimate analy- 
 sis, every phenomenon of nature does not find its only 
 satisfactory explanation in luminiferous ether. 
 
 Prof. J. Clerk Maxwell affirms, in the Encyclopedia 
 Britannicci) under the caption, "Ether": — 
 
 " Whatever difficulties we may nave m forming a consistent idea of the con- 
 stitution of the ether, there can be no doubt that the interplanetary and inter- 
 stellar spaces are not empty, but are occupied by a material substance or body, 
 which is certainly the largest, and probably the most uniform body of which 
 we have any knowledge." 
 
 As long as this all-potent " material substance " is nei- 
 ther discoverable by the senses, nor detectable by ex- 
 periment, but rests exclusively upon the erring deductions 
 of reason, those who are not scientists may be excused for 
 regarding matter as not defined by saying it is "that which 
 possesses properties whose existence is revealed to us 
 by our senses." If we are scientific heretics, heretics we 
 must remain, for the present at least. If " where faith be- 
 gins, science ends," there must be but little science as yet. 
 A wearisome enumeration of facts, though never so neatly 
 dovetailed one into the other, can scarcely be said to 
 attain to the dignity of science till they are explained 
 on sound philosophical principles. Science may explain 
 many links in the lengthy chain of phenomena. Wher- 
 ever it may begin, however, and however long its ex- 
 planations may prove satisfactory, it is certain, sooner or 
 later, to reach some link which is veiled in impenetrable 
 mystery. Why, then, should its devotees be so prone — ■ 
 a few of them — to cavil at theology because the christian 
 
190 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 system encloses mysteries which the human intellect 
 cannot solve ? 
 
 To return: the above definition is also defective in an- 
 other respect. If there may be matter which does not 
 affect our senses, so also may there be substances, imma- 
 terial entities, which affect our senses. According to the 
 usually accepted theory, neither sound nor light is mat- 
 ter; still each affects a human sense. It is usual to say 
 that there are five human senses. Perhaps, it would be 
 as philosophical to say that there is but one, touch; each 
 of the five being a modification of this one. The eye, 
 touched by light, gives a vision of the object whence the 
 rays emanate. Something has touched the retina, form- 
 ing a picture thereon. The ear, touched by sound, pro- 
 duces a mental sensation. Something has touched the 
 drum of the ear, causing it to convey a certain sensation 
 to the brain. The olfactory nerves, touched by odors, 
 give rise to a particular sensation which we denominate 
 smell. Something has touched a set of peculiarly sensi- 
 tive nerves which are adapted to receive such impressions. 
 The tongue, when touched by certain material substances, 
 gives rise to the sensation known as taste. Something 
 has touched a set of hair-like nerves, which are marvel- 
 ously well fitted to respond to certain kinds of impres- 
 sions. The nerves of the epidermis come in contact with 
 some material substance. We have the sense of touch. 
 If it is a material entity which touches these several sets 
 of nerves (it confessedly is in the case of smell, touch, and 
 taste), then is there matter which does not reveal itself 
 to the senses as matter. The eye is incapable of testify- 
 ing whether light is material or immaterial; whether it 
 is matter, or an entitive substance, or a mere undulation. 
 The ear has no evidence to present upon the question, 
 Is sound corpuscular emanations of attenuated mat- 
 
MATTER; ITS ESSENCE. 191 
 
 ter, or corpuscles of an immaterial substance, or a sim- 
 ple undulatory wave ? Those, therefore, who do not re- 
 gard it as attenuated matter thrown off by the rapid 
 vibrations of a material substance, nor as a substantial 
 entity of any kind whatever, but simply as an undulation, 
 will be slow to regard matter as defined by saying that 
 it is that which affects our senses. They recognize some- 
 thing else as affecting them quite frequently. If the 
 undulatory theory is true — and it has been accepted 
 by the majority of scientists since the time of Pythag- 
 oras — then two of our senses, sight and hearing, are 
 affected by that which is not matter, nor any prop- 
 erty of matter. Nay, since the mind during sleep, 
 can affect the senses — sights being seen, sounds heard, 
 and odors perceived which have no objective reality — and 
 since the same effects can be produced by electrical ex- 
 citation of the internal organs of the several senses, — the 
 process being, as is conceded, purely subjective, — it is 
 manifest that whether the undulatory theory is true or 
 false, matter is not defined by saying it is " that which 
 affects our senses." 
 
 In like manner, heat, electricity, and magnetism can be 
 recognized by the senses, though according to the ac- 
 cepted theory they are not matter; in the opinion of 
 many scientists are not even substantial realities. By 
 some they are regarded as qualities of matter. 
 
 Even if it shall be proved that these forces are neither 
 affections of matter nor attenuated forms thereof; and 
 if matter, so far as now known, affects our senses, it does 
 not follow that in every form which it may assume, it 
 proclaims its existence by affecting one or more of the five 
 human senses. It is possible that it may exist under 
 conditions unknown and unrecognizable by us. Perhaps, 
 if we possessed other senses, or if those we now possess 
 
192 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 were as much more delicate than they are as they are 
 more delicate than those of the worm, or if each were as 
 perfect as the most perfect sense possessed by the animal 
 kingdom, we might be as much more extensively affected 
 by matter than we now are as we are more extensively 
 affected by it than the oyster is. Because we possess 
 five senses, we are not justified in concluding that there 
 are no other possible avenues through which matter 
 might affect mind; and as several of these senses are 
 confessedly more delicate in certain animals than in man, 
 it is irrational to conclude that they are sufficiently deli- 
 cate to be affected by properties of matter whatever form 
 matter may happen to assume. 
 
 As matter, quite manifestly, is not recognizable in all 
 its forms by the direct evidence of the senses, so neither 
 is it by the exercise of our reasoning powers in judging, 
 comparing, analyzing and inferring. We can recognize 
 gravitation by a process of ratiocination; but we cannot 
 recognize it with certainty as matter, or as not matter. 
 It is almost universally regarded as immaterial; but is it 
 less consonant with known facts to assume that it may 
 be substantial threads of attenuated matter, or an imma- 
 terial substance, as truly an entity as the effluvium from 
 a plate of platinum, which, if the plate is introduced into 
 oxygen and hydrogen when mixed in a gaseous state, 
 will cause chemical combination, though the plate is 
 apparently altered in no respect? Why is chemical 
 action induced by the mere contact of a foreign body ? 
 We denominate it catalysis. Shall we therefore proceed 
 to affirm, as we do in the case of gravitation, that, what- 
 ever the agency may be, it is neither attenuated matter, 
 nor an entitive substance ? What else can it be ? An 
 effect has been produced. That effect must have a cause, 
 If we are to consider gravity as the simple effect of 
 
MATTER; ITS ESSENCE. 193 
 
 separate bodies upon each other, without the co-operation 
 of any intervening medium, then matter is possessed of 
 one property at least, which our senses are incapable of 
 discerning-, and which reason can neither explain nor 
 prove to be an essential attribute of material substances. 
 If, as Newton was disposed to think, gravitation can only 
 act by and through something else; and if that some- 
 thing else is either invisible threads of greatly attenuated 
 matter, or a substantial entity of some kind — it cannot 
 be the intervening medium, for it acts through a vacuum; 
 then may material substances either assume forms which 
 even man's higher faculties are incompetent to recognize, 
 or they can operate through substantial entities of which 
 we know little or nothing. Newton did not regard 
 attraction as an essential attribute of matter; nor did he 
 regard it as capable of acting except through some 
 agent. He says: — 
 
 " That gravity should be innate, inherent, and essential to matter, so that 
 one body may act upon another at a distance, through a vacuum, without the 
 mediation of anything else, by and through which their action and force can be 
 conveyed from one to another, is to me so great an absurdity that I believe no 
 man who has in philosophical matters a competent faculty of thinking, can ever 
 fall into it. Gravity must be caused by an agent, acting constantly according 
 to certain laws; but whether this agency be material or immaterial I have left 
 to the consideration of my reader." — Newton's Third Letter to Bentley. 
 
 A similar line of argument may be pursued in reference 
 to heat, light, electricity, magnetism — all the so-called 
 modes of motion. They are usually regarded as neither 
 matter nor entitive substances. They nevertheless reveal 
 their existence to us; though neither by the testimony 
 of the senses, nor by experiment, are we able to affirm 
 with absolute certainty what they are, whether incorpo- 
 real, intangible, immaterial entities, or attenuated matter, 
 or modes of motion. Cogent arguments can be presented 
 
19 A THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 in favor of each of the three theories. It is perhaps pre- 
 mature to say that either has triumphed over its rivals. 
 If these forces are attenuated matter, the senses do 
 not so testify with sufficient clearness to remove grave 
 doubts. If they are properties of matter, the senses are 
 incapable of convincing us of the fact. If they are sub- 
 stantial, immaterial entities, or are modes of motion, then 
 the senses are affected by agencies that are neither 
 matter nor properties of matter. 
 
 We have dwelt at considerable length upon the com- 
 monly accepted definition of matter, because, though 
 scientists are willing to admit that we have no logical 
 definition of the term, they nevertheless continue to em- 
 ploy expressions which seem to imply that it is definable. 
 Besides, it has enabled us to see that if there are unex- 
 plained facts in the christian religion, so are there also 
 in science; that if we cannot enumerate the contents of 
 the term Deity, so neither can we enumerate the contents 
 of the term matter; that if there are theological truths 
 which we can but dimly comprehend, so also are there 
 scientific truths upon which no human intellect has 
 thrown clear light; that if God and his laws are unfathom- 
 able, so also are nature and her laws; that if faith is 
 demanded of those who enter the domain of the christian 
 religion, no less faith, probably greater, is demanded of 
 those who journey through the paths of science; that if 
 human reason must humble itself as it approaches the 
 foot-stool of Divine Sovereignty, so also must it tread 
 softly and bow reverently as it stands in the presence of 
 the unveiled mysteries of nature; that scientists of the 
 agnostic school who presume to pronounce God unknow- 
 able are assuming that nature is knowable; that those 
 who regard the teachings of Scripture as unworthy of 
 credence because its interpreters have frequently erred, 
 
MATTER; ITS ESSENCE. 195 
 
 would do well to confess that the teachings of science 
 are not always the utterances of infallibility. 
 
 An enumeration of the mistakes of science would 
 prove instructive. This field, though inviting, we leave 
 for the cultivation of our readers. 
 
 To resume: Rev. Dr. Joseph Cook, in his Biology ■, 
 Lecture I., defends what he is pleased to call " the estab- 
 lished definition" of matter, arguing with great cogency 
 against Prof. Tyndall's conception of matter as one sub- 
 stance having two sets of properties, one set spiritual, 
 the other set physical. Strange to say, though he ex- 
 presses surprise that Mr. Tyndall presents no defini- 
 tion of matter, he neither presents one himself, nor 
 pauses to tell us what is the established definition. That 
 there is a prevalent conception of matter, backed by 
 scientific authority, illustrated by numerous experiments, 
 and sustained by acute reasoning, we do not deny. That 
 it is somewhat hazy we supposed was admitted by all. 
 If there is a logical definition we are not aware of it. 
 Scientists are evidently ignorant of it, for they concede 
 that matter has not been defined, and cannot be. They 
 even admit that we are not able to say what are its 
 essential qualities. Dr. Cook says, " It [the established 
 definition] affirms that inertia, in the strictest sense of 
 the word, is a property of matter. ... It denies that 
 matter has power to evolve organization and vitality. 
 ... It denies that matter has power to evolve thought, 
 emotion, conscience, and will." It is evident that by 
 " established definition," the author means us to under- 
 stand prevailing co?iceptioJi. He is too acute a reasoner 
 to fall into the error of imagining that we have a defini- 
 tion. That we are to interpret the expression as mean- 
 ing prevailing conception is further evident from the 
 fact that after affirming that the definition includes the 
 
106 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 ascription of inertia to matter, he proceeds to enumerate 
 other properties, viz., " extension, impenetrability, figure, 
 and color." Certainly it has not been proved that the 
 above properties are all essential to the existence of 
 matter, nor that they are all the properties which matter 
 possesses. Evidently, matter cannot be defined by an 
 enumeration of its properties unless we know what are 
 its essential properties, being thereby able to exclude 
 every non-essential and to include every essential prop- 
 erty. This knowledge we do not at present possess, as 
 all admit. Consequently, Dr. Cook no doubt concurs in 
 the opinion that a logical definition has not been given, 
 and cannot be; and that the descriptive phrases employed 
 in the place of a definition are defective and unsatis- 
 factory. That we are unable to enumerate the essential 
 properties of matter will appear in the chapter following. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 MATTER; ITS PROPERTIES. 
 
 Of matter, then, we have, as we have seen, no definition 
 which will bear scrutiny. We cannot say of what genus 
 it is a species. Relatively, it is a summum genus, and is 
 therefore extremely difficult to define. We may affirm 
 that it is not force, not life, not mind, not spirit; still we 
 have no knowledge of its existence except as associated 
 with one or more of these. Of its essence we know noth- 
 ing. Science has not as yet shown itself competent to the 
 task of enumerating its necessary qualities. Its properties 
 are usually classified as follows: — 
 
 1. Essential properties, or such as are supposed to be 
 necessary to our conception of matter, and to suffice to 
 define it; viz., impenetrability and extension. 
 
 2. Accessory properties, or such as, though not essen- 
 tial, are supposed to be shared by all bodies; viz., divisi- 
 bility, porosity, compressibility, dilatability, elasticity, 
 mobility, and inertia. 
 
 3. Specific properties, or such as belong to matter 
 under certain forms; viz., solidity, fluidity, tenacity, 
 transparency, color, figure, etc., e. g., the properties 
 of oxygen, of iron, of vegetable substances, of animal 
 matter, etc. 
 
 It would be hazardous to affirm that these properties, 
 or indeed any definite number of them, are ultimate 
 facts. The ultimate qualities are no doubt much fewer. 
 
1S>8 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 Of course particular properties cannot be said to be 
 properties of matter; they are merely properties of cer- 
 tain aggregations of matter. Solidity and figure maybe 
 said to be qualities of granite, of iron, etc. Fluidity is 
 a quality of mercury, of water, of milk, etc. Tenacity 
 may be designated a quality of oak, of tin, of zinc, etc. 
 Transparency is a property of glass, of clear water, etc. 
 Neither of the five, however, can be said to be a quality 
 of matter, for matter can unquestionably exist in forms 
 which do not, and cannot reveal these properties, nor 
 indeed any one of them. No one pretends that color 
 is an essential quality. Of the accessory properties, as 
 is evident, elasticity, dilatability, compressibility, divis- 
 ibility, and porosity cannot be properties of an atom, 
 which is none the less matter on that account. If an 
 atom has pores, or is elastic, or can be compressed, or 
 can be dilated, then it can be divided. If it can be 
 divided, it is not what it is defined to be, the smallest 
 possible portion, incapable of further division. And if an 
 atom cannot have these properties, then they are not 
 essential to matter. They can belong to it only on the 
 hypothesis that it is infinitely divisible, a single particle 
 being capable of pervading immensity. But if it is in- 
 finitely divisible, space must also be infinitely divisible. 
 Unless we are prepared to believe that both are infinitely 
 divisible — which science does not sanction, — we are 
 forced to concede that elasticity, porosity, compressi- 
 bility, dilatability, and divisibility are not properties of 
 matter, though they are properties of aggregations 
 thereof. Mobility, or the property in virtue of which a 
 body may change its position, few, if any, would be dis- 
 posed to regard as an essential property. Indeed, abso- 
 lute rest is a thing unknown. Everything is in motion; 
 perhaps is subject to several motions at the same instant. 
 
MATTER; ITS PROPERTIES. 199 
 
 The mountain-rock and the forest are moving with the 
 earth on its axis, are journeying" around the sun, are 
 swept through space in conjunction with the solar sys- 
 tem; perhaps, as some scientists assure us, their atoms 
 are also in ceaseless motion, those of the densest rock 
 and those of the hardest tree producing, it may be, a 
 ceaseless hum by their infinitesimal movements. Rest 
 and motion are relative terms. Mobility, a purely neg- 
 ative quality, is accordingly not generally regarded 
 as an attribute of matter. If attraction, repulsion, and 
 polarity are properties, they are one property variously 
 viewed. 
 
 Nor can it be proved that inertia — the inability of a 
 body to set itself in motion when at rest, or to cease 
 moving when in motion — is an essential property. As 
 already intimated, perhaps it is more accurate to say 
 that not inertia, but motion is an attribute of matter, no 
 material substance being ever at absolute rest. Even on 
 this hypothesis, it should be borne in mind that it is one 
 thing to say that it does not cease moving, so far as man 
 can discern, and another thing to say that it cannot 
 cease moving. If matter is incapable of changing its 
 state of rest, then, seemingly at least, neither attraction 
 nor repulsion are among its essential attributes; if it is 
 incapable of changing its state of motion, then, appar- 
 ently, there can be no such thing as an equilibrium of 
 forces. We are not warranted, however, in saying that 
 the forces of an atom may not so accurately counter- 
 balance each other as to leave it at rest, provided it 
 were not subject to the forces of other atoms. Unless 
 an atom has the attribute of motion, so that it would 
 move though it were the only material substance in the 
 universe, motion cannot be said to be an attribute of 
 matter. Unless rest can be produced in a universe in 
 
200 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 which atoms mutually influence each other, tending to 
 produce motion, then absolute rest cannot be said to be 
 an attribute of aggregated molecules — the molecules of 
 every individual mass of matter must be in motion inter 
 se, and must tend to produce motion in every other 
 adjacent body. 
 
 We may assume that if matter were at rest it would 
 remain so eternally unless set in motion by some power 
 from without; and that if it were in motion it would 
 continue moving forever unless stopped by some external 
 agencies; that is, we may assume that inertia is one of its 
 essential properties. This has not been proved, however. 
 It is a purely gratuitous assumption. We have no know- 
 ledge of it at absolute rest. We have no testimony which 
 warrants us in asserting that it is incapable of originating 
 motion. It may be — probably is. We can say no more. 
 Accordingly, eminent scientists concede that inertia is 
 not an essential property. Ganot defines it as " a purely 
 negative property," and of course admits that it is not a 
 necessary attribute. Though matter may exist, it is true, 
 under forms which are incapable of being subjected to 
 human observation, or even to scientific experiment, it is 
 nevertheless unscientific to ascribe to it a property which 
 has not been proved to belong to any of its forms yet 
 brought under scientific investigation. Though Prof. 
 Tyndall may ask, " Who will set limits to the possible 
 play of atoms in a cooling planet ? " and may regard all 
 life as once "latent in a fiery cloud"; and though the 
 admission that molecular activity may possibly be an 
 invariable attribute of aggregated matter may seem like 
 a concession to materialism, we are indisposed to regard 
 inertia as an essential property. The concession can do 
 materialism no good, for Prof. Tyndall himself admits 
 that " molecular motion explains nothing. . . The pas- 
 
MATTER; ITS PROPERTIES. 201 
 
 sage from the physics of the brain to the corresponding 
 facts of consciousness is unthinkable." 
 
 Accordingly, matter has only two essential properties, 
 impenetrability and extension, other properties being 
 regarded as specific, that is, properties which belong to 
 it under certain forms, not to it in every conceivable form 
 it may assume. 
 
 As we have already seen, there are those, it is true, 
 who regard motion as an essential attribute; others 
 regard attraction and repulsion, or the influence of one 
 atom upon another, as a necessary property. It is the 
 accepted theory, however, that impenetrability and ex- 
 tension are the only essential attributes. 
 
 The extreme difficulty of arriving at any measure of 
 certainty is seen in the fact that reason does not warrant 
 us in affirming that even impenetrability is an essential 
 quality. That no two material entities can occupy the 
 same place at the same time is not an axiomatic truth, 
 much as it resembles one. It rests upon experience. It 
 assumes, what has not been proved, that an atom of iron 
 and an atom of musk cannot occupy the same space at 
 the same moment; that an atom of platinum, the densest 
 known metal, and an atom of the ether, which is declared 
 to pervade all material substances, cannot be in the same 
 space, but must lie side by side, though the latter is nearly 
 as incomprehensible as the former. We do not deny 
 that impenetrability may be an essential attribute. To 
 the question, fras it been proved to be ? we answer, No. 
 
 Professor J. Clerk Maxwell says: — 
 
 "Boscovich himself, in order to obviate the possibility of two atoms ever 
 being in the same place, asserts that the ultimate force is a repulsion which 
 increases without limit as the distance diminishes without limit, so that two 
 atoms can never coincide. But this seems like an unwarrantable concession 
 to the vulgar opinion that two bodies cannot co-exist in the same place. This 
 opinion is deduced from our experience of the behavior of bodies of sensible size. 
 
202 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 but we have no experimental evidence that two atoms may not sometimes 
 coincide. For instance, if oxygen and hydrogen combine to form water, we 
 have no experimental evidence that the molecule of oxygen is not in the very 
 same place with the two molecules of hydrogen. Many persons cannot get rid 
 of the opinion that all matter is extended in length, breadth, and depth. This is a 
 prejudice of the same kind with the last, arising from our experience of bodies 
 consisting of immense multitudes of atoms. "—Encyc. Brit., article, "Atom." 
 
 Descartes maintained that the entire universe was full 
 of matter constituted of one single element and having 
 only one essential property, extension. He believed 
 that on testing the accepted qualities of material sub- 
 stances we are logically driven, in every instance, to the 
 conclusion that nothing is essential except extension; 
 and that all forces have their ultimate origin in Deity. 
 Consequently, man cannot increase the sum of motion, 
 though he can alter its direction. In a theory of the 
 universe, force is no necessary factor. We have nothing 
 to do with anything save motion, which is simply the 
 passage of a body from one point to another. Empty 
 space is a fiction. The entire universe is full of matter 
 — more dense and less dense — full everywhere. A 
 vacuum is a myth; an atom, an inconceivable figment. 
 Matter is infinitely divisible. 
 
 It is questionable whether the results of this a priori 
 reasoning have been subverted by the experiments with 
 which the inductive method of studying science has 
 rendered us familiar. We are tolerably safe in affirming 
 that science has not yet proved that matter has more 
 than one essential attribute, extension; nor that what 
 it denominates an atom may not be an aggregation 
 of infinitely divisible particles; nor that the physica- 
 forces may not be the immanence of the divine will in 
 nature. To concede that the forces of nature are inherent 
 attributes of matter is to make a concession helpful to 
 materialism. It is thereby encouraged to make the 
 
MATTER; ITS PROPERTIES. 203 
 
 assertion that mind, a particular kind of force, is an 
 attribute of matter. 
 
 It is not denied that matter may assume new 
 properties on its assumption of new forms; but to say 
 that the usually enumerated attributes of matter be- 
 long to every form which matter may assume, and 
 consequently to every atom, is to make an unwarrantable 
 assertion. 
 
 If, as is quite generally conceded, force is immaterial, 
 the question arises, Is it not an invariable concomitant 
 of matter ? Science, with considerable unanimity and 
 with no little confidence, is disposed to answer, Yes, 
 for no matter, so far as we know, exists without force; 
 and indeed, no force, not even mind, so far as observa- 
 tion extends, either exists or can exist dissevered from 
 matter. Even the latter half of this statement, if 
 established with scientific accuracy, need cause the 
 christian no alarm. An immaterial entity may perhaps 
 not exist dissevered from matter. If it shall be made to 
 appear that the mind neither exists nor can exist except 
 in association with matter, it will still be competent for 
 us to affirm, It has not been proved that the mind is 
 material, nor that it perishes with the body. The soul, 
 when its connection with the earthly tabernacle is dis- 
 solved, may possess a celestial body. Paul seems to in- 
 timate as much, for he says there are celestial bodies 
 and terrestrial bodies, the glory of the celestial being 
 one, and the glory of the terrestrial another. Those, 
 therefore, who persist in assuring us that a " disembodied 
 spirit " capable of seeing without eyes, of hearing with- 
 out ears, of remembering without a brain to retain 
 impressions, of loving without mental sensibilities, of 
 reasoning without lobes of the brain with which to 
 carry on the process, of willing without volitional 
 
204 
 
 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 nerves — those who regard this as an irrational con- 
 ception, inasmuch as we neither know nor are capable 
 of conceiving of mental activity dissevered from mat- 
 ter, must undertake to prove, what christians are under 
 no necessity of believing, that the soul after the 
 death of its present body has no material tabernacle 
 no " house from above, not made with hands," no body 
 however attenuated, because it has none which is visible 
 tangible, and ponderable. Because angelic existences' 
 and human souls when released from earth, are supposed 
 not to possess terrestrial bodies, it does not follow that 
 they are bodiless. Who is prepared to affirm that the 
 human soul, which constructs for itself a body fitted to 
 its existence on earth, cannot construct for itself a body 
 adapted to another state of existence ? 
 
 It is common to divide matter into two classes the 
 inorganic and the organic; and yet, perhaps, we ou-ht 
 frankly to admit that the only difference is in the arrange- 
 ment of the molecules. The material which enters into 
 living organisms— unless, as has not been proved, life 
 itself is matter, and perhaps even then— is most probably 
 the same as that which, when not in organic form we 
 denominate inorganic. The organa hasten back into' the 
 morgana. And yet, why is animal life dependent upon 
 the pre-existence of vegetable life, being incapable of 
 assimilating anything else than protoplasmic elements? 
 Perhaps, the only answer which can be given is this: Be- 
 cause animals are so constituted by their Creator as to 
 need, for their sustenance, material substances combined 
 in such proportions, and possibly with the molecules 
 arranged in such ways as neither occur in inorganic 
 nature, nor are capable of being produced by man inde- 
 pendent of the operation of vital forces. Man has never 
 made an atom of food from inorganic matter. Why is 
 
MATTER; ITS PROPERTIES. 205 
 
 the vegetable kingdom capable of doing what the animal 
 kingdom is incapable of doing — feeding upon ammonia, 
 carbon, phosphorus, etc. ? We are disposed to answer, 
 Because God has so constituted it. Can evolutionists 
 present a more satisfactory solution ? 
 
 Some are disposed to consider it probable that there 
 is only one material element in the world. They remind 
 us that though the number of the elements was once 
 thought to be countless, it has been reduced to sixty- 
 three, and may soon be lessened; that no one is prepared 
 to say that a complete analysis would not prove that 
 everything can be reduced to one element; that chemis- 
 try is accumulating testimony to this effect; that the 
 number and variety of the forms assumed are due to dif- 
 ferent arrangements of molecules. These, it is argued, 
 when arranged in a certain set of ways constitute solids 
 — mineral, vegetable, and animal — with their various 
 properties; when arranged according to a different and 
 definite system, constitute liquids, with their several 
 specific qualities; when arranged in accordance with a 
 third method, constitute gases with their particular 
 attributes; when arranged in a fourth way, constitute 
 Prof. Crooke's fourth state of matter, light, heat, elec- 
 tricity, magnetism. 
 
 Perhaps, we ought to concede that it is somewhat 
 irrational to assume that there is any radical difference 
 in the substratum of material substances. Possibly, we 
 shall yet be forced to content ourselves with establishing 
 a basic distinction between mind and matter, between the 
 immaterial and the material, between corporeal entities 
 and incorporeal entities. Platinum, the densest known 
 material substance, may be converted into a liquid, then 
 into a gas. May it also be converted into a fourth state, 
 electricity ? May it be, as Prof. Lockyer conjectures, 
 
206 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 that all material substances have been condensed from 
 one single basic element ?* 
 
 If, so far as the three states of matter are concerned, 
 there is only one elementary substance, then what are its 
 properties ? Are these its affections; light, heat, elec- 
 tricity, magnetism, motion ? Are these the agencies 
 which arrange material molecules in their varied forms ? 
 Are these several affections only modes of motion, leav- 
 ing the original element with only one attribute, motion, 
 eternal and indestructible ? This question will come 
 under discussion when we come to treat of forces. Is 
 life simply a particular molecular arrangement, a certain 
 affection of matter ? This theory we shall examine when 
 we consider the question, What is life ? 
 
 Speculation, whose unwearied wings essay the impos- 
 sible task of reaching the outer boundaries of immensity, 
 has favored us with the hypothesis that there may be 
 but one substance in the universe. We are assured that 
 the tendency of science is towards unity, and that it is 
 most philosophical to conclude that there is only one 
 substratum in the universe, and that in this, any or all 
 qualities may inhere. By some, matter is regarded as 
 this under-lying entity. Our argument against material- 
 ism will be found in a subsequent chapter. Others prefer 
 to regard spirit as the only reality. They deny that 
 
 * Prof. W. R. Grove, in treating of the correlation of the physical forces, in- 
 forms us under the head of Catalysis, that if " one portion of a strip of platinum 
 is immersed in a tube of oxygen, and the other in one of hydrogen, both the 
 gases and the extremities of the platinum being connected by water or other 
 electrolyte, a voltaic combination is formed, and electricity, heat, light, magnet- 
 ism, and motion produced at the will of the experimenter." — Correlation and 
 Conservation of Forces: a series of expositions by Prof. Grove, Prof. Ilel/ji- 
 holtz, and others, with an introduction by E. L. Youmans, M. D., p. 170. 
 
 Is the platinum converted into electricity, heat, light, magnetism, and motion? 
 It would, perhaps, be unscientific to say that the facts were inexplicable on this 
 hypothesis. We wait for further light. 
 
MATTER; ITS PROPERTIES. 207 
 
 matter has any real existence. All visible objects 
 are regarded as conceptions of the creative faculties 
 of the human mind. The only existences are the soul 
 and its creations. 
 
 The difficulties connected with the acceptance of ideal- 
 ism are many and serious. One readily suggests itself. 
 If the pen with which I am now writing has no existence, 
 being merely a conception of my own brain, then how am 
 I to be convinced that my subjective conception of a pen 
 has any reality ? To the idealist I may say, Your concep- 
 tion of a pen is not a reality. You have only a convic- 
 tion that you have such a conception. Even this con- 
 viction is not a reality, for you have only an impression 
 that you have such a conviction. Your impression that 
 you have a conviction of the existence of a conception of 
 a pen is not a reality, for you have only a fancy that you 
 have such an impression. This process may be continued 
 to an unlimited extent, forcing him to concede either that 
 all are real, the fancy, the impression, the conviction, the 
 conception, and the pen, or to acknowledge himself drift- 
 ing hopelessly upon the sea of absolute skepticism. He 
 can know nothing, not even the reality of his own exist- 
 ence. The universe is a phantom; life, a dream; exist- 
 ence, a perhaps; thought, a succession of fleeting shadows 
 cast by nothingness upon the dark curtains that pavilion 
 it. Everything is an illusion. 
 
 Even this, some are prepared to admit. The agnostic 
 asserts, We can know nothing. Then how does he 
 happen to know that we can know nothing ? His labored 
 arguments to prove the theory he adopts, completely 
 demolish it the moment they acquire sufficient cogency 
 to establish it. This looks like intellectual suicide. He 
 has no faith in the trustworthiness of the senses; no faith 
 in the validity of human reason; still he employs reason 
 
208 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 as a means of acquiring- a knowledge of the fact that he 
 can have no knowledge. As he boastingly asserts that 
 no human being can know anything, it is somewhat pre- 
 sumptuous to undertake the task of convincing the world 
 of the truth of his theory. 
 
 Of those who are indisposed to rest satisfied till they 
 have obtained a unified conception of the universe, there 
 is a third class, substantialists. These regard it as possi- 
 ble, and probable, that all substances, the immaterial and 
 the material, may have been formed by the divine fiat 
 from one elementary substance. This theory, as its 
 advocates claim, presents a beautifully consistent and 
 closely connected series of effects, from the eternal, 
 self-existent fountain of all being, down through spirit, 
 mind, instinct, life, magnetism, light, heat, electricity, 
 and gravitation, to what are known as material substances 
 in their third state (assumed to be the most attenuated 
 state of which they are capable), — odor, gas, air; thence 
 through the second state, liquids, — water, mercury, etc., 
 to the solids, — earth, wood, lighter metals, rock, steel, 
 platinum. One eternal substance exists under the various 
 forms which Deity has seen fit to impose upon it. This 
 substance in its original condition is not to be regarded, 
 however, as gross matter, but as an indestructible, sub- 
 stantial entity, imponderable, intangible, invisible; — as 
 that, perhaps, which passes under the designation of spirit. 
 Every entity is a portion of this eternal substance in 
 some one of the innumerable stages of its ever-varying 
 condensation. 
 
 Professor Tyndall's conception of matter, as also the 
 conception of Bain, Spencer, and others, is that of a single 
 material element having two sets of properties, the spirit- 
 ual and the physical. This theory will be examined at 
 greater length in succeeding chapters. Meanwhile, it 
 
MATTER; ITS PROPERTIES. 209 
 
 may suffice to note the fact that determined efforts are 
 made to change the current conception of matter, sub- 
 stituting this exploded doctrine of hylozoism, revamped 
 and accommodated to the nebular hypothesis, to evolu- 
 tion, and to the atomic theory. Every living organism, it 
 is assumed, has been successfully traced back to one pri- 
 mordial germ, the primeval parent of everything posses- 
 sing life, whether vegetable or animal. From this one 
 germ evolution has developed everything, and is capable 
 of explaining all changes; for matter has spiritual 
 attributes as well as physical: it may hate, love, hope, 
 will, reason, etc., as well as possess solidity, tenacity, 
 elasticity, color, weight, etc. This all-potent germ, it is 
 assumed, was once potentially in the chaotic elements 
 from which the solar system was formed. " Emotion, in- 
 tellect, will, and all their phenomena were once latent in a 
 fiery cloud." " I discern in matter the promise and po- 
 tency of every form and quality of life." We are expected 
 to change our conceptions of matter and to regard men- 
 tality as one of its affections. Indeed, it is candidly con- 
 ceded that unless the distinction between mind and mat- 
 ter, as heretofore understood, is broken down, it will be 
 impossible to banish God from the universe. " Either let 
 us open the doors freely to the conception of creative 
 acts, or, abandoning them, let us radically change our 
 notions of matter." 
 
 The advocates of this form of materialism boastingly 
 assert that belief in the existence of two substances, 
 mind and matter, is no longer tenable, having been 
 abandoned by the most advanced thinkers. But if these 
 reasoners will take the trouble to read the history of 
 materialistic theories and atheistic speculations, their 
 enthusiasm may possibly subside. Belief in spiritual 
 existences is an apparition which has not disappeared at 
 
210 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 the bidding of materialistic metaphysicians; and it is 
 safe to say will not till the granite wall, the distinction 
 between mind and matter, has crumbled to decay and 
 been swept into oblivion, not by the hot breath of angry 
 contention, but by the force of irresistible logic from the 
 lips of those who whisper amid their burning tears, Alas, 
 there is no spiritual God. 
 
 It is safe to say that the highest generalization which 
 science has as yet been able to reach is, that there are 
 three substances, each possessing a unity of its own and 
 correlated with each of the others: — 
 
 1. Matter, capable of existing in countless myriads of 
 forms under three states, solid, liquid, and gaseous, — the 
 basic elements being substantially the same, and pos- 
 sibly one single element, in whatever condition it may 
 exist. 
 
 2. Physical force, immaterial, indestructible, conver- 
 tible, most probably the immanence of the Divine Will 
 in nature; capable of existing as light, heat, electricity, 
 magnetism, and chemical affinity, each of which can be 
 converted into, and has its exact equivalent in, each of 
 the others. 
 
 3. Life, capable of manifesting itself under innumer- 
 able forms in three distinct though allied states, vege- 
 table, animal, and rational; — life without mentality or 
 spirit, plants; life with mentality in varying degrees, but 
 without spirit, animals; life with both mentality and 
 spirit, man. 
 
 This makes three realms, matter, force, life; three 
 substantial entities, only one of which is material, the 
 remaining two being entitative existences, though imma- 
 terial. Of course speculation is at liberty to employ it- 
 self in the arduous attempt to reach a higher generaliza- 
 tion, and to prove, if it can, that these three substances 
 
MATTER; ITS PROPERTIES. 211 
 
 are only different modes of existence of one and the 
 same eternal substance. As yet this task has not been 
 performed. When it shall be, if it ever shall, a Personal 
 Will may be found to be the origin of all things; science, 
 at the end of her lengthy process of induction, attaining 
 the result which faith has long since reached, and reason 
 is now able to sustain by unanswerable a priori argu- 
 ments. We can well afford to encourage science in 
 prosecuting her investigations with vigor, fearless of the 
 legitimate results of careful inquiry. 
 
 Matter has not been defined, not even have its bound- 
 aries been accurately traced. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 MATTER; ITS ORIGIN. 
 
 In reference to the origin of matter various opinions 
 have prevailed and do still prevail, especially in cultured 
 nations. Savages, it is true, seldom pause to ask whether 
 that which exists needs to have had a beginning — it 
 exists, they trouble themselves no further; but in every 
 age the thoughtful have been persistently endeavoring to 
 answer the question, Whence came matter ? To the 
 incessantly recurring inquiry, the following responses 
 have been made: — 
 
 I. Matter had no beginning. It is eternal, having 
 always existed substantially as it now is. This is the 
 theory of materialistic atheism. 
 
 II. Matter is an evolution from force, whose original 
 homogeneity differentiated into heterogeneity, producing 
 light, heat, magnetism, electricity; through these agen- 
 cies, matter, in its myriad forms, came into existence, be- 
 ing a product of eternally-existent, omnipresent Force. 
 The only " Eternal Reality," the only "Unconditioned 
 Entity," the " Cause of all causes," is Force. This is 
 the theory of physical atheism. 
 
 III. Matter is embodied thought. Thought, " the 
 Ultimate of all ultimates," " the Source of all begin- 
 nings," impelled by an innate necessity, evolved into 
 force, into laws, into material existences. The universe 
 is manifested thought, coming to self-consciousness in 
 
MATTER; ITS ORIGIN. 213 
 
 man. "An Absolute Idea" is the enduring Reality. 
 This germ has produced pantheism in its various forms. 
 
 IV. Matter is the immediate creation of a supra- 
 mundane God. This is the theory of absolute creation, 
 or creation ex niliilo, as it is denominated (inaccurately, 
 we think). It is the opinion generally adopted by the 
 christian church. In the Westminster Confession of 
 Faith it is expressed in the following terms: — " It 
 pleased God .... for the manifestation of the glory of 
 his eternal power, wisdom, and goodness, in the begin- 
 ning, to create, or make of notJiing, the world and all 
 things therein, whether visible or invisible. 
 
 V. Matter is an effluence from Deity, produced by 
 the exercise of his own will. God formed the universe 
 out of the fringings of his own eternal garments. This 
 theory is adopted by a class of theologians who regard 
 it as irrational, if not indeed inconceivable, that some- 
 thing should come from nothing, even in obedience to 
 the fiat of an omnipotent God. 
 
 What is the absolute Cause of all things ? Five 
 answers have been given; Matter, Force, Thought, an 
 Unconditioned Divine Will, a Personal God. Of these, 
 two are atheistic; one is pantheistic; two are theistic. 
 To their consideration we address ourselves. 
 
 I. Matter had no beginning. 
 
 Materialists persist in asserting that it is as rational to 
 affirm that matter is uncreated and eternal, as to affirm 
 that God is an uncaused, eternal Being; that inasmuch as 
 we have no proof that since the beginning of the present 
 order of things a single atom has been created or has 
 been annihilated, or indeed can be; and inasmuch as no 
 trustworthy evidence exists that there are any realities 
 except the protean forms of this ever-changing, infi- 
 nitely plastic material substance; and inasmuch as this 
 
214 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 dictum of science, "No matter, no force: no force, no 
 matter," necessitates the belief that thought may be, 
 almost certainly is, one of the attributes of matter, as 
 much so as solidity, weight, elasticity, etc., — therefore, it 
 is most consonant with reason to assume that matter is 
 self-existent, all-potent, eternal, the Unconditioned Cause 
 of all causes, the Absolute Reality. 
 
 In refutation of this atheistic theory it may be said: — 
 I. To say that self-consciousness is an attribute of 
 matter — as this theory must — is to make an assertion 
 which is not only at variance with our fundamental no- 
 tions, but is nearly, or quite, inconceivable. To assume 
 that matter can work itself into forms in which it becomes 
 conscious of its own existence is an assumption which few 
 are disposed to make. It requires a radical change in our 
 conceptions. I am conscious of my own existence. I 
 have no doubt of the existence of other self-conscious 
 beings. I believe in the existence of objects which are 
 devoid of self-consciousness. I see the earth on which I 
 tread — not all of it, but enough to assure me that it is 
 something outside of myself. I see the sun in the heavens 
 — not in its totality, but I am confident it is something 
 totally distinct from the subjective reality which contem- 
 plates it. I see material objects all around me — not all 
 of them, but I am convinced that they are a part of the 
 ?ion-ego y the not-self. I cannot see all the matter in the 
 universe, but I have an intuitive conviction that the reality 
 which discerns is distinct from the objects discerned. In- 
 deed, when one comes to a consciousness of his own ex- 
 istence as an entity distinguishable from all other entities, 
 he is forced by the principle of causation to believe in the 
 possible existence of a higher self-conscious Personality, 
 of which he himself, all other self-conscious beings, the 
 world, all existences, are but effects. Unconsciousness 
 
MATTER; ITS ORIGIN. 215 
 
 cannot grow into consciousness; the cause which origin- 
 ates personality must be a person. Rationality cannot 
 have irrationality for its father. Will cannot be the child 
 of matter. The sensibilities cannot be the fruitage of 
 insensibility. Freedom cannot be the blossom of inex- 
 orable necessity. An intelligence which is capable of 
 employing fitting agencies for the accomplishment of 
 predetermined ends cannot arise out of nescience. 
 
 Self-consciousness is a rock upon which every mate- 
 rialistic theory may be ground to powder. To this we 
 shall recur in a subsequent chapter. Our present pur- 
 pose is merely to outline an argument. 
 
 2. Materialism fails utterly in accounting for the sense 
 of personal identity. If there is nothing in a human be- 
 ing but matter, and that, as is conceded, is in constant 
 flux, the entire body disappearing every year as science 
 now asserts, how does it happen that we retain the con- 
 viction of identity ? It is granted, alike by theists, by 
 pantheists, and by atheists, that the Uncreated Source of 
 all things must be a unity, self-existent, omnipresent, 
 eternal. It is conceded that this First Principle must 
 contain in itself a sufficient reason for all that has oc- 
 curred and for whatever now exists. It must be a perfect 
 generalization, an absolute siimmumge7ins. It must fur- 
 nish a satisfactory, at least a credible, explanation of 
 every fact in the universe. It is the demand of reason 
 that everything in the domain of the actual should find 
 at least a plausible solution in that which is assumed as 
 the Absolute Reality. Is the sense of personal identity 
 explained, or is an explanation possible, or even conceiv- 
 able, on the hypothesis that matter is the self-existent, 
 omnipresent, eternal unity ? We unhesitatingly answer, 
 No. Still, no one will deny that there is such a thing as 
 the sense of continued personal existence. How is this 
 
216 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 even conceivable on the theory of the materialist ? If 
 there is nothing but matter and its inherent forces, and 
 if the human system is undergoing incessant and rapid 
 changes, how is it possible to retain the sense of identity? 
 
 With scarcely less cogency we might ask, How is it 
 possible to explain memory ? 
 
 This argument, however, and the preceding as well, 
 will be more fully elaborated when we come to discuss 
 mind and its relations to matter. We are now more im- 
 mediately concerned with the question, Is matter eter- 
 nal ? No: for, — 
 
 3. Behind the phenomenal there must be the real; an- 
 tecedent to the mutable there must be the immutable; 
 i. e. y a Personal Being who finds his motives to action in 
 himself alone. 
 
 The solar system came into being as a result of trans- 
 mutations. The sun is subject to incessant changes and 
 is destined, apparently, to ultimate extinction. The 
 earth, under the disintegrating influence of storms, of 
 sunshine, of frost, of winds, of earthquakes, and of vol- 
 canoes, is ceaselessly changing its external aspect, and is 
 hastening to enter upon another condition. Plants are 
 evolved from germs: they perfect themselves, and then 
 perish, others taking their places. Animals are born, 
 live and die — the succession coming forth from the buried 
 past, and capable, apparently, of extending into the 
 indefinite future. Death is succeeded by life; genesis, 
 by annihilation. Is the universe a mere succession of 
 fleeting phenomena? No: beneath the changing there 
 must be the enduring; behind the mutable, there must 
 be the immutable; back of the varying there must be 
 the constant. There could not be the unstable phe- 
 nomena, unless there was an abiding Reality. 
 
 Reason, then, is forced to concede that there must be 
 
MATTER; ITS ORIGIN. 217 
 
 an enduring substance, a " something " which continues 
 while all else changes, "a something" which is at once 
 the substratum of changes and the cause which produces 
 them. Can this substance be matter? No: for it also 
 is undergoing ceaseless change, forming itself into new 
 worlds, hastening forwards into new forms; it is itself 
 phenomenal. An intelligent design runs through all the 
 changes, a design which it is impossible to regard as one 
 of its attributes. The cause of all reality must not only 
 be itself a reality; but it must possess efficiency ade- 
 quate to the production of everything, itself excepted. 
 Can impersonal matter produce personality ? To the 
 production of this there must evidently be a self-deter- 
 mining will; there must be self-consciousness. Nothing 
 can be the father of personality but personality; that is, 
 consciousness, will, separate subsistence — the essential 
 elements of personality. 
 
 The Absolute First, the Primus, the Cause of all 
 changes, must therefore be a Personal Will. If it is 
 necessary to postulate the existence of matter to ac- 
 count for phenomena to which it gives rise, it is no 
 less necessary to postulate the existence of mind in 
 order to account for phenomena to which it gives rise, 
 and which are otherwise inexplicable. 
 
 An eternal succession of phenomena implies the exist- 
 ence of an eternal substance capable of producing the 
 phenomena. Is it possible to believe that an eternal 
 succession of shadows can chase each other across the 
 meadow unless there is somewhere a substance capable 
 of casting the shadows ? Certainly, an eternal succession 
 of shadows cannot be cast by an eternal succession of 
 shadows. 
 
 An infinite series of changes implies an enduring sub- 
 stance which is the subject of those changes. An infinite 
 
218 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 series of shadows, each cast by a shadow that went before, 
 is inconceivable. The first duty,therefore,of the material- 
 ist is to inform us what is that underlying reality which 
 remains unchanged and unchangeable in all the forms 
 which matter assumes. He has not defined matter; he 
 has not informed us what are its essential qualities. 
 What attributes are common to all its forms ? 
 
 We affirm, then, that behind the evanishing there must 
 be the abiding; behind the powerless there must be the 
 potent; behind the seen there must be the unseen; back 
 of the material there must be the Immaterial. 
 
 4. It is inconceivable that the changes to which matter 
 is subject should evince design, if there is no Personal 
 Will. In what does this adaptation of means to ends 
 inhere ? Evidently not in matter, tor design is not one 
 of its attributes. What, then, is it which produces these 
 purposive changes ? what organizes and governs all 
 things ? What determines all forms, all relations, and 
 the adaptations everywhere apparent ? A development 
 without a beginning is inconceivable; an evolution with- 
 out an evolver is an absurdity; the atheist does not 
 render it possible to conceive of a series without a first 
 term, by simply asserting that the series is infinite. He 
 has not imparted a finite conception: he has only pro- 
 duced confusion. If there is no design in any single 
 member of the series, the series does not become pur- 
 posive by becoming infinite. Besides, how can there be a 
 succession of members, separated from each other by 
 unity, without unity, or a starting-point, as a basis ? 
 
 It is safe, therefore, to affirm that reason, while de- 
 manding unity in the source of all beginnings, is unable 
 to rest in a unity which is conditioned, changeable, mind- 
 less, purposeless. It demands not merely that which 
 may perhaps be self-existent; but it demands that which 
 
MATTER; ITS ORIGIN. 219 
 
 is certainly self-determined, a Personal Will. Its First 
 Cause must be capable of furnishing an adequate explan- 
 ation of the existence of all systems, all suns, all worlds, 
 all bodies — all material entities; an adequate explanation 
 of all motion, all force, all changes — all physical entities; 
 an adequate explanation of all growth, all decay, all 
 death — all the phenomena of plant life, of animal life, of 
 rational life — consciousness, reason, emotion, conscience, 
 will, personality. Its unmistakable testimony is, The 
 First Cause must be a Living Personality, " for whom, in 
 whom, and to whom are all things." Matter, even if it 
 could be proved to be self-existent and eternal, would 
 not answer the necessities of the case. The human 
 intellect refuses to rest in any first principle which 
 is not absolutely first, in any reality which is not an 
 Unconditioned Reality, in any unity which is not the 
 Ultimate Unity. It affirms that the cause of causes 
 must be the personal will of a self-existent, eternal Being 
 who finds all motives to action in himself alone — an Un- 
 conditioned Will which realizes itself in self-potency, 
 manifests itself in efficiency, and finds the complement 
 of its activity in a created universe. Will, not matter, 
 not force, not thought, is the Final Cause of all things. 
 
 We have ascribed an unconditioned will to Deity, 
 though some, we are aware, are of the opinion that Deity, 
 in the act of creation at least, is conditioned by the 
 necessary existences, space, time, number. We prefer to 
 regard Him as an absolute, unconditioned First Cause; 
 and to regard space as a result of His omnipresence, 
 time as a result of His existence, and number as a result 
 of His unity. This opinion is environed by fewer difficul- 
 ties than attach to the theory which is recommended in 
 its stead. If we regard time, space, and number as eter- 
 nal, and independent of Deity, we are immediately asked, 
 
220 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 Why then may not matter also be self-existent, eternal, 
 and independent ? Though it is evident that the basis of 
 the assumption of the eternal and independent existence 
 of the latter is quite different from the basis which is sup- 
 posed to support belief in the eternity of space, still.it can- 
 not be denied that the moment we admit that there can be 
 anything uncaused, save the First Cause, we encourage 
 the assertion, Then matter may be uncreated and eternal 
 — consequently the universe never had a beginning. And 
 if matter may be eternal, why may there not be an eter- 
 nal order of the universe ? And if order is an eternal 
 law, why may there not be an infinite series of changes 
 each evincing adaptation ? If the physical forces have 
 an existence independent of Deity, why may not the 
 same be true of the laws of life, of mind, of spirit, as also 
 of the distinction between right and wrong. 
 
 It thus appears that it is the wisest course, as well 
 as the most logical, to fix upon an Unconditioned Will as 
 the origin of all things. 
 
 5. If matter is in the process of evolving " an in- 
 finite series" of changes, then the universe must have 
 originated in a single atom, or must be in the stage of 
 reducing itself to a single atom. The series of changes 
 cannot be infinite unless it includes changes from less 
 quantity to greater quantity, and from less potency to 
 greater potency. Indeed, it is doubtful whether there 
 can be a series which is neither ascending nor descending. 
 Certainly such a series, if any such is possible, will not 
 include an infinite number of changes; and if it is said 
 that the series is infinite, though the changes are not 
 infinite, we respond, As it is a succession of individual 
 changes which constitutes the series, the series cannot 
 be infinite unless the changes are infinite. An infinite 
 series of changes in matter must therefore include all 
 
MATTER; ITS ORIGIN. 221 
 
 possible changes between an atom and immensity filled 
 with the densest metal possible; all changes between an 
 infinitesimal unit of force and illimitable force. More- 
 over, in order to be a series, the succession of changes must 
 have commenced either with an indivisible atom which 
 would have ceased to be matter had division been possi- 
 ble, or must have commenced with the greatest conceiv- 
 able quantity. The latter could not have been the case; 
 for that would imply successive annihilations of material 
 substance, which science pronounces impossible. Besides, 
 this would not answer the purpose of the evolutionist. 
 It would not be evolution, but progressive annihilation. 
 Consequently, " the infinite series " of changes must have 
 commenced with an atom possessing an infinitesimal unit 
 of force. Not matter in its present totality, but the atom 
 must have been the First Cause of all things. Can this 
 be denied by any one desirous of reaching ultimate 
 unity ? 
 
 This unfortunate phrase, " an infinite series of changes," 
 promises well, but on examination is found incompetent 
 to explain the problem whose solution is sought. It can- 
 not begin with an atom, for successive changes towards 
 increased quantity is an absolute creation — a thing pro- 
 nounced inconceivable. If an Infinite Personality can- 
 not create objectivity, so augmenting the quantum of 
 existence in the universe, then " an infinite series" can- 
 not. How could a second atom come into being ? 
 The phrase, therefore, explains nothing, unless it is 
 understood as a circumlocution for the term God. By 
 most persons, however, the monosyllable is considered 
 preferable. 
 
 6. The majority of the human race have maintained 
 that reason necessitates belief in the existence of a 
 First Cause independent of matter, a supramundane 
 
222 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 Personality. Plato exclaims, " Mind is king of heaven 
 and earth." " God is the most excellent of causes." 
 Nearly all languages, even those of savages, have a term 
 whose content is the intuitive conviction that there is a 
 Divine Personality back of nature. Polytheism, with its 
 gods many, generally has one who is regarded as the 
 Father of all the divinities, the Source of all existence, 
 all potency, all causality, all personality, a Jupiter Om- 
 nipotens. With the christian theist the conception of 
 Deity embraces independent existence, unlimited power, 
 unconditioned will-force, perfect personality. 
 
 We have the right to present the universality of this 
 belief as evidence that it may be regarded as reasonable, 
 and as environed by fewer difficulties than any rival 
 theory. It is indeed the broadest conception that ever 
 entered the mind of man. The reasons, therefore, which 
 impel to its reception must be potent. 
 
 II. Matter is an evolution from force. 
 
 Force is the only reality. In the beginning there was 
 force — nothing else. 
 
 Nearly or quite all the arguments which we have out- 
 lined, in the discussion of the theory that matter is the 
 source of all being, apply with equal cogency to the 
 theory that force is the First Cause, verbis mutatis. We 
 pause long enough, however, for the succinct enumeration 
 of a few others. 
 
 I. Since the term force, as here employed, does not 
 designate a quality, but an abstract reality; and since 
 reason requires that the Final Cause shall be a unity, 
 and not a duality; and since, consequently, there was 
 originally no matter in the universe, — force must be 
 regarded as adequate to the origination of something 
 external to itself, and of a nature different from its own. 
 How shall it proceed ? 
 
MATTER; ITS ORIGIN. 223 
 
 {a) It cannot evolve matter from itself, for by 
 hypothesis it is not matter; and there can be no evolu- 
 tion unless there is a preceding involution. 
 
 (b) It could not have gathered objectivity from the 
 limitless abysses of uncreated space, and from this fash- 
 ioned a universe; for, by supposition, there was nothing in 
 existence save force. 
 
 (c) It could not, by differentiating through " an 
 infinite series," acquire the power of originating matter, 
 for no one member of the series could impart a power 
 which it did not itself possess. 
 
 2. Since, by concession, force is not matter, the 
 theory has no advantage over that which it is intended 
 to displace; nay, it is at a disadvantage. It leaves us to 
 believe in absolute creation, which is pronounced incon- 
 ceivable; and it does not present us an Intelligent Per- 
 sonal Will as the Creator, but blind, mindless, purpose- 
 less force. 
 
 3. There are not only individual forces, closely cor- 
 related one to the other, but there are laws of force, 
 each manifesting intelligent design. Observing every- 
 where the sway of laws which evince wisdom, will any 
 one say that the preponderance of probability is against 
 the hypothesis of a Lawgiver ? Who then enacted them ? 
 Who maintains them ? Blind force knows nothing about 
 devising intelligent laws. Consequently, in the presence 
 of the fact that law holds universal sway, I am impelled 
 to exclaim: There must be a Being from whom law 
 emanates. An atheist I cannot be without doing vio- 
 lence to reason. 
 
 When one contemplates power as manifest in the 
 volcano or in the earthquake; when he learns that the 
 nebula known as the Milky Way is moving through space 
 with its millions of suns and their accompanying planets, 
 
224 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 at the average rate of three thousand miles a minute, and 
 that the planet Jupiter, fourteen hundred times larger 
 than the earth, is whirled forwards at the rate of thirty 
 thousand miles per hour, and that the comet of 1680 is 
 traveling with the velocity of eight hundred and eighty- 
 four thousand miles an hour,— he is disposed to con- 
 clude that if there were no Intelligent Will back of the 
 physical forces they might cause infinite confusion, if 
 indeed they did not resolve the universe into its orig- 
 inal chaotic state. After observing evidences of design 
 in the subordination of forces to the accomplishment of 
 a definite purpose, it requires hardihood to affirm that the 
 preponderance of evidence favors atheism. 
 
 In the presence of facts, we are indisposed to present 
 labored arguments for the purpose of destroying the 
 foundations of atheism. To attempt this, seems to us 
 like reasoning to prove that man is possessed of reason- 
 ing powers; like piling up syllogisms to prove one's per- 
 sonal existence. 
 
 As we shall attempt to show in the succeeding chapter, 
 most physicists of the present day are disposed to regard 
 the physical forces — all force — as the immanence of the 
 Divine Will. The unconditioned will of Deity is consid- 
 ered the fountain-head of all energy. 
 
 III. Matter is embodied thought. 
 
 This theory, which gives rise to pantheism in its vari- 
 ous forms, regards matter as the ceaselessly varying, ever- 
 living garment of the Almighty; and persists in asserting 
 that God has no conscious existence outside of, over and 
 above, nature. It prides itself in its antiquity, reminding 
 us that ancient religious hymns conceive of the world as 
 the robes of the Divinity, from whose ponderous body 
 all things are produced. We need not trouble the reader 
 with an attempted refutation of pantheism. 
 
MATTER; ITS ORIGIN. 225 
 
 Those who deny the existence of a God, the Creator 
 of all things, have not as yet satisfactorily answered 
 the question, Whence came matter ? though they have 
 presented the world with some bold speculations, some 
 captivating rhetoric, some splendid exhibitions of man's 
 disposition to form generalizations, and a little reasoning 
 that seems on the surface quite plausible. 
 
 IV. " God created all things of nothing by 
 
 THE WORD OF HlS POWER." 
 
 To this theory it has been objected: — 
 
 i. It is inconceivable. " Ex nihilo nihil fit" — from 
 nothing, nothing can come — is a self-evident proposition, 
 and should be accepted as such by every human being. 
 The only production of nothingness is nothing. No 
 substance, material or immaterial, can come into being 
 from the non-existent. There are two fundamental prin- 
 ciples in science, — no substantive entity, whether corpo- 
 real or incorporeal, can cease to exist, though it may pass 
 through an indefinite number of changes; nor can it 
 come into existence from nothingness, even by the aid 
 of omnipotent power and omniscient intelligence. The 
 axiom, " Ex nihilo nihil fit; in nihilum nil posse reverti" — 
 from nothing, nothing can come; to annihilation, nothing 
 can be reduced — is to be taken not merely as announcing 
 that no effect can occur without an adequate cause, but 
 as affirming that absolute creation and absolute annihil- 
 ation are inconceivable, and consequently are of course 
 impossible even to limitless power and infinite intelli- 
 gence. They who accept the hypothesis of an uncreated 
 and consequently self-existent, eternal God, are com- 
 pelled to concede that even with Him there are impos- 
 sibilities. He cannot lie. He cannot make the three 
 angles of a triangle equal to less or more than two right 
 angles; nor the square of the hypothenuse of a right- 
 
226 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 angled triangle else than equal to the sum of the squares 
 of the other two sides; nor two and two anything else 
 than four; nor wrong right; nor can He annihilate space, 
 or duration, or the relations between abstract numbers. 
 
 2. That God created all things out of nothing is not 
 asserted in Scriptures. With the exception of the first 
 verse there is no diversity of opinion in reference to the 
 interpretation of the first chapter of Genesis. The word 
 " bara," " create," elsewhere than in the first verse, con- 
 fessedly means to form or fashion from pre-existing mate- 
 rials. " God created [bara] great whales" — it is not 
 assumed that He created them from nothing. " God 
 created [bara] man in His own image;" that is, " The 
 Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and 
 breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man 
 became a living soul" (Gen. i. 21, 27; ii. 7); his body 
 and his soul were fashioned from substances previously 
 existent. The word " bara" elsewhere in Scripture does 
 not mean to originate de novo. " Create in me a clean 
 heart." " I form the light and create darkness." " I 
 make peace and create evil." " I create the fruit of the 
 lips" (Ps. Ii. 10; Isa. xlv. 7; lvii. 19). It is not meant 
 that " a clean heart," " darkness," " evil," and " the fruit 
 of the lips" are "created" by an Almighty Divine Will 
 from nothingness. 
 
 Certainly there was such a thing as progress in cre- 
 ation, that is, in the formation of the earth, and in the 
 production of vegetable and animal existences. Through 
 a protracted period of time the earth was in preparation 
 to become the dwelling-place of man. " The earth was 
 without form and void; and darkness was upon the face 
 of the deep; and the spirit of God moved upon the face 
 of the waters." After furnishing this account of the 
 method in which the earth was formed, the sacred his- 
 
MATTER; ITS ORIGIN. 227 
 
 torian proceeds to recount the successive steps in medi- 
 ate creation, the production of light, of an enveloping 
 atmosphere, of continents and oceans, of vegetable 
 organisms, of animal existences, finally of man — a pro- 
 gressive work upon pre-existing materials. By what 
 right, therefore, do any assume that " create" in the first 
 verse means bringing instantaneously into existence 
 from nothingness by a simple fiat of the Divine Will ? 
 Why adopt an interpretation which exacts belief in 
 that which is inconceivable, absolute creation ? Since 
 the Bible affirms, " In thy book all my members were 
 written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as 
 yet there was none of them," though man is capable 
 of reproduction; since God is frequently represented as 
 being the Maker of all that the earth, the air, and the sea 
 produce in each recurring season, though they are results 
 of secondary causes resident in existing substances, — why 
 adopt an hypothesis which renders it difficult for those 
 possessing a scientific turn of mind to accept the Bible 
 as a supernatural revelation ? Better acknowledge that 
 the creeds, which so positively affirm that God created 
 all things out of nothing, are human inventions based 
 upon an erroneous interpretation of the Word. 
 
 It is argued: The cosmogonies of Scripture, which are 
 three in number, and are, as Mr. George Smith affirms, 
 closely related to those of Babylon — in arrangement, 
 in the introduction of God speaking, in the notion of a 
 primeval chaos, in pronouncing everything " very good," 
 in the assignment of stars as determining the years, etc., — 
 were uniformly interpreted by the Jews till the Hellenic 
 period, not as teaching that all things were made from 
 nothing, but as affirming that God fashioned existing 
 things from pre-existing substances. It is true that the 
 Aryan cosmogony, as found in the Avesta, attributes the 
 
228 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 creation of all things to Ahura-mazda (Ormuzd), not 
 from pre-existing materials, but from nothingness. Are 
 we to remain, till the end of time, the besotted dupes of 
 those who lived ere the dawn of science ? 
 
 It is further said: Even if it is impossible to reconcile the 
 first chapter of Genesis with the facts of science, still we 
 are not called upon to surrender faith in Scripture. We 
 merely surrender the theories of verbal and plenary 
 inspiration. The Bible is a spiritual book and addresses 
 itself to man's spirit. Its assertions regarding scientific 
 facts may be radically erroneous, frequently are: this 
 does not invalidate the inspired spiritual truths which are 
 taught and were designed to be taught. If the first 
 chapter of Genesis, scientifically considered, is funda- 
 mentally wrong, it is not necessarily untrue. The les- 
 sons it teaches are eternally true. It announces spiritual 
 principles; the Unity of the Godhead; the Divine Will 
 the source of all things terrestrial; everything "good" is 
 of slow growth; the world is advancing, the lower giving 
 place to the higher; the turmoil of the present will be 
 succeeded by the sabbatic rest of the future; to-day's 
 labor brings to-morrow's recompense; man, weak and 
 sinful as he is, is fashioned in God's image. 
 
 3. The doctrine that in the dawn of time an Eternal 
 God created that which had no existence in eternity, is 
 inconsistent with the true idea of Deity. Absolute crea- 
 tion supposes a distinction between will and power, be- 
 tween determination and efficiency. In God there is, and 
 can be, no distinction between essence and attributes, 
 between ability and actuality. The assumption that 
 things began to exist implies a change in God from an in- 
 activity, stretching backwards into eternity, to an activity 
 originating in time. If things external to Him owe their 
 existence to His will, they must be regarded as an 
 
MATTER; ITS ORIGIN. 229 
 
 eternal effect. " In the beginning" means from eternity. 
 The earth and the heavens are an eternal creation. Ac- 
 cordingly, Origen, while attributing the beginning of the 
 universe to the volition of God, maintained, nevertheless, 
 that it was eternal. The same opinion has been held by 
 many eminent theologians and metaphysicians. It is com- 
 mon to all monists, or those who maintain that there is 
 only one substance in the universe. Some theologians, 
 even some who are regarded as strictly orthodox, con- 
 cede that God and the universe are so intimately and 
 necessarily interblended that the latter must have existed 
 from eternity. 
 
 In the judgment of many, these objections are suffi- 
 ciently refuted by saying: — 
 
 I. We have no right to assume that we can under- 
 stand the Almighty unto perfection. Because it is im- 
 possible for man to make " something " from " nothing," 
 or because it is regarded by some as inconceivable — being 
 beyond the reach of finite comprehension that Omnipo- 
 tence could create a universe from " nothingness," — it does 
 not follow that there is any impossibility, not even that 
 there is any strong improbability, in God's creating ex 
 niliilo, — from nothing, — the material element or elements 
 from which He subsequently formed the world and all 
 things therein. 
 
 Besides, to say that God created all things from noth- 
 ing is an unfortunate and unwarrantable mode of expres- 
 sion. It simply affirms that there was no objectivity 
 which He transmuted into worlds. It does not lay em- 
 phasis on the fact that His will is infinite in power, that 
 there is subjective efficiency adequate to the production 
 of any effect which He determines to produce, that, being 
 an unconditioned First Cause, neither time, nor space, nor 
 number, nor matter was a necessary condition to the 
 
230 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 exercise of His omnipotent will. " He spake and it was 
 done." No cause, save His own fiat, was necessary: no 
 condition, save His own existence, was needed. Every- 
 thing is an effect of His illimitable power brought into ex- 
 ercise by His own irresistible will. Absolute personality, 
 an eternally self-existent, self-conscious, self-sufficient 
 Being, — this is the primal conception in the Biblical ac- 
 count of creation. Consequently, though, as we are pre- 
 pared to admit, the original expressions employed in the 
 Mosaic cosmogonies yield no conclusive results, we are 
 nevertheless justified in affirming: (a) Absolute creation 
 was an act to which God was determined by no neces- 
 sary existences extraneous to Himself; {b) It was an act 
 to which He was determined by no inherent necessity of 
 His own nature. He willed to create; beyond that we 
 cannot go. He was just, because He willed to be. He 
 was good, because He willed to be. He approved right and 
 condemned wrong, because He willed to do so; not from 
 any necessity external to His own moral nature, other- 
 wise He would not be worthy of worship, for compelled 
 goodness is not deserving of praise. It thus becomes 
 apparent that His own unconditioned will must be the 
 source of everything. That which is objective to self may 
 be necessary to the conception of finite personality, but it 
 cannot be necessary to the conception of absolute or infinite 
 personality. Deity needed nothing external toself to ren- 
 der Him self-complete. His unconditioned power, brought 
 into exercise by His unconditioned will, was the efficient 
 cause of whatever has been, is, or shall be. His continued 
 existence was the cause of time. His omnipresence was 
 the cause of space. His unity was the cause of number. 
 His will was the cause of the primordial elements, and of 
 their attributes. His will determined the forms into which 
 He should fashion these original elementary substances. 
 
MATTER; ITS ORIGIN. 231 
 
 Perhaps, however, theists act more wisely in imitating 
 the example of Prof. J. Clerk Maxwell. He says, Encyc. 
 Brit., art. "Atom": — 
 
 M Science is incompetent to reason upon the creation of matter itself out of 
 nothing. We have reached the limits of our thinking faculties when we have 
 admitted that because matter cannot be eternal and self-existent, it must have 
 been created. It is only when we contemplate, not matter in itself, but the 
 form in which it actually exists that our mind finds something on which it can 
 lay hold." 
 
 "That matter, as such, should have certain fundamental properties, that it 
 should have a continuous existence in space and time, that all actions should 
 be between two portions of matter, and so on, are truths which may, for aught 
 we know, be truths of the kind which metaphysicians call necessary. We can 
 use our knowledge of such truths for purposes of deduction, but we have no 
 data for speculating on their origin." 
 
 Antecedent to the present arrangements of nature, 
 there was nothing, says the scientist; for advanced science 
 has repudiated the idea of an endless succession of phe- 
 nomena by proving that everything in the present uni- 
 verse must have had a beginning, thereby rendering it 
 probable that the primordial elements could not have 
 been eternal. Yes, says the theologian; prior to the 
 existing order of things, which indeed runs back into the 
 buried past, there was nothing extraneous to Deity save 
 the necessary results of His own existence. Space was, 
 because God was. Duration was, because God was. 
 Number was, because God was. Justice was — in Deity. 
 Law was — in Deity. Power was — in Deity. Goodness 
 was — in Deity. Holiness was — in Deity. 
 
 "In the beginning" there were atoms, says the 
 scientist. Yes, responds the theologian; for God created 
 them in the beginning of the succession of changes which 
 the universe has undergone. In eternity, God: naught 
 else. 
 
 " In the beginning " force was, says the scientist. 
 
232 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 Yes, says the theologian; force by the divine fiat was as- 
 sociated with matter. All forces have their origin in 
 the Divine Will — they are simply an expression of His 
 determinations. 
 
 2. The account of creation, as presented in the Bible, 
 is inconsistent with the assumption that "create " (bara) 
 uniformly means "to form," " to fashion." Clarke, Lange, 
 Parkhurst and Delitzsch, no mean authorities, assert that 
 " bara " means to originate de novo. Others, as Pusey, 
 Kitto, and Abenezra, affirm that it may mean either 
 immediate creation or mediate creation — either creatio 
 prima, immediata; or creatio mediata, formativa. " By 
 the word of the Lord were the heavens made " (Ps. xxxiii. 
 6). " By Him were all things created, that are in heaven, 
 and that are on earth, visible and invisible ... all things 
 were created by Him and for Him; and He is before all 
 things, and by Him all things consist" (Col. i. 16, 17). 
 The expression "all things" includes the original ele- 
 ment — everything save God Himself. There could, there- 
 fore, have been no pre-existing substance, no primordial 
 elements. 
 
 Besides, the world — indeed everything extraneous to 
 Deity — is said to have had a beginning. " Of old hast 
 thou laid the foundations of the earth: and the heavens 
 are the work of thy hands " (Ps. cii. 25). "Before the 
 mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed 
 the earth and the world, even from everlasting to ever- 
 lasting, thou art God" (Ps. xc. 2). Christ speaks of the 
 glory He had with the Father before the world was. All 
 things, then, had a beginning; and since no mention is 
 made of pre-existing matter from which things terrestrial 
 were formed, they must have been created de novo. 
 Moreover, since God is infinite, everything must have 
 originated in His volition; since He is unconditioned, 
 
MATTER; ITS ORIGIN. 233 
 
 everything must be dependent upon Him. Absolute 
 creation is a corollary from the demonstrated theorem, An 
 extra-mundane God exists. Consequently, unless we are 
 prepared to concede " that God created, or made of noth- 
 ing, the world and all things therein," the substance of 
 which it is composed included, we are logically driven to 
 adopt either atheism or some form of pantheism. 
 
 By many eminent lexicographers it is asserted that 
 " ayth," a word found in Genesis i. I, means " very sub- 
 stance," "real essence." If this is its meaning, the verse 
 may be translated: M In the beginning God brought into 
 being (bara) the essence (ayth) of the heavens and the 
 earth." 
 
 In no case, if the testimony of the most distinguished 
 scholars has any weight, are we unauthorized in asserting 
 that the verse may affirm, and most probably does affirm, 
 that God created matter de novo, by a simple volition. 
 
 3. If God does nothing, and has done nothing, except 
 what He did in eternity, then there is no such thing as 
 divine interposition. If there is no distinction between 
 ability and actuality, between power and efficiency, then 
 cause and effect are identical: there can be no un- 
 expended cause. If the purpose of an eternal God is , 
 exactly equivalent to the eternal consummation of that 
 purpose, then everything that occurs in time must either 
 have occurred in eternity or must be independent of the 
 will of Deity. So far as its effect upon our lives is con- 
 cerned, we may as well avow ourselves atheists, as to 
 adopt the theory that there is no distinction between 
 power and efficiency, that what God is capable of doing, 
 and all He ever purposed to do, or can purpose to do, 
 must have been done from eternity. If we are to believe 
 that because God had the power and the purpose to 
 create, therefore creation must be eternal, then we are 
 
234 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 forced to conclude that since what shall happen to 
 us to-morrow could not have happened in eternity, 
 therefore it must be independent of the Divine Will. 
 
 Nor is change in God a legitimate inference from the 
 current theory that material things had a beginning. It 
 is not asserted that there was any change in His purpose, 
 but simply that His purpose was consummated in time. 
 An eternal purpose to create is not an eternal creation; 
 nor is the creation of the world in time conclusive evi- 
 dence that the original purpose was to create it from 
 eternity, which purpose was changed into that of creating 
 it in time. The statement that He purposed from eternity 
 to create is by no means identical with the statement 
 that He purposed to create from eternity; and to assert: 
 If the universe is not eternal, God must have been inac- 
 tive prior to creation, — is a gratuitous assumption that 
 activity must produce the same class of effects. " Who 
 by searching can find out the Almighty unto perfection ?" 
 There are limits to human reason. God is confessedly 
 unfathomable. His existence and His essential attributes 
 may be known, however. The ultimate source of all 
 being, all power, all life, is inscrutable — past human 
 . comprehension. " Christ is the visible image of the 
 Invisible God." 
 
 The above line of reasoning, though sufficiently 
 powerful in the minds of many to remove all objec- 
 tions to the accepted doctrine of creation, is consid- 
 ered inadequate by others, even by many speculative 
 theologians. To the question, Whence came matter? 
 they prefer to answer: — 
 
 V. Matter is an effluence from Deity. 
 
 This theory, as is evident, may exist under two 
 forms — 
 
 I. Matter may be regarded as a necessary and uncon- 
 
MATTER; ITS ORIGIN. 235 
 
 scious emanation from the divine nature. In this aspect, 
 the theory may easily glide into pantheism or into a kind 
 of evolution which cannot be regarded as theistic. 
 
 2. Matter may be regarded as an effluence from Deity, 
 produced by the exercise of His own will. It is, as it 
 were, the self-evolved fringings of His own eternal sub- 
 stance; the visible manifestation, self-willed, of an invis- 
 ible, incomprehensible, and otherwise unknowable spirit; 
 the outer, self-unfolded, effluent, and probably eternal 
 robes of His infinite, omnipotent, omniscient, and uncon- 
 ditioned personality. 
 
 It is in the latter sense that the theory is held by 
 the authors of The Unseen Universe, by the Rev. Joseph 
 Cook, by Sir Wm. Hamilton, and others. 
 
 The authors of The Unseen Universe say: — 
 
 " This production was, as far as we can judge, a sporadic or abrupt act, and 
 the substance produced — that is to say, the atoms which form the material 
 substratum of the present universe — bears, from its uniformity of constitution, 
 all the marks of being a manufactured article." 
 
 "The argument is in favor of the production of the visible universe by 
 means of an intelligent agency residing in the invisible universe." 
 
 " But again, let us realize the position in which we are placed by the prin- 
 ciple of continuity — we are led by it not only to regard the invisible universe as 
 having existed before the present one, but the same principle drives us to 
 acknowledge its existence in some form as a universe from eternity." 
 
 "As far as we can judge the visible universe — the universe of worlds — is 
 not eternal, while, however, the invisible universe is necessarily eternal." — The 
 Unseen Univers", pp. 155, 156, 174. 
 
 Rev. Dr. Joseph Cook affirms: — 
 
 " It is not my opinion that everything was created from nothing. ... I 
 suppose Almighty God evolves the seen universe of matter and the unseen uni- 
 verse of finite force from Himself. My creed is the reverse of pantheism." — 
 Lectures on Heredity, pp . 1 20, 121." 
 
 " Matter is an effluence of the divine nature, and so is all finite mind, 
 and thus the universe is one in its present ground of existence and in the 
 Final Cause. In a better age, science, lighting her lamp at that Higher 
 Unity, will teach that although He, whom we dare not name, transcends all 
 
236 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 natural laws, they are, through His Immanence, literally God, who was, and 
 is, and is to come. Science does this already for all who think clearly." — 
 Biology, p. 270. 
 
 Sir Wm. Hamilton employs the following language: — 
 
 "But if you can thus conceive neither the absolute commencement nor the 
 absolute termination of anything that is once thought to exist, try, on the other 
 hand, if you can conceive the opposite alternative of infinite non-commencement, 
 of infinite non-termination. To this you are equally impotent." 
 
 " But what is a creation ? It is not the springing of nothing into something. 
 Far from it: — it is conceived, and is by us conceivable, merely as the evolution 
 of a new form of existence, by the fiat of the Deity. Let us suppose the very 
 crisis of creation. Can we realize it to ourselves, in thought, that the moment 
 after the universe came into manifested being, there was a larger complement 
 of existence in the universe and its Author together, than there was the mo- 
 ment before, in the Deity Himself alone ? This we cannot imagine. . . . All 
 that there is now actually of existence in the universe, we conceive as having 
 virtually" existed, prior to creation, in the Creator." 
 
 " Change must be within existence: it must be merely of phenomenal existence. 
 Since change can be for us only as it appears to us — only as it is known by us; 
 and we cannot know, we cannot think, a change either from non-existence to 
 existence, or from existence to non-exislence; the change must be from substance 
 to substance: but substances, apart from phenomena, are inconceivable, as phe- 
 nomena are inconceivable apart from substances. For thought requires as its 
 condition the correlatives both of an appearing and of something that appears." 
 — Hamilton's Metaphysics, pp. 549, 553, 692. 
 
 God evolved all things out of His own eternal self- 
 existent substance. To pass from the conditioned to the 
 unconditioned — from finite conceptions to infinite con- 
 ceptions — is beyond the power of the human intellect. 
 In the backward stretch we must stop somewhere; and 
 though it is the duty of the scientist to remove the First 
 Cause to a distance as remote as possible; and though it 
 is the duty of the theologian to prove that, however 
 distant may be the pavilion in which He hides Himself, 
 His existence is an eternal fact, evidenced by the growing 
 grass and by the falling sparrow — it is possible for the 
 scientists and the theologian to rest in this as an ultimate 
 
MATTER; ITS ORIGIN: 237 
 
 fact in reference to the origin of matter, — It is an effluence 
 from the Infinite One. 
 
 Evidences are already accumulating, however, that 
 even if theology should content herself in the acceptance 
 of this theory, science would not. Boscovitch and others 
 rid themselves of the idea that matter is substance or 
 stuff, regarding it as merely a phenomenon of force. For 
 the solid vortex-atom of Lucretius, and for the mobile 
 vortex-atom of Thomson and Helmholtz, they substitute 
 a geometrical point, a center of energy. 
 
 If it shall be proved that matter is a simple and 
 necessary phenomenon of force, and that consequently it 
 needs no other originator, being as really a phenomenon 
 of force as extension and weight are phenomena of 
 matter, then the theist is prepared to assert, and to prove, 
 as we believe, that force is the simple exponent of an 
 Infinite Personal Will, and is increatable, indestructible, 
 inaugmentable, and indiminishable. Of course, if it is 
 impossible to create matter or to annihilate matter, and 
 consequently impossible to either augment or diminish 
 its quantity, it is certainly no less impossible to cre- 
 ate or annihilate force, and therefore impossible to 
 either increase or lessen its sum. Consequently, the 
 First Cause, an Unconditioned Will, is all and in all. 
 There is but one mystery, the existence of God: all 
 other mysteries resolve themselves into this. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 CONTINUITY. 
 
 HAVING endeavored to ascertain what is the remotest 
 principle in the order of analytic thought, and having 
 shown, as we apprehend, that it is, and must be, the 
 Unconditioned Will of Deity, we now address ourselves 
 to the following questions: — 
 
 I. From the initial act of absolute creation has there 
 been a continuous, uniform progression, or have there 
 been occasional breaks, creative epochs, new beginnings ? 
 
 II. Admitting that the general continuity is a neces- 
 sary result of the continued operation of physical causes, 
 how are we to account for the " new beginnings " ? 
 
 There was a time in the remote past, scientists tell 
 us, when the chaotic materials which ultimately formed 
 the solar system were but an undivided portion of those 
 material elements which pervaded immensity. Was there 
 no break in continuity when a definite portion of these 
 began to evolve into the existing solar system ? What 
 force separated them from the limitless ocean of matter ? 
 
 There was a time when the earth had as yet no indi- 
 vidual existence, its elements being an indistinguishable 
 part of the heaving sea of homogeneous matter which 
 filled the space now occupied by the solar system — at 
 least an equal space, not the same, for the system in its 
 totality is moving incessantly, — a space whose diametec 
 is five billions of miles. Was there no break in con- 
 
CONTINUITY. 239 
 
 tinuity, when a section of this mass set up for itself? 
 What new force came into operation ? or how came 
 pre-existing forces to differentiate ? 
 
 The earth, or rather the material which was to form 
 it, was as yet in a gaseous state. Was there no break 
 in continuity as it passed into a molten mass ? Was this 
 a simple result of the loss of heat ? Are gases con- 
 densed into red-hot masses as they cool down ? 
 
 Whatever answer physicists may give to these and 
 similar questions, they concede that this gaseous state 
 was incompatible with life, as was also the succeeding 
 or molten state. 
 
 Gradually, the surface of this mass became sufficiently' 
 cookd to permit the condensation of vapor into water. 
 In the lapse of ages continents emerged from the pre- 
 viously shoreless ocean. By degrees they became fitted 
 to sustain vegetable life; still, no plant existed, not even 
 a lichen. The sun poured down its rays upon treeless 
 plains and shrubless mountains. The rain watered bar- 
 ren wastes. The rivers flowed onwards between ver- 
 dureless banks to an untenanted ocean. The air was 
 incessantly moving in currents and counter currents, but 
 no winged creature, bird or insect, sported itself therein. 
 A lifeless world ! 
 
 A time came, however, when the surface was teeming 
 with vegetable life — plants existing of almost countless 
 varieties, " each yielding seed after its kind." What agen- 
 cies produced this change ? Was there no break in con- 
 tinuity, no new beginning when vegetable life appeared ? 
 What force produced it ? Did matter evolve it ? Was 
 a germ wafted to the earth from some other world, the 
 difficulties connected with separate creations being re- 
 moved by the origination of one living organism capa- 
 ble of communicating life to the universe ? They who 
 
240 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 are disposed to answer either of these questions in the 
 affirmative are logically forced to concede that there 
 has been a break in continuity, a thing apparently incon- 
 ceivable unless there is a Personal Will back of nature. 
 That force should originate life, or that matter should, is 
 at variance with the uniform testimony of experience that 
 life is invariably from pre-existing life. 
 
 As yet no animal existed, not even a moneron on an 
 ocean-bed. Gradually the earth became fitted to sus- 
 tain this form of life — millions of years being needed for 
 the transformations. In time, lo, earth and air and sea, 
 are teeming with myriads of living creatures, swarm- 
 ing everywhere! What agencies produced these changes? 
 Whence came animal-life ? Was it evolved from veget- 
 able existences ? Was it generated spontaneously in 
 the laboratories of nature? Did it fall from some ad- 
 jacent planet ? Again, there must have been a break in 
 continuity. 
 
 Though life was rolling over the earth in swelling bil- 
 lows, like the waves of a ceaselessly agitated ocean, there 
 were no human beings, no intelligent personalities pos- 
 sessing " dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the 
 fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, 
 and over every creeping thing." Lo, the scene changes, 
 and man exists: he is toiling, hating, loving, fearing, hop- 
 ing, dying! By what agencies was this change effected ? 
 Was man evolved from the monkey ? Again, there has 
 been a break in continuity. 
 
 Prof. Huxley says: — 
 
 " It has ceased to be conceivable to any person who has paid attention 
 to modern thought, that chance should have any place in the universe, or that 
 events should follow anything but the natural order of cause and effect." 
 
 We have, therefore, the authority of Prof. Huxley for the 
 assertion that these sudden leaps could not have occurred 
 
CONTINUITY. 241 
 
 by chance, but must have been produced by some ade- 
 quate cause or causes. Certainly the chasms to which we 
 refer are broad: from a homogeneous, nebulous mate- 
 rial, pervading all space and subject to a certain number 
 of forces, to a definite part of that nebulous material, re- 
 stricted to a limited portion of space and subject to new 
 laws, as it must have been, since it proceeds to the for- 
 mation of a planetary system; from a homogeneous mass 
 diffused through a sphere whose diameter is billions of 
 miles to a portion of that mass set aside for the forma- 
 tion of a world and impressed with new laws; from a gas- 
 eous condition to a molten state; from a molten state to 
 a condition favorable to plant life; from the inanimate 
 to the animate, an immense abyss; from vegetable life to 
 animal life; from mere animal life to rational life; — seven 
 great changes which look like new beginnings, like 
 epochs, some of them like creative epochs. What cause 
 or causes produced them ? To this question atheistic 
 evolution has given the following answers: — 
 
 I. The changes were effected by purely physical causes. 
 By these, and without the direction or superintendence 
 of Divine Power, the universe was evolved from " star- 
 dust," and the solar system was subsequently evolved in 
 its present form. To the question, How came matter to 
 assume vegetable and animal forms ? it is responded, 
 Such forms, or at least one parental form, must have been 
 produced by spontaneous generation; for, as Prof. Huxley 
 affirms, " If evolution is true, the living must have arisen 
 from the not-living." To the inquiry, What agency pro- 
 duced subsequent transmutations in the vegetable and 
 animal kingdoms ? several answers have been given: {a) 
 the use or disuse of the parts of the living organism, su- 
 perinduced by environment; {b) changed conditions of life 
 acting directly upon existing varieties; (c) an inherent 
 
242 THEISM AND F.VOLUTION. 
 
 tendency to variation; (d) natural selection operating in 
 conjunction with the intense struggle for existence and 
 resulting in improvement, since only the fittest to survive 
 could survive. 
 
 All the changes, according to this theory, are suffi- 
 ciently accounted for by simply saying, Physical causes 
 produced them; for, as it can be shown that many of the 
 transmutations have certainly been effected by purely 
 physical forces, it is safe to assume that all have, as 
 science is making rapid strides in successfully proving. 
 
 Prof. Tyndall says: — 
 
 " Those who hold the doctrine of evolution are by no means ignorant of the 
 uncertainty of their data, and they yield no more to it than a provisional assent. 
 They regard the nebular hypothesis as probable; and in the utter absence of any 
 evidence to prove the act illegal, they extend the method of nature from the 
 present into the past, and accept as probable the unbroken sequence of develop- 
 ment from the nebula to the present time " — Fra^imnts of Scietue, p. 1 66. 
 
 It is only claimed that " the unbroken sequence of de- 
 velopment is probable." Is it not quite as probable that 
 " the unbroken sequence" has been broken once at least, 
 at the origination of life, if not indeed many times ? And 
 if it has been broken but once, then physical causes are 
 an inadequate explanation; and it is conceded by nearly 
 all evolutionists that they do not explain the origination 
 of matter, nor the origin of life, nor self-consciousness, 
 nor the sense of personal identity, nor the distinction 
 between the automatic and the volitional nerves of the 
 brain. If it is certain that the law of continuity has been 
 broken, then is it highly probable that physical causes 
 are an inadmissible explanation. It becomes probable, 
 from the concessions of atheistic evolutionists them- 
 selves, that a Personal Will is needed to account for 
 these sudden and apparently causeless breaks. 
 
 2. These changes are effected by the intelligence 
 
CONTINUITY. 243 
 
 resident in nature itself, intelligence being an invariable 
 attribute of matter. The extreme difficulty, not to say 
 impossibility, of believing that mindless causes could pro- 
 duce intelligent results has induced some to adopt this 
 view — anything sooner than admit the existence of a Per- 
 sonal God. They affirm that, as in vegetable and animal 
 germs there is a something, an intangible, imponderable 
 life-principle, which intelligently selects means for the 
 accomplishment of a fixed purpose — choosing from earth, 
 air, and water, the elements needed for growth, — so is there 
 in nature an intelligence which chooses agencies adapted 
 to the production of results manifesting what we denom- 
 inate intelligent design, a principle of life is inherent in 
 nature. 
 
 The advocates of this theory, at least some of them, 
 are disposed to concede that mind and matter are dis- 
 tinct substances; but they maintain that neither exists 
 or can exist, except in union with the other, — distinct, 
 but inseparable. 
 
 This theory with its variations, may be regarded, we 
 presume — if the evolution theory is itself an evolution 
 — as an improved variety of the ancient theory which 
 regarded water as holding all things in solution and 
 as rendered pregnant by an organizer educed from the 
 abysmal waste of agitated waves. The evolution of all 
 things, through agencies many and breaks not a few, 
 is under the superintendence of an intelligence evolved 
 from that heaving ocean of matter which needs a super- 
 intendent, — the need creating the supply. 
 
 Possibly we have mistaken the original form of this hy- 
 pothesis. Perhaps it is a descendant of the theory held 
 by the ancient Phoenicians, Egyptians, Chinese, and others, 
 that the origin of all things was a primeval egg, contain- 
 ing a principle of life, from which everything has been 
 
244 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 hatched by heat. If all conceivable conjectures as well as 
 all exploded absurdities, all possible speculations as well 
 as all existing theories, were potentially in this primeval 
 egg, awaiting the heat of discussion to bring them out, 
 may we not fear that if speculation goes on a few million 
 years more, the universe will be flooded with theories — 
 will in fact be converted into an impalpable, imponderable, 
 invisible, unfathomable, unknowable, unconditioned, in- 
 comprehensible, indestructible, infinite " mist " — " fire- 
 mist " once again ? Begin anew. 
 
 Theistic evolution solves the difficulties connected 
 with abrupt changes, violent breaks, and new beginnings, 
 as follows: — 
 
 i. Creation is by derivation. There is a succession of 
 changes, most of which are regular, orderly, and gradual, 
 though some are abrupt, sudden, and inexplicable ex- 
 cept on the hypothesis of a Divine Personality. For 
 each class of changes provision has been made by Infi- 
 nite Intelligence, — all changes occur in accordance with 
 pre-ordained, divinely sustained, eternal forces. " In 
 the beginning " matter was diffused throughout the uni- 
 verse in an extremely attenuated state. It possessed, 
 imparted to it by a Personal God, the same forces 
 which it possesses at present. Under the operation of 
 these, and beneath the superintendence of Divine Wis- 
 dom, all changes have been effected, the smallest having 
 been pre-arranged. 
 
 According to this view the nebular hypothesis is a 
 plausible and probable explanation of the manner in 
 which God formed the planets of the solar system from 
 pre-existing materials, and furnishes an intimation, not 
 only of the way in which other celestial bodies were pro- 
 bably formed, but also of the manner in which world-ma- 
 terials were produced and aggregated from an infinitely 
 
CONTINUITY. 245 
 
 diffused " star-dust," which in its elementary condition 
 must have been an effluence from His own eternal sub- 
 stance or the direct creation of His Omnipotent Will. 
 To the question, What is the origin of life? it answers: 
 God, by derivative creation, called into being one pri- 
 mordial germ, or at most a few germs. To the question, 
 Whence came the various species of plants and animals ? 
 it responds: They are results of creation by derivation — 
 God chooses to create in this way. It is this form of evo- 
 lution which is gaining ground among theologians. It 
 is ably presented by Owen and Mivart. 
 
 Those who- are unwilling to accept the nebular hy- 
 pothesis, even when in. theistic dress, may argue: — 
 
 (a) How came the nebulous material to be in such an 
 intensely heated condition ? No matter can go out of 
 one condition into another without an adequate cause. 
 It is not fair to assume, contrary to the testimony of all 
 experience, that the world-material was so intensely hot. 
 You have no right, simply that you may secure an hy- 
 pothesis which will apparently account for the facts, to 
 put into it anything more than our knowledge of nature 
 warrants. 
 
 (b) What has become of all this heat ? What has 
 become of all the heat which, according to the hypoth- 
 esis, has been radiated during the period of five billion 
 years, since the nebulous mass became condensed into 
 worlds ? The system, it is said, is cooling, cooling con- 
 tinually. What becomes of the heat ? Prof. Tyndall 
 says, " It is wasted." Prof. Proctor says that " only the 
 one two hundred and twenty-seventh of the one millionth 
 of all the heat from the sun reaches any planet; the 
 remainder passes into space and is lost." But nothing in 
 the universe is ever wasted — nothing is ever lost. Heat 
 is force, and force, like matter, is indestructible. All 
 
24G THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 the heat therefore that has ever been in the universe must 
 be in it still. It only changes its place, or changes its 
 form. Into what other force has it been transformed ? 
 Where is it ? If it has passed to other systems, it is fair 
 to assume that as much force in some form has come to 
 this system from other systems. If not, then it can only 
 be because other planetary systems are cooler than this, 
 which has not been proved, and cannot be. Forces tend 
 to equilibrium. 
 
 Besides, electricity is convertible into either light or 
 heat. Sunlight is not heat — it only becomes heat by 
 being absorbed by matter. That which comes forth 
 from the sun as electricity may become light, heat, 
 magnetism, or chemical affinity, according to circum- 
 stances; and that which comes forth from the sun in force 
 of one form, ought to return thither in force of some 
 form — at least it is legitimate to presume that this is 
 so until it shall be proved that either space or adjacent 
 planetary systems are robbers, and robbers who are so 
 intensely covetous that they are still unsatisfied though 
 they have been pilfering from this insignificant solar 
 system for unnumbered billions of years. No: in the 
 universe, one part does not steal from another. If it 
 takes what it needs, it invariably gives an equivalent. 
 It could not otherwise get what it needs. 
 
 (c) The materials of the earth are not arranged ac- 
 cording to density, as they should be, if the nebular 
 hypothesis furnishes an explanation of the mode of its 
 construction. There is a liquid sea of molten material 
 in the center. The solid rock should have been at the 
 center, the earthy material above it, then flowing lava, 
 then air. 
 
 (d) Since more heat is required to fuse some metals 
 than is needed to fuse others, and since some metals are 
 
CONTINUITY. 247 
 
 heavier than others, how does it happen that in many- 
 instances the less weighty and the easily fusible are 
 embedded in the more weighty and the less fusible ? 
 Gold is embedded in granite. 
 
 (r) There is no positive proof that there ever was a 
 nebulous mass; and the presumption is that there never 
 was, for many supposed nebulae have been resolved, by 
 the powerful telescope of Lord Rosse, into planetary 
 systems. 
 
 (/) The hypothesis does not furnish a satisfactory 
 explanation of the motions of the heavenly bodies. 
 
 (g) The hypothesis makes a large number of almost 
 incredible assumptions: (a) the nebulous mass was heated 
 to such an extent that all metals were in a gaseous state; 
 (b) the homogeneous mass, while in the process of 
 cooling, managed to produce an almost infinite number 
 of heterogeneous results, a large number of different 
 substances in each of three distinct states, the solid, 
 the liquid and the gaseous; {c) all the heavenly bodies 
 were formed from nebulous matter; (d) the entire mass 
 was rotating, though no satisfactory cause of this motion 
 is assigned; (e) this motion was more and more rapid, 
 and the increasing rapidity was due to the process of 
 cooling and contracting; (/) the elipticity of the orbits in 
 which all celestial bodies move is satisfactorily explained 
 by the hypothesis, 
 
 2. The second solution of these changes, as explained 
 by theistic evolutionists, is what is denominated crea- 
 tive evolution — there is an immanent supernatural power, 
 so operating and adjusting natural forces as to evolve 
 designedly all changes, even those at present inexpli- 
 cable, in a regular, gradual, uninterrupted order. Accord- 
 ing to this view, all transmutations in the vegetable and 
 animal worlds, and all cosmical changes as well, result 
 
248 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 by design from natural causes in which God is immanent; 
 and never result from anything else than natural causes, 
 and always in a graduated series which presents no breaks, 
 though there are what we are disposed to denominate 
 breaks. Jevons remarks, in his Principles of Science: 
 " If occurrences can be designed and foreseen by a human 
 artist, it is surely within the capacity of the Divine Artist 
 to provide for similar changes of law in the mechanism 
 of an atom, or the construction of the heavens." 
 
 Those who are indisposed to accept the theistic form 
 of evolution, and consequently are inclined to repudiate 
 both the above explanations, generally express them- 
 selves as believers in the immanence of the Divine energy 
 in what are called the physical forces, which forces are 
 incessantly operative, and produce a graduated, regular, 
 unbroken series of effects; occasionally, however, God 
 through higher forces — which are of course natural, though 
 unusual — or by the direct exercise of His Omnipotent Will 
 causes great and otherwise inexplicable advances in the 
 ordinarily slow progress of improvement. Such special 
 intervention is indispensably necessary, it is affirmed, in 
 order to account for what may be very properly regarded 
 as new beginnings, -the origination of matter, the com- 
 mencement of life, the origin of man, etc. Most of 
 His operations in nature, for example, the production of 
 varieties, of closely allied species, etc., are carried on 
 through the ordinary physical forces, and are indirect and 
 gradual; some of His operations, indeed many, though 
 few comparatively, are by forces unknown to us and un- 
 knowable, if indeed they are distinguishable from His will. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 FORCE. 
 
 In reference to force the following opinions are enter- 
 tained by advanced thinkers: — 
 
 I. In its essence it is indefinable and unsearchable. 
 
 II. In its origin it is spiritual — it is the immanence of 
 the Divine Will in nature. 
 
 III. It is immaterial — and is probably a substantial 
 entity. 
 
 IV. It is convertible — one force can be converted into 
 any one of the other forces. 
 
 V. It is indestructible — no force has been or can be 
 annihilated. 
 
 VI. It cannot be evolved from matter, unless it has 
 been previously involved therein. 
 
 I. Force, like matter, is in its essence un- 
 known AND UNDISCOVERABLE. 
 
 It is not possible to determine all its properties. Some 
 of its laws may be adduced; not all, however, can be. 
 An enumeration may be made of certain forces that are 
 operative on earth, throughout the solar system, and 
 probably to the remotest limits of the universe, even in 
 regions beyond the penetrating gaze of the most power- 
 ful telescope; but there may be forces in the world of 
 which we can have no knowledge — of course, such may 
 have potency in the untrodden pathways of immensity. 
 The correlation and conservation of the physical forces 
 
250 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 is an established fact. Light, heat, electricity, magnet- 
 ism, and chemical affinity are intimately related. Each 
 can be converted into any one of the others; but it does 
 not follow that either can be transformed into some other 
 force, if any other exists. These several forces may be 
 only different modes in which the Divine Will manifests 
 itself: it may possibly manifest itself in other modes, how- 
 ever. As is generally believed, they may be immaterial 
 in their nature, and certainly are incapable of being re- 
 cognized as any specific form of matter. It is conceivable, 
 nevertheless, that they may be an unknown form, as dif- 
 ferent from any known form as platinum is different from 
 ether. It is this conviction which has led to their being 
 designated as " Imponderables," the design being to ex- 
 press the opinion that they were destitute of at least one 
 material property — they were not subject to gravitation. 
 They are regarded, moreover, as incapable of annihila- 
 tion. This furnishes no warrant, however, for the assertion 
 that they cannot be destroyed even by Omnipotence; 
 much less that they cannot be held in abeyance by the 
 Divine Will. The premises will not sustain a conclusion 
 so sweeping. Reasons may be assigned, it is true, for 
 believing that no force can be annihilated by any power 
 inherent in the system itself: beyond this, assertions 
 should be made with extreme caution. A universal con- 
 clusion from premises that are not universal is not a ne- 
 cessary inference, however plausible it may seem. Again: 
 that no force can be evolved from matter unless it has 
 been previously involved in matter is self-evident, and 
 bears with irresistible weight against every atheistic form 
 of evolution; still, it must not be understood as implying 
 that nothing can come from any material cause, except 
 what was communicated to it at creation. Omnipotence 
 can communicate new energies from, through, or indepen- 
 
FORCE. 251 
 
 dent of, existing forces. Atheistic evolution is illogical, 
 for it assumes that matter may acquire new forces, evolv- 
 ing what was not involved. Theistic evolution permits 
 us to believe that Divine Energy may be communicated 
 at any time through new channels or through existing 
 channels. It insists, however, that force cannot be 
 evolved, unless it has been previously involved, either 
 mediately or immediately. 
 
 Of the many definitions of force — all of which are open 
 to objections — we prefer that of Prof. Mayer: "Force is 
 that which is expended in producing or resisting motion." 
 This single sentence is ample evidence that its unfortu- 
 nate author — whose overtasked powers suffered a tempo- 
 rary eclipse, and whose fame became a target for the 
 arrows of envy — was endowed with rare intellectual 
 powers, such as are the inheritance of but few. It 
 evinces a deep insight into the mysteries of nature, great 
 power of generalization and profound thought. Though 
 his most ardent admirers — who are many and are among 
 the most learned of the age — are by no means unanimous 
 in the belief that he has furnished a logical definition of 
 force, since he has not designated in unmistakable lan- 
 guage either the genus or the differentia of the term, 
 having merely told us what force does, not what force is; 
 still, he seems clearly to intimate as much respecting its 
 nature as is known at present, indeed as much, perhaps, 
 as will ever be known. It is a something which expends 
 itself, exhausts itself, in motion or in the resistance of 
 motion. 
 
 Does the definition, as it is called, encourage us in 
 regarding force as a material entity ? We think not; for, 
 as a cause must continue to exist in the effect it produces; 
 and as it has not been proved that a purely material 
 cause can produce an immaterial effect, matter being 
 
252 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 incapable of producing thought; and as in this case the 
 effect is simple motion, or the simple resistance of motion, 
 each of which is purely immaterial, — we may infer that 
 the definition does not justify us in regarding force as a 
 material entity. We speak of a material force, it is true; 
 we mean no more, however, than a force which is mani- 
 fested in connection with matter, as indeed all forces are 
 so far as we know, though the connection is less appar- 
 ent in some cases than in others. When our attention is 
 specially directed to the visible matter in which the force 
 inheres we designate it a material force. Matter is not 
 force, nor can it annihilate itself in becoming motion. It 
 cannot annihilate itself in resisting motion. It cannot 
 produce motion. It cannot annihilate motion. It is 
 absolutely powerless. An ivory ball rebounds if thrown 
 upon a marble slab. It is not the material constituting 
 the slab which caused the rebound, but force resident 
 in the slab. Convert the marble slab into gas and the 
 ball will not rebound from its surface. If force expends 
 itself in producing or resisting motion, then force is im- 
 material. It could not otherwise expend itself, practi- 
 cally annihilate itself, in producing that which is unques- 
 tionably immaterial. Matter is indestructible. It may 
 change its form. It cannot cease to be. Motion is not 
 matter. If the latter can transmute itself into motion, it 
 can annihilate itself. Nay, it can do more — it can re-create 
 itself; for motion can be transmuted into heat, a force; 
 and if force is matter then matter is a self-creation, or, 
 what is virtually the same thing, is an effect of an im- 
 material cause. If heat is matter, and if, as cannot be 
 denied, motion may be converted into heat, then imma- 
 teriality can originate materiality, that is, an immaterial 
 cause can produce objectivity without anything from 
 which to manufacture it. As we are repeatedly assured 
 
FORCE. 253 
 
 that an Omnipotent Personal Will cannot create matter 
 de novo, we are justified in concluding that absolute cre- 
 ation cannot be an effect of motion, nor of any one of 
 the physical forces. Consequently, this definition of Dr. 
 Mayer, as is evident from the tenor of his writings and 
 from the conclusions of modern science, is not to be un- 
 derstood as consistent with the assumption that force is 
 a material entity. 
 
 Does the definition justify us in regarding force as 
 simply a mode of motion ? No: for that could not be 
 regarded as a mode of motion which produces every 
 movement covered by the term motion, since that would 
 be equivalent to saying that a mode of motion produces 
 all motion; i. e. } produces itself first, then every other 
 mode of motion. Further, it would be a virtual declara- 
 tion that resistance to motion is a mode of motion; i. e. y 
 force annihilates force: and yet we are assured that force 
 is indestructible. If then force is a mode of motion 
 which produces or resists motion, it must be capable 
 of creating and annihilating itself an indefinite number 
 of times. 
 
 Does the definition assume that force is an entity ? It 
 is difficult to view it otherwise; for it characterizes force 
 as capable of producing all the motion in the universe. 
 Is it conceivable that such a stupendous effect should flow 
 from anything less than an entitive existence ? As force, 
 after exhausting itself in motion, can be reconverted into 
 force, it seems natural to regard it as an entity. Heat, 
 after being transformed into motion, can be re-trans- 
 formed. Light can be converted into heat and back again 
 into light. Electricity can be transmuted into magnetism 
 or into chemical affinity, indeed into any one of the 
 physical forces, and be converted back to electricity. 
 Force, then, must be an immaterial entity. 
 
254 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 It is difficult to accept the theory of some scientists, 
 that physical force is not an entity of any kind whatever. 
 It seems inconceivable that heat, though capable of 
 producing measureless effects, should be simply an 
 irregular agitation in an intervening medium. 
 
 Again: that light should be merely an undulation 
 in a hypothetical luminiferous ether, not a substantial 
 entity, appears a severe tax on human reason. Light can 
 be decomposed into the seven primary colors and the 
 separated rays can be recombined, forming white light. 
 Each of the seven colors has a wave-length of its own. 
 Each, like the undivided ray, can be reflected and the 
 laws of reflection scientifically stated. Each can be 
 refracted and the laws of refraction accurately deter- 
 mined. Light is refracted as it passes from one medium 
 to another of greater or less density. It can be polar- 
 ized, the polarized ray being thereby made to assume 
 qualities different from those of an ordinary ray. The 
 polarization can be effected by reflection, by single 
 refraction, or by double refraction. Light is diffracted, 
 or bent, as it passes the edge of a material substance, 
 being subject, as Sir W. Thomson says, to magnetic 
 influence. It differs in quality according to the nature 
 of the illuminating body, every elementary substance, 
 when in a state of incandescence, having a spectrum 
 peculiar to itself; indeed, the quality of light is affected 
 by the surface from which it is reflected. Light can be 
 absorbed, the heat imprisoned in coal-fields being only 
 absorbed sunlight. Its rays can interfere with each 
 other, causing dark lines in the spectrum. It can pro- 
 duce chemical action, blackening chloride of silver, ren- 
 dering transparent phosphorus opaque, fading vegetable 
 colors, combining hydrogen and chlorine gases when 
 mixed, etc. A theory which assumes that waves may 
 
FORCE. 255 
 
 consist of vibrations at right angles to the line of direc- 
 tion, and that in polarized light, though the intensity is 
 the same, the vibrations are in the plane of polarization; 
 which asserts that this wave-disturbance is unaltered in 
 kind and in amount as it proceeds, however far it travels, 
 being never broken up into irregular vibrations, never 
 diminished in amount, never changed in character; which 
 declares that all bodies have the property of exciting 
 vibrations, each body exciting a vibration having a wave- 
 length peculiar to that body, thus producing light of 
 different colors, and giving its own shading to every 
 object; which seems to suggest that the effect pro.duces 
 its cause, for it affirms that the different colors of light 
 are due to the lengths of the undulations — red light being 
 caused by a long undulation and violet by a short undu- 
 lation, though it would seem more natural to say that 
 the lengths of the undulations were caused by the color 
 of the light, not the color of the light by the lengths of 
 the undulations; which, before it can furnish an explana- 
 tion of a single phenomenon of light, demands a second 
 hypothesis (a pure conjecture), that a luminiferous ether 
 pervades all space and all substances — an extremely 
 subtile elastic fluid if some phenomena are to be ex- 
 plained, an incompressible solid if other phenomena are to 
 receive a satisfactory explanation, though the ether 
 whether a fluid or a solid is uninfluenced by gravitation; 
 which affirms that this luminiferous ether transmits 
 vibrations in a perfectly unimpaired condition through 
 transparent substances — transmitting them as readily as 
 through space — and communicates vibrations within all 
 substances, even within the densest; — such a theory, to 
 say the least, is not as satisfactory as might be desired. 
 
 One may be indisposed to question the theory that 
 light is transmitted in a succession of waves, while he 
 
'i:>r> THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 yet respectfully suggests that a something to transmit 
 seems requisite to transmission. 
 
 Nor is the theory that the several physical forces are 
 mere modes of motion, any more satisfactory as applied 
 to electricity, magnetism, and chemical affinity. That 
 these have no substantial existence is as inconceivable 
 as that light has no such existence. 
 
 In its essence, then, force is undiscoverable and 
 indefinable. 
 
 To the second accepted tenet of advanced science 
 attention is now directed. 
 
 II. Force is spiritual in its origin. 
 
 In the opinion of many reasoners, " the testimony 
 of science strongly favors the assumption that force is 
 the omnipresent energy of a Personal God. This theory 
 regards natural law as the stated or ordinary method 
 in which God chooses to operate in nature, as in fact the 
 supernatural operating with such unvarying uniformity 
 as to create the impression that possibly these laws are 
 independent of the will of a supramundane Deity. The 
 natural is simply the supernatural rendered familiar by 
 the frequency with which we are permitted to note its 
 presence. The supernatural is the natural striking us 
 with surprise because of the infrequency with which we 
 are afforded an opportunity of observing its manifestation. 
 
 That force originates in spirit, not in matter, is the 
 theory of Dr. \V. B. Carpenter, of Sir John Herschel, of 
 Louis Agassiz, of Dana, of Beale, of Grove, of Joule, of 
 Liebig, of Faraday, of Mayer, — of a host of eminent 
 authorities in the scientific, the metaphysical, and the 
 theological world. 
 
 Dr. Carpenter says: — 
 
 " In regard to the physical universe it might be better to substitute for the 
 phrase government by laws, government according to laws; meaning thereby 
 
FORCE. 257 
 
 the direct exertion of the Divine Will, or operation of the First Cause in the 
 forces of nature, according to certain uniformities which are simply unchange- 
 able, because having been originally the expression of Infinite Wisdom, any 
 change would be for the worse. . . . Will is that form of force which must 
 
 be taken as the type of all the rest Force must be regarded as the 
 
 direct expression of will. . . . When science, passing beyond its own limits, 
 assumes to take the place of theology and to set up its own conceptions of the 
 order of nature as a sufficient account of its cause, it is invading a province of 
 thought to which it has no claim. To set up these laws as self-acting, or as 
 either excluding or rendering unnecessary the power which alone can give them 
 effect, appears to me as arrogant as it is unphilosophical. " — Mental Physiology, 
 chap, xx.; Human Physiology, p. 542; also art. On Mutual Relation of Vital 
 and Physical Forces, p. 730, etc. 
 
 Sir John Herschel affirms: — 
 
 "It is but reasonable to regard the force of gravitation as the direct or in- 
 direct result of a Will or Consciousness existing somewhere." 
 
 Dr. Lionel S. Beale says: — 
 
 " It has been affirmed that all the phenomena of living matter are due to the 
 operation of the seme laws which govern the non-living world. But of these 
 supposed laws absolutely nothing is known, and there is nothing absurd or con- 
 trary to fact, though it may not be in accord with the prophetic spirit of ma- 
 terialism, in the view that these powers of living matter are utterly different 
 from any known inorganic forces, and have nothing whatever to do with them. 
 They may have emanated from power, instead of being matter -born. They 
 may even require, for their existence, constant supervision of power, for aught 
 we can prove to the contrary, and they may have been created and may be sus- 
 tained by creative power, instead of being a mere form or mode of created 
 force, itself another btct very different product of creation. ... As I am 
 compelled by the facts of the case to admit that some peculiar non-physical 
 agency influences, in a particular manner, material particles and their forces, 
 it seems to me by no means unreasonable on the part of the physiologist to as- 
 sume the existence and activity of an energy perhaps related to vitality, but of 
 a yet higher order, capable of influencing, controlling and directing not only 
 living power, but all matter and all forces of whatever kind." — Protoplasm;- or 
 Matter and Life, pp. 298, 358. 
 
 Prof. W. R. Grove asserts: — 
 
 " Although the word cause may be used in a secondary and concrete sense as 
 meaning antecedent forces, yet in an abstract sense it is totally inapplicable; we 
 cannot predicate of any physical agency that it is abstractedly the cause of 
 
258 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 another; and if, for the sake of convenience, the language of secondary causation 
 be permissible, it should be only with reference to the special phenomena referred 
 to, as it can never be generalized. . . . When we study physical phenomena 
 it becomes difficult to separate the idea of causation from that of force 
 and these have been regarded as identical by some philosophers. ... If 
 we regard causation as invariable sequence, we can find no case in which a 
 given antecedent is the only antecedent to a given sequent. . . . The com- 
 mon error, if I am right in supposing it to be such, consists in the abstraction 
 of cause, and in supposing in each case a general secondary cause— a some- 
 thing which is not the first cause, but which if we examine it carefully, must 
 have all the attributes of a first cause, and an existence independent of, and 
 dominant over, matter. ... In all phenomena the more closely they are inves- 
 tigated the more are we convinced that, humanly speaking, neither matter nor 
 force can be created or annihilated, and that an essential cause is unattainable. 
 Causation is the will, creation the act, of God." ' — Correlation of Physical 
 Forces, pp. 15, 16, 18, 199. 
 
 Dr. J. R. Mayer says: — 
 
 " The first cause of all things is Deity— a Being ever inscrutable by the 
 intellect of man; while higher causes, supersensuous forces, and the rest, with 
 all their consequences, belong to the delusive middle region of naturalistic phi- 
 losophy and mysticism. . . . Force and matter are indestructible objects." — 
 Correlation of Physical Forces \ p. 341. 
 
 We may add the testimony of the Duke of Argyll: — 
 
 " We know nothing of the ultimate nature or of the ultimate seat of force. 
 Science, in the modern doctrine of the conservation of energy, and the con- 
 vertibility of forces, is already getting something like a firm hold of the idea 
 that all kinds of force are but forms or manifestations of some one central force 
 issuing from some one fountain-head of power. . . . And even if we cannot cer- 
 tainly identify force in all its forms with the direct energies of one omnipotent 
 and all -pervading Will, it is at least in the highest degree unphilosophical to as- 
 sume the contrary— to speak or to think as if the forces of nature were either 
 independent of, or even separate from, the Creator's power. . . . Whatever 
 difficulty there may be in conceiving of a will not exercised by a visible person, 
 it is a difficulty which cannot be evaded by arresting our conceptions at the 
 point at which they have arrived in forming the idea of laws or forces. ... It 
 is perfectly true that the mind does recognize in nature a reflection of itself [its 
 own personality]. But if this be a deception, it is a deception which is not 
 avoided by transferring the idea of personality to the abstract idea of force, or 
 by investing combinations of force with the attributes of mind. . . . We need 
 not be jealous, then, when new domains are claimed as under the reign of 
 
FORCE. 259 
 
 law — an agency through which we see working everywhere some purpose of 
 the Everlasting Will." 
 
 "It is impossible to suppose that they [forces] stand in the same relation to 
 the Will of the Supreme [that they do to us] ; yet it seems as if he took the 
 same method of dealing with them — never violating them, never breaking 
 them, but always ruling them by that which we call adjustment or contriv- 
 ance .... And what is contrivance but that kind of arrangement by which 
 the unchangeable demands of law are met and satisfied ? It may be that all 
 natural forces are resolvable into some one force; indeed in the modern doc- 
 trine of the correlation of forces, an idea which is near to this, has already en- 
 tered the domain of science. It may also be that this one force, into which 
 all others return again, is itself but a mode of action of the Divine Will. But 
 we have no instruments whereby to reach this last analysis." — The Reign of 
 Law, pp. 122, 123, 125, 127. 
 
 " The laws of nature," says John Stuart Mill, " do not 
 account for their origin." " The scientific mind," says 
 Tyndall, " can find no repose in the mere registration of 
 sequences. The further question obtrudes itself with 
 resistless weight, Whence came the sequences ? " Wal- 
 lace asserts, " If we have traced one force, however 
 minute, to an origin in our own will, while we have no 
 knowledge of any other primary cause of force, it does 
 not seem an improbable conclusion that all force may 
 be will-force, and thus the whole universe is not only 
 dependent on, but actually is the will of higher intelli- 
 gences, or of a Supreme Intelligence."* Spencer him- 
 self concedes that " The force by which we ourselves 
 produce changes, and which serves to symbolize the 
 cause of changes in general, is the final disclosure of 
 all analysis; . . all other modes of consciousness arc 
 derived from our consciousness of exerting force." t 
 
 III. FORCE IS IMMATERIAL — and is probably a sub- 
 stantial entity. 
 
 That force fs immaterial, whatever its origin may be, 
 is the opinion of a majority of the ablest scientists. It is 
 
 * Natural Selection, p. 368. f First Principle, p. 235. 
 
260 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 the theory of Prof. R. W. Grove, who, in his essay on 
 the Correlation of Physical Forces, affirms and re-affirms 
 his conviction that they are not matter. It is the opin- 
 ion of Dr. J. R. Mayer, one of the keenest intellects 
 that ever essayed the task of furnishing the world a 
 solution of nature's mysteries, and who has the honor of 
 being the author of the theory of the correlation and 
 conservation of forces; the opinion of Dr. Carpenter, of 
 Prof. Joule, of Dr. Ferrier, indeed of all leading scien- 
 tists. Even Bain and Tyndall believe in the immateri- 
 ality of force, for they define matter as a double-faced 
 unity having two sets of properties, the material and 
 the spiritual. 
 
 There are those, it is true, who regard each force as 
 an attenuated kind of matter; heat, as a material sub- 
 stance whose molecules are arranged in a particular way; 
 gravitation as attenuated threads of infinitely divisible 
 matter; electricity as a subtile fluid pervading everything; 
 light as infinitesimal atoms from incandescent bodies; 
 magnetism as a substance developed by currents of 
 electricity; sound as corpuscular emanation from a vi- 
 brating body. 
 
 It is only fair to acknowledge that these views have 
 had able defenders. Newton and La Place believed in 
 the corpuscular theory of light, and the authority of 
 these eminent scientists long prevented the scientific 
 world from adopting the truth. The demolition of the 
 once prevalent belief in the materiality of heat is a com- 
 paratively recent conquest of science. Formerly, the 
 most illustrious physicists accepted the materialistic 
 theory. Gravitation was conceived of by Newton as 
 attenuated threads of matter. This is made apparent in 
 his Third Letter to Bentfy, a portion of which was quoted 
 on page 193. 
 
FORCE. 201 
 
 Until a recent date electricity was regarded by many 
 as a subtile material fluid. Prof. J. Clerk Maxwell, at 
 the end of his Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism, 
 presents an admirable summary of the theories which 
 have prevailed in reference to the nature of electricity. 
 Those which regarded it as a material substance are 
 looked upon as exploded hypotheses. 
 
 Though Pythagoras, 2500 years ago, presented the 
 world with the undulatory theory of sound, still there 
 have been able advocates of the corpuscular theory, 
 which regards sound as minute particles of matter 
 thrown off from bodies when vibrating — possibly from 
 all the molecules of every kind of matter when sub- 
 jected to vibratory movements; especially if the move- 
 ments are rapid and the checks sudden. 
 
 Nor is the doctrine of the materiality of the forces con- 
 fined, as might seem probable, to those who entertain 
 materialistic conceptions of the universe. It can enum- 
 erate among its advocates profound theologians and able 
 defenders of the dogma of a Personal Infinite Will, of a 
 Being spiritual in His nature, unconditioned in His voli- 
 tions, eternal in His existence. This was emphatically 
 true in former times, and is true, to some extent, even 
 yet. Reasoners of this class made a broad distinction 
 between the physical forces on the one hand, and vital, 
 mental, and spiritual forces on the other. The former are 
 associated with matter and may be matter-born; the 
 latter are connected with life and are spiritual in their 
 origin, immaterial in their nature, and capable, within 
 limits, of controlling, directing and governing the physi- 
 cal to the accomplishment of definite purposes. 
 
 Although the dynamic theory, as now entertained, 
 furnishes a cogent argument in favor of the probability 
 that there is an infinite immaterial Personality and that 
 
262 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 there are finite existences ceaselessly active and neces- 
 sarily immortal, it is not the only armory from which 
 weapons can be obtained against atheism. Even though 
 it were successfully proved that the forces of nature were 
 material, it would still remain true that the difference 
 between mind and matter is radical. Their properties are 
 diametrically opposite. 
 
 It is safe to affirm, however, that the preponderance 
 of testimony, especially of the scientists of the present 
 day, favors the accepted theory that the forces of nature 
 are immaterial. As an evidence of this — and without 
 troubling the reader with an enumeration of the experi- 
 ments made in reference to each of the physical forces, 
 and without recapitulating the arguments based thereon 
 — authorities may be quoted, a few from many. 
 
 " Scientific inquiries are becoming less and less questions of matter, and more 
 and more questions of force; material ideas are giving place to dynamic ideas. 
 While the great agencies of change with which it is the business of science to 
 deal — heat, light, electricity, magnetism, and affinity, have been formerly 
 regarded as kinds of matter, imponderable elements, in distinction from other 
 material elements, these notions must now be regarded as outgrown and 
 abandoned, and in their place we have an order of purely immaterial forces." — 
 Edward Youmans, M. D., Correlation and Conservation of Forces, p. 12. 
 
 " I think the phases of thought which physical philosophers have gone 
 through, will be found generally such as I have indicated, and that the gradual 
 accumulation of discoveries which have taken place through the most recent 
 periods, by showing what effects can be produced by dynamical forces alone, 
 is rapidly tending to a general dynamical theory into which that of the impon- 
 derable fluids promises ultimately to merge." — Prof. W. R. Grove, Correlation 
 of Physical Forces, p. 104. 
 
 Let these two quotations suffice as a general state- 
 ment. Are they sustained by facts ? Let us see. In the 
 presentation of testimony upon this point, two limita- 
 tions are imposed: (a) the extracts shall be from authors 
 whose standing in the scientific world is such that their 
 assertions carry conviction with them, or at least impose 
 
FORCE. 2G3 
 
 upon those who are disinclined to accept them the task 
 of refuting the theory recommended, and of establishing 
 one that commends itself by being in accord with recog- 
 nized facts; {U) in order that the testimony may have 
 more weight, it shall be restricted to specific statements 
 — an opinion expressed in reference to each one of the 
 so-called physical forces, — heat, light, electricity, mag- 
 netism, affinity. 
 
 Heat. — " Let us divest the mind of the impression that heat is in itself any- 
 thing substantive . . . Heat thus viewed is motion . . . Heat is a communi- 
 cable expansive force, ... a communicable molecular repulsive force . . . 
 This difficulty [why it is not as correct to say that heat is absorbed by motion 
 as to say that it is produced by motion] ceases when the mind has been 
 accustomed to regard heat and cold as themselves motions, i. e., as correlative 
 expansions and contractions, each being evidenced by relations and being 
 inconceivable as an abstraction . . . Though I am obliged, in order to be 
 intelligible, to talk of heat as an entity, and of its conduction, radiation, etc., yet 
 these expressions are, in fact, inconsistent with the dynamic theory, which 
 regards heat as motion and nothing else. . . . We only know certain changes 
 of matter, for which changes heat is a generic name; the thing heat is 
 unknown." — Prof. W. R. Grove, Correlation of Physical Forces, pp. 40, 51, 
 53. 48, 55, etc. 
 
 " We know heat to be a mode of motion and not a material substance . . . 
 As long as the truth or falsity of the materialistic hypothesis seemed an open 
 question, the word caloric was held to imply the materiality of heat."— Sir 
 Wm. Thomson, Encyc. Brit., art. " Heat." 
 
 " The most probable assumption [in reference to the nature of heat] is, that 
 it is a motion of the particles of matter." — Dr. Faraday, Conservation of 
 Force, p. 370. 
 
 "It is hardly necessary, he [Rumford] remarks, to add that anything 
 which any insulated body or system of bodies can continue to furnish without 
 limitation cannot possibly be a material substance; and it appears to me ex- 
 tremely difficult, if not quite impossible, to form any distinct idea of anything 
 capable of being excited and communicated in the maimer that heat is excited 
 and communicated in these experiments, except it be motion . . . This Joule 
 has done [has proved that the same amount of heat can in the end be always 
 produced when the same amount of energy is expanded] and his experiments 
 conclusively prove that heat and energy are of the same nature, and that all 
 other forms of energy with which we are acquainted can be transformed into an 
 equivalent amount of heat." — Wm. Garnett, Encyc. Brit., art. " Energy." 
 
2 04 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 " We, on the contrary [he believes in the immateriality of heat but doe 
 not regard it as simply a mode of motion] are rather inclined to inter that 
 before it can become heat, motion — whether simple or vihratory, as in the case 
 of light and radiant heat, etc., — must cease to exist as motion." — Dr. J. R. 
 Mayer, The Forces of Inorganic Nature, pp. 257, 346. 
 
 In the opinion of the last mentioned author, and as 
 well in that of many others, there is in current scientific 
 discussions a needless and perplexing confusion of mo- 
 tions and forces. Motion must have force to produce 
 it; the latter is the exponent of the former. " Force," 
 in the language of Sir John Herschel, " is whatever 
 causes a body to exist under a given condition or what- 
 ever changes any of its relations; whatever tends to 
 keep a body what it is, or whatever tends to make it 
 different in any respect from what it is." Force, in its 
 essence, is confessedly unknown. We can investigate 
 its tendencies: we can do no more. It tends to produce 
 motion, to modify motion, to prevent motion. Con- 
 sequently, many prefer to regard forces as substan- 
 tial entities, accepting the celebrated definition of Dr. 
 J. R. Mayer, " Force is that which is expended in 
 producing or resisting motion." Force is not simply 
 motion. 
 
 The above quotations, however, even those which 
 represent heat as a mode of motion, answer the purpose 
 for which they are introduced. They prove that ad- 
 vanced scientists deny the materiality of heat. That is 
 all we desire. Heat is an immaterial force. That 
 it should be proved to be a substantial entity, and 
 not mere motion, is not necessary to our proposed 
 argument. 
 
 The dynamic theory of heat is adopted by Joule, 
 Carnot, Rumford, Rankine, Clausius, Helmholtz, Dana, 
 Thomson, Mayer, Faraday, Grove, Liebig, Maxwell, 
 
FORCE. 2G5 
 
 and Youmans, — by nearly all scientists of the present 
 day. — Heat, then, may be regarded as an immaterial 
 force. 
 
 Light. — "This theory [the corpuscular] gave way to the undulatory one, 
 which is generally adopted in the present day, and which regards light as result- 
 ing from the undulation of a specific fluid to which the name of ether has been 
 given, which hypothetic fluid is supposed to pervade the universe and to pene- 
 trate the pores of all bodies. ... I stated that it appeared to me more consist- 
 ent with known facts to regard light as resulting from a vibration or motion of 
 the molecules of matter itself, rather than from a specific ether pervading it . . . 
 If it be admitted that one of the so-called imponderables is a mode of motion, 
 then the fact of its being able to produce the others, and be produced by them, 
 renders it highly difficult to conceive some as molecular motions and others as 
 fluids, or undulations of an ether. . . . The above facts — and many others 
 which might have been given— go far to connect light with motion of ordinary 
 matter." — Prof. W. R. Grove, Correlation of Physical Forces, pp. 123, 132, 133. 
 
 " This [the fact that the velocity of light in water is to its velocity in air as 
 3 to 4, and not as 4 to 3, as demanded by the corpuscular theory] finally dis- 
 posed of the corpuscular theory; though it had been conclusively disproved long 
 before by certain interference experiments. . . . The true author of the undu- 
 latory theory is undoubtedly Huygens [1678]. . . . It was not until 1815, and 
 subsequent years, that, in the hands of Fresnel the undulatory theory finally 
 triumphed. This is the only theory left possible by the experiments of Foucault. ' ' 
 —Prof. P. G. Tait, Encyc. Brit., art. "Light." 
 
 We need not multiply quotations. Nearly all scien- 
 tists concede that light is immaterial though not all ac- 
 cept the theory that it is an undulation in a luminiferous 
 ether. Prof. J. Clerk Maxwell, for example, though a 
 firm believer in the immateriality of light, defends what 
 he denominates an electro-magnetic theory of light. 
 The unanimity with which modern scientists regard 
 Hght as immaterial is the only point upon which em- 
 phasis is laid. 
 
 Electricity. — " The early theories regard its [electricity's] phenomena as 
 produced either by a single fluid idio-repulsive, but attractive of all matter, or 
 else as produced by two fluids, each idio-repulsive, but attractive of the other. 
 ... I think I shall not be unsupported by many who have attentively studied 
 electrical phenomena, in viewing them as resulting, not from the action of a 
 
2GG THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 fluid or fluids, but as molecular polarization of ordinary matter, . . . the cur- 
 rent being nothing else than this molecular transmission of chemical affinity 
 . . . electricity would appear to consist in transmitted chemical affinity. . . . 
 Electricity is that afiection of matter or mode of force which distinctly and 
 beautifully relates other modes of force." — Prof. W. R. Grove, Correlation of 
 Physical Forces, pp. 83, 84. 
 
 " If the universe be delivered over to the undisturbed action of its physical 
 processes, all force will finally pass into the form of heat." — Prof. H. L. F. 
 Helmholtz, Interaction of Natural Forces, p. 229. 
 
 As he deems it impossible that matter should cease to 
 exist; and as he regards heat as immaterial; and as he 
 considers electricity one of the physical forces, carrying 
 on the " physical processes " of the universe, — it is evident 
 that he believes in the immateriality of electricity. 
 
 Magnetism. — "Magnetism . . . will produce electricity, but with this pe- 
 culiarity — that in itself it is static; and therefore, to produce a dynamic force, 
 motion must be superadded to it: it is in fact directive, not motive, altering the 
 direction of other forces, but not in strictness initiating them. . . . Magnetism 
 will directly affect the other forces, light, heat and chemical affinity, and change 
 their direction or mode of motion. . . . The same arguments which have been 
 submitted to the reader as to the other affections of matter being modes of mo- 
 lecular motion are therefore applicable to magnetism." — Prof. W. R. Grove, 
 Correlation of Physical Forces, pp. 142, 145, 151. 
 
 The expression "modes of motion," as applied by 
 Prof. Grove to these several forces, is not to be inter- 
 preted as an unqualified denial on his part that forces 
 may be substantial entities. He carefully guards him- 
 self against making any such denial. He says: 
 
 "They [the physical forces] have no commencement which we can trace. 
 We must ever refer them back to some antecedent force equal in amount to that 
 produced, and therefore the word initiation cannot in strictness apply, but must 
 be taken as signifying the force selected as the first; this is another reason why 
 the idea of abstract causation is inapplicable to physical production." 
 
 Chemical Affinity.—" We have arrived at a knowledge of the consistency 
 of magnetism with electricity, and also of chemical action and of heat with all 
 the former: and if we see not the consistency between gravitation with any of 
 these forms of force, I am strongly of the mind that it is because of our ignor- 
 ance only." — Dr. Faraday, The Conservation of Force, p. 376. 
 
FORCE. 2G7 
 
 11 Those who admit the possibility of the common origin of all physical force 
 and also acknowledge the principle of conservation, apply that principle to the 
 sum total of the force. . . . There may be but one cause .... convertible in 
 its manifestations." — Idem, pp. 380, 381.* 
 
 IV. Force is convertible. 
 
 As already intimated, forces may assume new forms. 
 Push, applied to an immovable body, produces heat, the 
 amount being- proportioned to the amount of pressure. 
 Push applied to a movable body produces motion. The 
 body in motion, if arrested, becomes heated; i. e., mo- 
 tion, when arrested, is converted into heat, this being 
 a continuation, under another form, of the force which 
 impelled the projectile. If two bodies are rubbed to- 
 gether, heat is generated. If the surfaces are smooth, and 
 especially if they are oiled, being thereby rendered in- 
 capable of arresting much motion, the quantity produced 
 is small. If the surfaces are rough, more is generated, 
 because more motion is arrested. In every case, the 
 amount is proportioned to the amount of friction in the 
 impinging bodies, and is a continuation of indestructible 
 force, and consequently is capable of re-conversion into 
 motion. The heat underneath the boiler of a locomotive 
 is converted into motion; a part re-appears at the axles 
 of the wheels as heat, which immediately begins to pro- 
 duce molecular motion in the heated parts. 
 
 Whatever may be the character of the bodies, the 
 same amount of heat is generated provided the same 
 amount of force is arrested, though in many instances, 
 especially in the case of gases and fluids, it is impossible 
 
 * Of the above extracts, those from Grove, Helmholtz, Mayer, and Faraday 
 are from the expositions of these gentlemen as compiled by Dr. E. L. Youmans 
 under the title The Correlation and Conservation of Forces. Consequently, 
 the references are to pages in that volume, and not to pages in the original^ 
 separale treatises. 
 
268 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 to determine this, owing to the fact that heat is dissi- 
 pated. In the case of elastic bodies, where a part of the 
 force is continued in re-action, proportionally less is gen- 
 erated. With some singular exceptions, bodies when 
 compressed become heated; when dilated, become cooler, 
 imparting their heat to neighboring bodies. 
 
 The heat generated by motion, or rather by the force 
 producing motion, may be converted into light, into 
 electricity, into magnetism, or into chemical affinity — 
 indeed each form may perhaps be always present, though 
 with varying intensity. It is conceded that we rarely, if 
 ever, witness the operation of a single force in isolated 
 form. Each force is accompanied by an equal opposite 
 force, acting in the same straight line. The conception 
 of a single force is an abstraction. Hence Sir Wm. Ham- 
 ilton says, " And of second causes, I say, there must 
 almost always be at least a concurrence of two to consti- 
 tute an effect." The several physical forces, being second- 
 ary causes, seldom act singly, perhaps invariably occur in 
 combinations, two or more. 
 
 The convertibility of the physical forces may also be 
 seen if we begin with heat instead of motion. The former 
 produces the latter; indeed, Prof. Grove defines it as a 
 molecular repulsive force antagonistic to attraction and 
 communicable to all bodies in contiguity. Heat expands 
 the body which absorbs it, causing molecular motion; 
 and the body so expanded has the power of expanding 
 all bodies in proximity. Dr. Mayer affirms, M Heat and 
 motion are transformable one into the other. ... I have 
 characterized the relation which forces bear to one an- 
 other by saying that they are different forms under which 
 one and the same object makes its appearance." * Dr. 
 
 '• Remarks on the Mechanical Equivalent of Heat," E. L. Voumans' Cor- 
 relation and Conservation of Forces ^ pp. 323, 346. 
 
FORCE. 269 
 
 Faraday says, "We have arrived at a knowledge of the 
 consistency of magnetism with electricity, and also of 
 chemical action and heat with all the former."* Prof. 
 W. R. Grove declares, " Heat, . . . which is capable of 
 producing motions directly, is also capable of producing 
 electricity, magnetism, and chemical affinity. . . . The 
 primary tendency of heat, it is true, is antagonistic to both 
 magnetism and chemical affinity. By its secondary action, 
 however, it produces both. . . . Radiant heat is light." t 
 
 In like manner, if we begin with electricity, the several 
 forces can be produced. Science, which is not yet pre- 
 pared to deny that the friction of homogeneous bodies 
 produces electricity, is bold in asserting that the friction 
 of heterogeneous bodies generates it accompanied usually 
 by heat, light, magnetism (a force acting at right angles 
 to electrical currents), and chemical affinity. Possibly it 
 would be correct to say that the other forces accompany 
 electricity. Be that as it may, electricity can generate 
 heat. It can produce light. It can produce magnetism. 
 It can cause mixed gases to unite. If a current of elec- 
 tricity is passed through oxygen and hydrogen gases, 
 they unite and form water; if passed through air, nitric 
 acid is generated. 
 
 Light, as an initial force, is capable of producing the 
 other forces, either mediately or immediately. Prof. Grove 
 says, "Thus [by experiment with a beam of sun- light] 
 we get chemical action on the plate, electricity circulat- 
 ing through the wires, magnetism in the coil, heat in the 
 helix, and motion in the needles." % All the forces, in 
 one experiment, from a ray of sun-light ! Light then is 
 convertible into any one of them. 
 
 * "Conservation of Force," E. L. Youmans' Correlation and Conservation 
 of Forces, p. 376. 
 
 f Correlation of Physical Forces, p. 177. \ Idem, p. 177. 
 
270 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 In like manner, by starting- with magnetism, each of the 
 others can be generated. In proof of this statement a 
 brief quotation will suffice. " Magnetism can, through the 
 medium of electricity, produce light, heat, and chemical 
 affinity. . . . Magnetism will directly affect the other 
 forces, light, heat, and chemical affinity, and change 
 their direction or mode of motion, or, at all events, will 
 so affect matter subjected to these forces, that their 
 direction is changed." * 
 
 The convertibility of the forces which are operative in 
 inorganic nature is a well established fact. No one, so 
 far as known, is disposed to call it in question. Its 
 establishment is one of the triumphs of science. Dr. 
 Mayer, the author of the theory, has a title to an immor- 
 tality of fame. 
 
 The same correlation and conservation are supposed 
 to exist between the forces operative in the organic world. 
 The forces which are resident in living structures are 
 convertible inter se. This portion of the subject will 
 merit attention when treating of Life and of Mind. 
 Meanwhile, the convertibility of the physical forces may 
 be regarded as an established fact. 
 
 V. Force is indestructible. 
 
 The cause is always equal to its effects — " causa aequat 
 effectum." In a connected series of causes and effects, 
 no term and no part of any term can become equal to 
 zero. An effect must correspond with, and be equivalent 
 to, its antecedent cause or causes, and must in turn be- 
 come a cause adequate to the production of a subsequent 
 effect or effects equal to itself. If a cause, a, produces an 
 effect, b, equal to itself, and b produces an effect, r, equal 
 to itself, and c produces an effect, d, equal to itself, and 
 so on in regular succession to z; then z equals a; a still 
 * Correlation of Physical Forces ', p. 144. 
 
FORCE. 271 
 
 lives in s. If the succession were infinite, the last factor 
 would be an exact equivalent to the first. If a produces 
 two effects, b and c, equal to itself; and b and c each pro- 
 duce two effects, ^/and <?,/"and g, the two former unitedly 
 equal to b, and the two latter unitedly equal to c; and 
 if d, c, f, g each produce two effects, h and z, j and k, 
 I and m, n and o, there being in each two-fold effect the 
 exact equivalent of its cause; then, /i, i, j\ k, /, m, n, c, 
 however they may differ among themselves, are together 
 equal to a. No force has been annihilated. A force 
 which exhausts itself in producing an effect or effects 
 loses its identity, but does not cease to be. If it has 
 exhausted itself in part, it subsequently exists partly 
 in its effect, and partly in its unchanged identity. If it 
 has exhausted precisely one-tenth of itself in producing 
 twenty effects, then the remaining nine-tenths may be 
 unchanged, and the one-tenth still continues to exist in 
 its twenty effects. No force has been lost. If the nine- 
 tenths subsequently produce, either instantaneously 
 or through a protracted period, one hundred effects, 
 each differing from the other both in its nature and 
 in the measure of force requisite to its production, 
 still no portion of the original force has been annihi- 
 lated. It continues in its effects, which are themselves 
 causes of succeeding effects. The stream of cause flows 
 on undiminished, and may be regarded as a series of effects 
 dependent upon an Eternal First Cause, or as a suc- 
 cession of secondary causes which must have originated 
 in an Efficient Primal Force. Nor is the case altered 
 when we contemplate a cause acting in conjunction 
 with one or more other causes and exhausting itself in 
 producing ten thousand effects, in each of which it has 
 had a different measure of efficiency; for, though we 
 may be unable to recognize its exact equivalent in the 
 
272 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 new forms assumed, we are impelled alike by reason 
 and by the deductions of modern science to conclude 
 that the initial force has not been destroyed. Blended 
 with other forces, it still lives in ten thousand effects. 
 
 The indestructibility of force is taught by the tal- 
 ented Dr. J. R. Mayer, by Prof. Helmholtz, by Dr. Far- 
 aday, by Prof. Grove, by Prof. Liebig, by Dr. Carpenter, 
 by Tyndall, Joule, Thomson — by nearly all scientists 
 of the present day. Prof. W. R. Grove says, " In all 
 phenomena the more closely they are investigated 
 the more are we convinced that, humanly speaking, 
 neither matter nor force can be created or annihilated, 
 and that an essential cause is unattainable." * Prof. 
 J. Clerk Maxwell says: " The total energy of any 
 body or system of bodies, is a quantity which can nei- 
 ther be increased nor diminished by any mutual action 
 of these bodies, though it may be transformed into 
 any one of the forces of which energy is susceptible." t 
 Prof. Helmholtz affirms: " No portion of force can be 
 absolutely lost." % Prof. Faraday declares: " The strict 
 science of modern times has tended more and more 
 to the conviction that force can neither be created nor de- 
 stroyed. .. . Let us not admit the destruction or creation 
 of force without clear and constant proof." § Dr. W. B. 
 Carpenter asserts: " As force is never lost in the inorganic 
 world, so force is never created in the organic. . . . Plants 
 restore to the inorganic world not only the materials, but 
 the forces at the expense of which the vegetable fabric 
 was constructed." II It is the opinion of Prof. Liebig that, 
 
 * See Yoomans 1 Correlation and Conservation of Forces, p. 199. 
 
 f En eye. Brit., Art. 
 
 % Youmans' Correlation and Conservation of Forces, p. 227. 
 
 § Idem, pp. 359, 37S. 
 
 || Idem, pp. 420. 433. 
 
FORCE. 273 
 
 " If a power could be annihilated, or in other words, have 
 nothing as its effect, then there would be no contradic- 
 tion involved in the belief that out of nothing also power 
 could be created." * Sir Wm. Hamilton affirms, " Omnia 
 mntantur; nihil intcrit, is what we think, what we must 
 think. . . We think the causes to contain all that is con- 
 tained in the effect; the effect to contain nothing which 
 was not contained in the causes. . . . We are unable, on 
 the one hand, to conceive nothing becoming something, — 
 or on the other, something becoming nothing. ... In 
 thought, causes and effects are thus, pro tanto, tauto- 
 logical; an effect always pre-existed potentially in its 
 cause; and causes always continue actually to exist in 
 their effects. There is a change of form, but, we are 
 compelled to think, an identity in the elements of exist- 
 ence. . . . What is now considered as the cause may 
 at another time be viewed as the effect; and vice 
 versa." t 
 
 VI. Force cannot be evolved from matter, un- 
 less IT HAS PREVIOUSLY BEEN INVOLVED IN MATTER. 
 
 Heat, light, electricity, and magnetism maybe elimin- 
 ated from a lump of coal. They are not coal, nor any pro- 
 duct of coal. Force is not matter. The heat of the coal 
 is, science tells us, absorbed sunlight — force treasured up 
 in convenient form, and ready for man's use. Amber, 
 if rubbed, gives off electricity. Though not matter, it 
 must have been involved in it, or it could not have been 
 evolved from it. The flint, if struck, emits a spark. 
 The light must have been imprisoned therein. These 
 forces, if incapable of existing antecedent to an r l inde- 
 pendent of matter, must be regarded as its invariable 
 attendants; in which case, the latter must be viewed as 
 
 * See Youmans' Correlation and Conservation of Forces, p. 388. 
 f Metaphysics and Logic, pp. 533, 691. 
 
274 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 a concomitant of the former. We must believe that 
 there is no force without matter, and no matter with- 
 out force. Whether the latter may or may not exist 
 dissevered from the former, it cannot be evolved from 
 it unless it has been previously involved in it. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 FORCE VERSUS MATERIALISM. 
 
 In discussing the essence of matter it became apparent 
 that the testimony of science warranted neither an 
 assumption of the eternity of material existences, nor 
 their evolution from nothingness. In the chapter just 
 closed it has been shown that they could not have 
 evolved from physical force, for it is inconceivable that 
 an immaterial, impersonal, unintelligent agent could 
 have originated objectivity. The theory that an Infinite 
 Personality called them into being ex niJiilo y by the fiat 
 of His unconditioned Will, is encircled with fewer difficul- 
 ties. Nor can they be regarded as force in repose, a 
 species of congealed energy ; for, though force can be 
 eliminated from matter, it is not its transformation. 
 That the two are not identical is evident, inasmuch as 
 the former can be generated from the latter in indefinite 
 amounts; as heat from iron-filings, by friction. They are 
 alike in this, each demands the existence of a Primal 
 Cause to explain its origin and continuance. In other 
 respects they are totally dissimilar. 
 
 The essence of force, like the essence of matter, is 
 unknown and indefinable. Consequently, until atheism 
 is able to define its terms, why should it object to the 
 terms, vital force, mental force, and spiritual force, on the 
 ground that these are indefinite and incomprehensible? 
 That they are in measure beyond man's comprehension 
 
276 THEISM AND EVOLUTION, 
 
 is conceded. So also are the terms matter and physical 
 force. To assert that the mysteries of nature are more 
 explicable upon the hypothesis that there is nothing 
 within its domain save these two, does not lead from 
 darkness into light, but from great obscurity into still 
 greater. To solve all the mysteries that environ us is 
 impossible. There is mystery above, beneath, around, 
 within, everywhere. Are the enigmas connected with 
 life lessened by affirming: There is no " vital force," all 
 its phenomena being explained by matter and the ordi- 
 nary forces ? Are the intricate problems connected 
 with mental activity explained by affirming: Thought is 
 " molecular vibration " in brain-tissue, resulting from 
 changed physical conditions ? If we are forced to em- 
 ploy a term that is partially incomprehensible, is there 
 any advantage in substituting one more general and 
 less understandable for one more specific and less 
 unknowable ? 
 
 So likewise, under the sanction of the authorities 
 adduced, and of others which might be adduced, we act 
 reasonably in concluding that science does not pronounce 
 against the theory that the universe continues to exist 
 because an Omnipotent Personal Will so decrees; indeed, 
 we are safe in affirming that such a theory is regarded 
 with favor by advanced science. The Divine Will is the 
 infinite energy which produces all effects, each of which, 
 as it streams forth from the fountain of all power, be- 
 comes a cause producing effects, though quite manifestly, 
 in the ultimate analysis, there can be only one causal 
 agency — secondary effects and secondary causes being 
 in fact convertible terms. The innumerable forms as- 
 sumed by what we denominate physical, cosmical, and 
 vital forces are merely the resistless pulsations of Infi- 
 nite Will-force — effects, though we are accustomed to 
 
FORCE VERSUS MATERIALISM. 211 
 
 designate them causes. Antecedents they are; not effi- 
 cient causes in the strict sense. 
 
 Science, then, acting in its own legitimate sphere, is 
 aiding theology in an unprecedented manner. It is ac- 
 cumulating testimony to the effect that all forces are 
 convertible into one force, a force to which reason is 
 compelled to attribute an intelligent purpose. Scientists, 
 who ought to labor cordially with theologians, are be- 
 ginning to give us proof, by demonstration, in favor of 
 the reasonableness of faith in a Personal First Cause. 
 
 If we do not regard force as having its origin in an 
 Infinite Personal Will, how shall we account for it ? It 
 has not been proved to be a child of matter, nor an in- 
 dependent eternal entity. Shall we adopt a theory in 
 reference to the evolution of the forces and affirm: If an 
 individual animal, with all its organs, with its vital ener- 
 gies and its mental faculties, is an evolution from lifeless 
 matter, blindly groping through millions of years after 
 new forms in which to manifest itself; then we may 
 believe that these mysterious forces — correlated, conver- 
 tible, indestructible, immaterial — have been evolved from 
 some antecedent force, as unlike and inferior to them as 
 man is unlike and superior to the "simplest imaginable 
 organism." Are we prepared to believe that — as in the 
 vegetable and animal kingdoms — evolutionists may bewil- 
 der us with their attempts to trace a line of descent, 
 shadowy though it be, back to " a homogeneous atom " 
 of force ? Is it reasonable to conjecture that with two 
 homogeneous atoms, one of plasson and one of force, 
 lying side by side from eternity in the ocean of immen- 
 sity, there existed the potentialities of a limitless unfold- 
 ing ? And is the hypothesis of a God, then, no longer 
 necessary ? The fruitlessness of human effort ! After 
 the task has been performed, and everything banished 
 
278 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 from the universe except two homogeneous atoms, an 
 infant can demolish the theory, though pronounced ra- 
 tional and harmonious, by simply asking: Father, who 
 put so much into those two atoms ? — did God ? 
 
 My child, you have never studied science. Go play; 
 and let the immaterial sunlight paint roses on your 
 cheeks. 
 
 Since, then, there is something in the universe besides 
 matter, viz., immaterial forces, there certainly is no 
 prevenient improbability against the doctrine of a Per- 
 sonal Spiritual God; nor anything unreasonable in the 
 theory that man is a spiritual being and not a mere 
 aggregation of material molecules. If light, heat, elec- 
 tricity, and magnetism, and even gravitation, are imma- 
 terial, there evidently is no basis for the assertion: As 
 we know and can know nothing in reference to any exist- 
 ence except that of matter, it is unscientific to believe 
 in an Infinite Spirit and in the immateriality of mind. 
 Such an assertion is in antagonism with the teachings of 
 modern science. This affirms that the most powerful 
 agents in nature are immaterial, and that consequently 
 it is not irrational to believe in the existence of a spirit- 
 ual First Cause, who may be — we are almost constrained 
 to say, must be — the Fountain-head of all force; nor is 
 it unreasonable to believe that the soul of man is imma- 
 terial. Accordingly, every falling stone, inasmuch as it 
 is moving in obedience to an immaterial force, testifies 
 to the possibility of the existence of a Spiritual God, 
 and as well to the probability that mind is immaterial, the 
 will being a real creative force. The flash of lightning 
 ,that splinters the cedar at my door, since it is not mate- 
 rial, burns upon the fragments at my feet the declaration: 
 A God may exist, certainly does exist; the soul may be 
 immaterial, quite manifestly is immaterial — spiritual. 
 
FORCE VERSUS MATERIALISM. 279 
 
 The heat that warms my body, being immaterial, tends 
 to thaw the doctrine of materialism from out my heart. 
 The morning light, which bursts in at my window and 
 paints pictures on the illuminated floor; which imparts 
 color to my cheek and cheerfulness to my spirit; which 
 awakens all nature into activity; inasmuch as it is 
 immaterial, testifies: There is no presumption against 
 the existence of the Great Spirit, no improbability 
 against the doctrine of the soul's immateriality. Both 
 beliefs are rational and may be entertained, if argu- 
 ments can be adduced in their favor. 
 
 Even though the testimony of those who regard 
 forces as substantial existences, real entities, should be 
 ultimately overborne by that of those who regard them 
 as mere phenomena, or as affections of matter, or as 
 modes of motion; still, they unquestionably open the 
 gates of the unseen universe wide enough to afford 
 glimpses of the possibility that there are existences 
 purely spiritual. Consequently, the theist is not called 
 upon to prove them entities. The testimony that they 
 are immaterial answers his purpose. Those who persist 
 in regarding them as " modes of motion " are constrained 
 to concede that they are totally diverse from matter. 
 They are capable of organizing, of building up, of con- 
 trolling and of decomposing material substances. That 
 which constructs organisms must exist before organiza- 
 tion begins, and consequently must have an existence 
 independent of matter. Force, then, which is the only 
 organizer in nature, must have existed prior to matter and 
 consequently independent of it. Reason seems to teach 
 that the First Cause of all things must have been force, 
 a Personal Intelligent Will. 
 
 Again: if there must be an antecedent force which 
 constructs a human organism, and if force is immaterial, 
 
280 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 what valid objection can be brought against the doctrine 
 of the soul's immateriality ? And if this organizing force 
 must exist before organization begins, why may it not 
 continue to exist after the organism has perished ? 
 Modern science, which some characterize as atheistic, 
 is beginning to give us transporting visions of spiritual 
 existences and of immortality. 
 
 Before leaving this part of the subject, it may be well 
 to remind the reader that the forces of nature must not be 
 so conceived as to annihilate the freedom of the creature, 
 leaving us the helpless puppets of an inexorable physical 
 necessity. No force is annihilated; no force is without 
 power. Consequently, will-force must be something in 
 the economy of nature. This question will be considered 
 more fully, especially in its scientific aspects, in the dis- 
 cussion of Mind and its relations to matter. Meanwhile, 
 we content ourselves with quoting the language of Sir 
 VVm. Hamilton upon this topic: — 
 
 " The assertion of absolute necessity ... is virtually the negation of a 
 moral universe; consequently, of the Moral Governor of a moral universe; in a 
 word, atheism. Fatalism and atheism are, indeed, convertible terms. . . . 
 How the will can possibly be free must remain to us, under the present 
 limitation of our faculties, wholly incomprehensible. We cannot conceive 
 absolute commencement; we cannot, therefore, conceive a free volition. But 
 as little can we conceive the alternative in which liberty is denied, in which 
 necessity is affirmed. And in favor of our moral nature, the fact that we are 
 free, is given us in the consciousness of an uncompromising law of Deity, in the 
 consciousness of our moral accountability; and this fact of liberty cannot be 
 redargued on the ground that it is incomprehensible, for the doctrine of the 
 Unconditioned proves, against the necessitarian, that something may, nay, 
 must be true, of which the mind is wholly unable to construe to itself the 
 possibility, whilst it shows that the objection of incomprehensibility applies no 
 less to the doctrine of fatalism than to the doctrine of moral freedom." — Meta- 
 physics and Logic, pp. 556, 557, 55S. 
 
 If physical forces are immaterial, there is no presump- 
 tion against the conception that there may be a vital 
 
FORCE VERSUS MATERIALISM. 281 
 
 force in every organism, distinct from the material of 
 which the organism is composed. The existence of this 
 vital force, which is the organizer of vegetable and 
 animal structures, cannot be said to be an irrational 
 assumption, since it is in accord with what prevails in 
 the non-living universe. It is in perfect analogy there- 
 with. If there are immaterial forces which operate in 
 and through gross, non-living matter, there is no ante- 
 cedent improbability in the existence of a vital force which 
 operates in and through living organisms. If light, heat, 
 electricity, and magnetism are immaterial, what right 
 have we to say that vital-force, mental-force, and soul- 
 force are material ? Evidently, all objections to their 
 being considered immaterial are removed. If reasonable 
 arguments can be presented in favor of such a theory 
 it may be entertained. The positive argument will be 
 presented in other sections of this volume. 
 
 Nor is it less manifest that the doctrine, as announced 
 by scientists, that each of the physical forces is sus- 
 ceptible of conversion into any one of the others, lays 
 a foundation upon which to construct an argument in 
 favor of the current belief that will-force does not need 
 to be something material in order to excite muscular 
 activity. An immaterial cause can produce changes 
 in matter, exhausting itself in the production of these 
 changes. To say that nothing but matter can influence 
 matter is unscientific. My volition can be transmuted 
 into muscular force sufficient to wind my watch. The 
 coiled mainspring, itself an effect of human volitions, 
 now becomes a cause, setting the machinery in motion, 
 and generating heat, though in small measure. Its 
 energy — my imprisoned will — is not expended, however, 
 instantaneously. The construction of the watch — cog- 
 wheels, lever, hands, and balance-wheel, which represent 
 
282 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 the will of its maker, are so many allied causes regulat- 
 ing the expenditure of the force communicated by will 
 to the mainspring. When this is exhausted, a fresh sup- 
 ply must be imparted, if the watch is to continue to 
 indicate the hour of the day. My volition can be con- 
 verted not only into motion, or into heat, but may also 
 be transmuted into electricity, or into magnetism. In 
 obedience to will-force I can walk briskly across the 
 room and by rubbing the soles of my feet along the 
 Brussels carpet can surcharge my body with electricity. 
 By an act of will I can surround myself with a magnetic 
 influence which attracts others or repels them. The 
 orator is a sort of magnetic battery charged at will. 
 
 Lionel S. Beale remarks, " Muscles may be made to 
 execute the mandates of the will. Their contractions 
 are governed by mind." This does not prove that mind 
 is matter. It proves that mental force can be converted 
 into muscular force; that the immaterial can govern the 
 material. 
 
 It is asserted also, as seen in the preceding chapter, 
 that force is indestructible. If, then, the physical forces 
 are incapable of annihilation, and if, as is affirmed, they 
 are also immaterial, there evidently is no antecedent 
 improbability in the doctrine of the soul's immortality, 
 but an argument from analogy in its favor. If physical 
 force is indestructible, is it not illogical to assert that the 
 soul, a spiritual force, perishes with the body ? 
 
 If other forces are imperishable, why not this ? Is the 
 disintegration of the crystal the destruction of the force 
 that held its molecules together ? Is the decay of the 
 plant the annihilation of the forces which builded it up? 
 Is the dissolution of the body an end of the forces which 
 aided in its construction ? No. Then why conclude 
 that death ends conscious existence ? The physical 
 
FORCE VERSUS MATERIALISM. 283 
 
 forces that leave the crystal, the plant, or the body, are 
 still unchanged in their nature. They exist under new 
 forms. Analogy asserts, Then conscious existence also 
 remains unchanged in its nature. It does not perish, for 
 force is indestructible. It does not become unconscious, 
 being absorbed into the infinite ocean of spiritual be- 
 ing, for forces remain substantially unchanged. They 
 merely assume new forms. But a loss, on the part of 
 man, of the sense of personal identity would be a radical 
 change in the nature of that force which we denominate 
 soul. Analogy warrants us in asserting, The conscious 
 soul may exist under new conditions, may assume new 
 modes of manifesting its activity; annihilated, it cannot be. 
 If, with the view of blunting the edge of this argument, 
 any materialist is inclined to say, It has not been proved, 
 nor can it be proved, that a physical force either exists, 
 or can exist, dissevered from matter; we answer, It has 
 not been proved, nor can it be proved, that the soul at the 
 death of the body may not construct for itself an invisible 
 material tabernacle. If it constructed for itself a " terres- 
 trial body," may it not also construct for itself a " celestial 
 body "? This at least is true, The gratuitious assumption 
 that the soul, when dissevered from its present body, is in 
 a disembodied condition and must therefore perish, has 
 no cogency against the argument for its continued exist- 
 ence. The unsupported_assumptions that the soul is 
 bodiless when it parts from its clay dwelling, and that 
 spirit cannot exist apart from matter, have no weight 
 against the reasoning from analogy that spiritual force is 
 indestructible. Argument is not refuted by counter as- 
 sumption. Those who accept the doctrines of Christian- 
 ity have as good a right as those who reject them to 
 make conjectures. If it is conjectured that the soul, when 
 it parts from the present body, takes upon itself another, 
 
284 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 which may perhaps have been its enswathement within 
 the perishable casket, or if it is assumed that spirit may 
 exist without a material accompaniment, have such con- 
 jectures less cogency than those which they antagonize ? 
 Apparently, they have more. The former may be sup- 
 ported by reasoning, and is perhaps Scriptural, being pos- 
 sibly the doctrine taught by Paul.* Nor is the second 
 irrational and inconceivable; since, if physical forces are 
 immaterial in their nature and spiritual in their origin, 
 there is no apparent contradiction in assuming that soul- 
 force may exist independent of matter, even though 
 this may not be in accordance with the beliefs of some 
 materialists. 
 
 The above line of reasoning is not to be understood as 
 conveying the intimation that material causes are con- 
 vertible into physical forces. If the cause is matter, the 
 effect must be. Of a physical force, the effect is physical. 
 Force is spiritual and is incapable of being transformed 
 into matter. It is indestructible. Matter is incapable of 
 ceasing to exist. In the burning of coal, force is elimi- 
 nated; none of the material is transmuted into force. 
 The difference between the two is one of kind, and not 
 merely of degree. 
 
 There are certain chasms, broad and fathomless, which 
 materialism has never bridged, and it is reasonably safe to 
 affirm, never will bridge; — the abyss between matter and 
 force, between the not-living and the living, between 
 brain and mind, between the volitional nerves and the re- 
 sponsive nerves. Materialists have labored to expel every- 
 thing from the universe save matter. They have failed. 
 Some facts refuse to be explained on their hypothesis. 
 
 The reader is also reminded that reason impels the 
 conviction that evolution can be no more than the evolv- 
 
 * I Cor. xiv. 36-54. 
 
FORCE VERSUS MATERIALISM. 285 
 
 ing of what was previously involved. More than this is 
 not evolution, but creation. 
 
 Consequently, to suppose that matter could originate 
 force — an evolution without an antecedent involution — is 
 to imagine that an effect can occur without a cause. The 
 body cannot originate soul, though life can construct a 
 material organism. Until it shall be proved that matter 
 can originate force, there will be one crushing argument 
 against the spontaneous generation of life from pre-exist- 
 ing inorganic substances; and after it shall have been 
 proved that it can evolve the physical forces, even though 
 not previously involved, it will remain to prove that it 
 can evolve vital forces which had never been imprisoned 
 in it. " Vivum ex vivo," "vis ex vi," " materia ex ma- 
 teria," may be regarded as established principles, at least 
 so far as reason and observation are able to determine. 
 Before we are at liberty to assume that matter can orig- 
 inate force, either physical or vital, we must prove that an 
 effect does not need to be contained in its cause; that 
 the less can produce the greater; that a material substance, 
 possessing the properties of extension and figure, may 
 produce a something possessing diametrically opposite 
 properties. 
 
 The logician can never surrender belief in the doctrine 
 of causation. Wherever he discovers the evolution of 
 force from matter, he knows there must be an evolving 
 agent; and if the evolution is with design, he is certain 
 there must be a designer. He is equally well assured that 
 no evolver, however powerful, and no designer, however 
 intelligent, can evolve that which has not been involved. 
 Possibly man may yet be able to get out of matter all 
 that has been put into it; but it is certain he will never 
 be able to get from it, what has not been put into it. 
 Involution and evolution are equal. This belief is 
 
286 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 necessitated by the established doctrine of the persist- 
 ence of force. 
 
 The bearing 1 of these principles upon the doctrine of 
 the evolution of the various species of plants and animals 
 from a few primordial germs is apparent. Original germs 
 could of course only evolve what had been previously in- 
 volved. Evolution affords no support to atheism. You 
 may unwind the strips of linen from an Egyptian mum- 
 my. You will find nothing there but what was put there. 
 Nor can you divest yourself of this conviction, though 
 ten thousand human voices are shouting in your ear: You 
 did not see this corpse wrapped in linen; no living being 
 saw it; no embalmer of the present day can tell you how 
 it was done; it may have been done by "a fortuitous con- 
 currence " of the forces of nature, which have produced 
 marvelous results; — there was no involver. After atheism 
 has succeeded in proving that God has had nothing to do 
 with the world since life throbbed in one little germ, it 
 will find itself confronted with a still more difficult task, 
 the banishment of the involver of that germ from the 
 universe. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 LIFE AND ITS RELATIONS TO MATTER. 
 
 In order to direct attention more fully to the claims 
 made by atheistic forms of evolution, it is necessary to 
 invite the reader to a consideration of the problems in- 
 volved in the term Life, and to the solutions given there- 
 to by those who repudiate belief in the being of God. 
 Having journeyed with the uncompromising evolutionist 
 over extended fields, — the origin of man; spontaneous 
 generation; primordial germs; the origin and essence of 
 matter; the nature, relations, and genesis of the physical 
 forces; the law of continuity, — in which fields he has 
 labored with unwearied assiduity, and from which he has 
 brought valuable treasures to the temple of truth; it is 
 necessary to follow him in his investigations into the na- 
 ture of life. An attempt must be made to furnish answers, 
 probable if not incontrovertible, to the following ques- 
 tions: Is life mere mechanism ? — Is life some one of the 
 physical forces ? — Is life a mode of motion ? — Is life a 
 mere aggregation of the life of an infinite number of 
 infinitesimal bioplasts ? — Is life one of the affections of 
 matter, which has two sets of properties, the physical 
 and the spiritual — a double-faced unity? — Is life what 
 Mr. Herbert Spencer defines it, "The definite combi- 
 nation of heterogeneous changes, both simultaneous 
 and successive, in correspondence ' with external co- 
 
288 THEISM AND EVOLUTION 
 
 existences and sequences " ? — Is life a substantive entity ? 
 — What is the origin of life ? 
 
 A discussion of these and kindred topics is necessary 
 to an investigation of the relations, friendly and antag- 
 onistic, which theistic conceptions of the universe bear 
 to the theory of evolution as advocated by eminent 
 thinkers with an array of learning, with a measure of 
 boldness, and with attractiveness in style, that bewilder 
 the mind and rivet attention even when they do not suc- 
 ceed in securing intellectual assent. 
 
 To the question, What is life ? various answers have 
 been given. No one of these, however, meets the de- 
 mands of science, though some are as ingenious as they 
 are elaborate, and as pretentious as they are profound. 
 The term, it must be conceded, is as yet undefined. 
 
 With the view of ascertaining the present status of 
 the intricate question, and in the hope of directing atten- 
 tion to the conflicting opinions which prevail, the task 
 is undertaken of examining the more noteworthy at- 
 tempts that have been made to define the incomprehen- 
 sible term. 
 
 These tentative definitions may be classified, for the 
 purpose in view, under two heads: — 
 
 I. Those which regard life as mere mechanism. 
 
 II. Those which regard it as an immaterial, substan- 
 tive entity, capable of controlling both matter and inor- 
 ganic forces. 
 
 IS LIFE MERE MECHANISM ? 
 
 Life has been defined by Haeckel as " a connected 
 chain of very complicated material phenomena .... of 
 atoms placed together in a most varied manner."* 
 
 This may be accepted as a specimen of the definitions 
 
 * History of Creation, vol. i. p. 199. 
 
LIFE AND ITS RELATIONS TO MATTER. 2bi) 
 
 furnished by the materialistic school of philosophy. It 
 assumes, as materialism invariably does, that science is 
 competent to assert that there is nothing in the universe 
 except matter and its forces. The latter, modern mate- 
 rialists are disposed to regard as modes of motion. Life, 
 accordingly, must be viewed either as "a particular ar- 
 rangement of the molecules of matter," or as " one of the 
 modes of motion," a connected series of changes produced 
 by the ordinary physical forces. 
 
 Any theory which regards life as "a particular ar- 
 rangement of the molecules of matter" — an arrangement 
 having such diversities that each species of plants and 
 animals, indeed each individual plant and animal, by 
 virtue of a slightly different arrangement, possesses 
 characteristics differing from those possessed by others 
 — is radically defective. The material and the vital, 
 though frequently united, are two distinct realities; and 
 their mysterious union is more readily explained on the 
 assumption that life is a substantive entity, capable of 
 employing chemical and physical forces in the production 
 and maintenance of an individual material organism, than 
 by assuming that life is a phenomenon of material mole- 
 cules when arranged in certain ways. The chasm be- 
 tween the living and the not-living is too broad to be 
 bridged by molecular arrangement. To regard life, not 
 merely as an evolution, but as a particular phase of ma- 
 terial evolution, furnishes no explanation of the origin of 
 conscious existence; nor is it possible to believe that the 
 will, which is capable of setting the machinery of the in- 
 dividual organism in motion, is the result of a specific 
 arrangement of material atoms. Hence Prof. Tyndall 
 concedes: " The continuity between molecular processes 
 and the phenomena of consciousness is the rock upon 
 which materialism must inevitably split whenever it 
 
290 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 pretends to be a complete philosophy of the human 
 mind." He approvingly quotes the language of DuBois 
 Reymond: " It is absolutely and forever inconceivable 
 that a number of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxy- 
 gen atoms should be otherwise than indifferent to their 
 position and motion, past, present, and future." Prior 
 to 1875 Prof- Tyndall viewed materialism as an inade- 
 quate explanation of the phenomena of conscious life. 
 Indeed, even Mr. Herbert Spencer, whom materialists 
 would regard as competent authority, concedes that, 
 " The proximate chemical principles, or chemical units, 
 — albumen, fibrine, gelatine — or the hypothetical proteine 
 substance, cannot possess the property of forming the 
 endlessly varied structures of animal forms." 
 
 The mechanical theory of life, even when aided by the 
 hypothesis that the universe is pervaded by " mind stuff" 
 — a hypothetical, imponderable, impalpable, exhaustless, 
 invisible material potentiality, having subtle influences 
 discoverable through the microscope of a powerful imag- 
 ination and filling the interstices between the molecules 
 of the hypothetical ether which is supposed to pervade 
 all interstellar spaces, being extremely mobile, and 
 exceedingly complex in its molecular structure, from the 
 minute particles of which individual organisms are 
 produced by physical agencies, each organism being 
 capable of evolving a definite number of harmonious 
 combinations, — is about as satisfactory an explanation of 
 life, as is the assumption, as an explanation of musical 
 phenomena, that the music of the piano is the result of 
 mechanical forces operating in the instrument itself, no 
 skilled hand directed by an intelligent will being needed 
 to evoke symphonies, even those of Mozart or of Bee- 
 thoven. It is possible to affirm that the music is due to 
 successive vibrations of material substances; that there 
 
LIFE AND ITS RELATIONS TO MATTER. 291 
 
 is an intimate relation between the keys, the strings, the 
 pedals, and the sounding-board ; that the form of the instru- 
 ment facilitates music and consequently must be a result 
 of " the survival of the fittest" ; that the primordial piano, 
 in its material structure, must have been an effect of " the 
 fortuitous concourse of atoms during the cooling of some 
 planet; that its musical power must have been evolved in 
 intimate correlation with its material form from a quasi- 
 musical material, " harmony stuff," which once pervaded 
 immensity, and probably does yet; that, consequently, 
 the music of the piano is an effect of mechanical forces 
 operating in the instrument itself — all of which the sci- 
 entific world is challenged to disprove. 
 
 The teleologist, if indisposed to accept this explana- 
 tion of the origin of musical instruments in general, and 
 of pianos in particular, may answer: Effects, evincing 
 intelligent design, cannot be produced by purely 
 mechanical agencies. Forces cannot prove instrumental 
 in the production of intelligent results, except as they are 
 directed and controlled by an intelligent will. This 
 assertion no one is called upon to prove. If an adverse 
 reasoner insists that material molecules can so arrange 
 themselves as to originate life, or that physical forces can 
 produce life, he must present such evidence as compels 
 belief, or such at least as renders the theory credible. 
 Until this is done, reason impels the belief that design, 
 which is manifest in everything having life, implies the 
 existence of a designer; intelligent results presuppose an 
 intelligent cause. Consequently, though I may not be 
 able to see the pianist at the key-board; though con- 
 vinced that he does not sit on the stool in front of the 
 instrument, I know he exists somewhere, even though it 
 may be in some distant city, the determinations of his 
 will being conveyed to the keys by electrical currents. 
 
292 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 Even though one should be unable, after inspection, to 
 discover any connection between the instrument and the 
 player, he would still be forced by the principle of 
 causality to believe that a pianist existed somewhere. 
 If, however, he is not constrained to believe that every 
 effect must have an adequate cause, he has as valid a 
 right to make assertions as the materialist has. The 
 assertion that life is the pianist is a sufficient refutation 
 of the assertion that life is the piano, and is quite as 
 logical. As the pianist may live after the piano has 
 crumbled to dust, is the doctrine of immortality unrea- 
 sonable ? Before it can be proved that the soul perishes 
 with the body, life and mentality being only phenomena 
 of ever-changing material molecules, planets and even 
 suns may go on cooling until they have become icebergs. 
 Before the preponderance of evidence shall be in favor 
 of such a theory, hypothetical "mind stuff," — diffused 
 through hypothetical ether, by the aid of which it is 
 sought to banish God from a universe in which every 
 living thing testifies to His existence, — will have time 
 sufficient, if it has power adequate, to evolve an Infinite 
 Intelligence, of which it seems to be giving promise in 
 that it has already evolved finite intellects. Indeed, if 
 some ambitious theorist should choose to assert that the 
 principle of evolution — which is apparently the only 
 thing in the universe which does not need to be evolved 
 — has already succeeded in evolving an Omniscient 
 Personality, could the assertion be disproved ? If the 
 atheistic evolutionist were asked to bow in adoration at 
 the foot-stool of this Infinite Majesty, could valid reasons 
 be given why this request should be characterized as 
 raving fanaticism ? 
 
 Every effect must have an adequate cause. An effect 
 evincing design must have an intelligent cause. If there 
 
LIFE AND ITS RELATIONS TO MATTER. 293 
 
 is any axiomatic truth more clearly inwoven with human 
 reason than another, it is this. It deals, however, a death- 
 blow to materialism. When the alternative is presented 
 of regarding life as mere mechanism, or as a substantive 
 entity capable of directing physical forces, reason is 
 not left in doubt which to accept. Its testimony is 
 emphatic. 
 
 In the opinion of some, electricity is the efficient 
 agency in the production of the succession of molecular 
 changes which constitute life, whether those changes 
 are restricted to the possible arrangements of inde- 
 structible atoms, or are extended to include new affec- 
 tions assumed by matter under each new combination. 
 As electricity is capable of effecting new combinations 
 of material molecules, it is assumed that it may also 
 cause such changes as pass under the term life. Again, 
 by others it is assumed that as under some circum- 
 stances electricity can produce heat, or light, or chem- 
 ical affinity, or magnetism, or motion, it can also, under 
 unknown conditions, produce all vital phenomena. That 
 is, though electricity, as ordinarily known to us, is not 
 life, it may nevertheless be transmuted into life. 
 
 We are thus brought to a consideration of the as- 
 sumption, Life a mode of motion; either one of the usu- 
 ally accepted modes of motion — light, heat, electricity, 
 magnetism, chemical affinity — or a mode of motion no 
 more unlike one of these, than these are unlike one 
 another. 
 
 In refutation of the theory that life is electricity, it is 
 competent to affirm that in that case directly opposite 
 qualities must co-inhere in one and the same immate- 
 rial, non-substantive, " simple succession of molecular 
 changes." It has mind, and it has no mind. It has the 
 phenomena of life and may be lifeless, for science asserts 
 
294 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 that electricity may be "latent."* It must be death, for 
 too much in the body causes death. If death may be 
 caused by an excess of life, why is the electric eel, when 
 dead, no longer a surcharged battery? Is it inconceiv- 
 able that life should be capable of employing electricity 
 as its agent ? 
 
 Others are inclined to regard life as heat. Certainly 
 heat, within a limited range, is indispensable to the con- 
 tinuance of life. Too much heat, or too little, is alike 
 incompatible with either actual or potential vitality. If 
 life is to be defined as heat, because the latter is an inva- 
 riable attendant on the former, why may it not be re- 
 garded as water, which is also indispensable to its exist- 
 ence, ninety per cent of the human embryo consisting of 
 this fluid ? It is indeed true that some of the simpler 
 forms of vegetable life can undergo desiccation to such 
 an extent that life is seemingly extinct, and yet, on 
 receiving moisture, revivification may take place after 
 protracted periods of such arrested vitality. But re- 
 vivification can also take place after the suspension of 
 vital functions consequent on the loss of heat. 
 
 Without examining each theory possible under the 
 comprehensive statement, "Life is some one of the 
 ordinary physical forces, each of which is a mode of 
 motion," we content ourselves with an attempted refuta- 
 tion of the theory as a whole. Strauss asks, " If under 
 certain conditions, motion is transformed into heat, why 
 may it not, under other conditions, be transformed into 
 sensation ? " 
 
 * Modern science has given us " latent heat," " invisible light," "hypothet- 
 ical ether," and " theoretical mind-stuff" as well as " latent electricity" ; and 
 this, while inveighing against subtle influences. Are we not justified in ex- 
 pressing the hope that it may come to accept the theory of " vital force"; that 
 in the future, when it is to achieve its greatest triumphs, it may proclaim itself 
 the defender of the doctrine of an invisible, infinite, spiritual Personality ? 
 
LIFE AND ITS RELATIONS TO MATTER. 295 
 
 Until proof is furnished that motion can be trans- 
 muted into sensation, no attempt need be made to refute 
 the unfounded theory. Again he asserts, " A part of the 
 sum-total of matter emerges from time to time out of 
 the usual course of its motions into special chemico- 
 organic combinations." Judging from the confidence 
 with which this assertion is made, one would suppose that 
 its author had frequently seen matter forsaking its " usual 
 course of motions " to enter into " special chemico-organic 
 combinations," or at least had one or more experiments 
 upon which the affirmation rested — a few metaphysical 
 arguments at least. No: the statement is an unsupported 
 hypothesis. There is no proof that " matter from time 
 to time emerges out of the usual course of its motions." 
 
 No attempt is made to defend any conception of life 
 which interferes with the assumption that it may and 
 does employ physical forces as its agents. There is 
 mechanism. There are physical forces at work in every 
 living organism. There are chemical affinities. There 
 are electrical currents in organized beings. It is as- 
 sumed, however, that in animal and rational organisms 
 there is nothing save matter and its forces. Vital and 
 mental forces, as something distinct from matter, are 
 entirely ignored; and yet, without these, how shall the 
 phenomena of life be accounted for ? Is it possible to 
 conclude that because the locomotive has driving wheels, 
 and steel axles, and iron rails under it, and a boiler, and 
 a supply of coal, and a sufficiency of water, and nicely 
 fitting pistons, and handsomely constructed cars attached 
 to it; therefore, to-morrow, at twelve o'clock, having 
 turned itself around, reversed the seats in the cars, and 
 kindled a fire in the furnace, it will start without an 
 engineer from Philadelphia for Cincinnati, stopping on 
 its way at such cities as have connections with other 
 
296 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 rail-roads, halting for a fresh supply of coal and water 
 where these may be had, running at a particular rate 
 of speed to Pittsburgh and with accelerated speed beyond, 
 emitting a shrill whistle at every road-crossing, putting 
 on brakes when running down inclined planes, increasing 
 the amount of steam when ascending the mountainous 
 regions of Pennsylvania, pausing twenty minutes at meal- 
 hours three times a day to afford passengers an oppor- 
 tunity of eating, making these stops where victuals are 
 in readiness, — all this through the intelligence concealed 
 in iron ? 
 
 If any one recommends acceptance of the theory that 
 the ordinary forces of nature, without direction from a 
 superintending intelligence, can produce the phenomena 
 of life, he should do more than assert that some scien- 
 tists accept it; that they present arguments in its favor; 
 that they expect to present unanswerable proof by and 
 by, that they prophesy that in the next generation every 
 one will believe it, that in fact nearly every intelligent 
 person does now, except " the illiberal," "the bigoted," 
 " the prejudiced," " the narrow-minded," and " the 
 despicable orthodox dupes." He must furnish evidence 
 that physical forces are equal to the production of 
 such effects. He need not inflict upon his antagonist 
 the prophetic science that is in the clenched fist of the 
 future. The next generation will be able to do its 
 own thinking; and what it cannot refute, it will no 
 doubt respect. Neither God, nor the equity which is 
 the child of evolution, calls upon this age to fight 
 enemies as yet unborn. Consequently, until the unan- 
 swerable arguments are presented, reason will con- 
 tinue to constrain the belief that physical forces — 
 though sufficiently potent, if directed by an intelli- 
 gent will, to convey Mount Blanc to the distant 
 
LIFE AND ITS RELATIONS TO MATTER. 297 
 
 Alcyone — are in themselves powerless to produce intel- 
 ligent results. 
 
 Coming now to the naked assertion, " Life is some 
 mode of motion," the reader is invited to a consideration 
 of the following facts. 
 
 1. Those who consider life a mode of motion, and 
 regard the living and the not-living as substantially 
 one, can furnish no explanation of the difference between 
 a living organism and the same organism when dead. 
 They cannot tell us the difference between a seed when 
 its germ has vitality and the same seed when vitality is 
 lost. The most they can do is to assert that the one 
 differs from the other in degree only, not in kind. Life 
 is a thing of degrees. The crystal, on this theory, must 
 be regarded as having life. The stone is a " creature." 
 Man is a thing. Certainly, it seems quite as reasonable 
 to assert that the difference between a living germ and 
 one incapable of development is, that one has " vital 
 force" and the other has not — the difference being the 
 same as that which yawns between the living and the 
 not-living, between the crystal and the moneron. It 
 seems like a misapprehension of the term " Life," to talk 
 about the life of a piece of quartz. It tends to inextric- 
 able confusion. To appearances, one might as well talk 
 about the ponderability of moonshine, or the materiality 
 of a shadow, or the contents of a perfect vacuum, or the 
 conscience of an ideal megalosaurus. 
 
 2. The assertion that life is a mode of motion rests 
 on repeated reiteration. Of evidence there is none. 
 We are not bound to accept unsupported hypotheses. 
 If evidence existed it would no doubt have been 
 presented. 
 
 3. Matter may be subjected to any and every known 
 mode of motion, that is, to any and every physical force, 
 
298 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 and still be destitute of life. There is electricity, magnet- 
 ism, heat, light, and even motion (the movement of still 
 living bioplasts) in the corpse. The not-living may be 
 subjected to the influence of electricity, of magnetism, of 
 light, of heat; still, it cannot be made to leap into the 
 kingdom of life. If life is a mode of motion, either one 
 of the ordinary modes of motion, or a mode of motion 
 allied to the ordinary physical forces and interconvertible 
 with them, it ought to be possible to revitalize the 
 corpse. Let it be done, and argument ends. 
 
 4. Since, as we have been told for twenty years, 
 motion is indestructible and convertible, science ought 
 to be able to tell us what becomes of this particular mode 
 of motion when the organism dies. Into what is it con- 
 verted ? It must be converted into some other mode, for 
 each is indestructible, only disappearing in one form to 
 appear in another. Into what is it transmuted ? Those 
 who are able to trace a physical force — every mode 
 of motion — through the transmigrations it is capable of 
 undergoing, and to present its equivalent in each of the 
 new modes which it can assume, ought to be able to tell 
 into what this life-mode of motion is converted. What 
 is the equivalent, for instance, of self-consciousness ? 
 How much light, heat, electricity, magnetism, or chemi- 
 cal affinity does it represent ? What is the mechanical 
 equivalent, in light, of anger ? What is the equivalent, 
 in heat, of the concentration requisite to solve an intri- 
 cate mathematical problem ? What is the equivalent, 
 in electricity, of intense affection for an absent daughter ? 
 Would it be equal to the transmission of a telegram 
 under Atlantic's billows ? What is the equivalent, in 
 magnetism, of the resolute determination to be rich, 
 honestly if possible, but rich ? Would it be adequate to 
 the production of such attractions and repulsions as to 
 
LIFE AND ITS RELATIONS TO MATTER. 299 
 
 render a " mode of motion" the plaything of two contend- 
 ing principles, right and wrong ? 
 
 If, however, as Dr. Bence Jones asserts, " Death is 
 the stoppage of the conversion of latent force into 
 active force," then, Does the magnet die ? Does the 
 corpse never decompose ? 
 
 5. All the motions of the not-living universe have 
 failed in producing a trilobite from inorganic matter. 
 Spontaneous generation has become bankrupt, not for lack 
 of admirers, but because it has never produced even 
 one moneron. Life is from pre-existing life, not from 
 some mode of motion. Nor has any chemist succeeded 
 in originating life in the laboratory, which apparently 
 he ought to have done, if life is a mode of motion. 
 
 THE BIOPLAST. 
 
 Prof. Huxley, who congratulates himself on having at 
 last discovered " the physical basis of life" — though 
 " bathybius," which he once regarded as the parent of all 
 living organisms, has turned out to be nothing but 
 sulphate of lime, — resolutely persists in viewing life as a 
 mere machine, of which the protoplast is the engineer. 
 He asserts: — 
 
 " A mass of living protoplasm is simply a molecular machine of great com- 
 plexity, the total results of the working of which, or its vital phenomena, depend, 
 on the one hand, upon its construction, and, on the other, upon the energy 
 supplied to it; and to speak of vitality as anything but the name of a series of 
 operations is as if one should talk of the ' horologity ' of a clock." — Encyc. 
 Brit., art. "Biology," p. 589. 
 
 "A machine of great complexity" life manifestly is, 
 since it is capable of turning out strange products, of 
 effecting singular metamorphoses. One kind of ma- 
 chine, which we denominate human, converts beef into 
 metaphysics, bread into logic, turkey into imagination, 
 
300 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 oatmeal into obstinacy, sauerkraut into love, potatoes 
 into hope, mackerel into piety, dove into hatred, and 
 plum-pudding into cheerfulness. 
 
 Of this machine, "its vital phenomena depend, on the 
 one hand, upon its construction, and on the other, upon 
 the energy supplied to it." Its construction, be it 
 remembered, is the combined result of " the fortuitous 
 concourse of atoms during the cooling of a planet," and 
 the working of purely physical forces. These causes, 
 acting either singly or in conjunction, might have pro- 
 duced a "machine" whose vital phenomena would have 
 been different. In that case, the human machine might 
 have believed that a cause is not equal to the effect it 
 produces; that material causes can produce spiritual 
 effects; that there is no basic distinction between the liv- 
 ing and the not-living; that an intelligent effect does not 
 imply the existence of an intelligent cause; that it is as 
 unreasonable to regard thought as anything else than the 
 activity of invisible and fortuitously aggregated mole- 
 cules, as it is to conceive of the ponderability of platinum 
 as a substantive entity; that the freedom of the will is an 
 inconceivable, though pleasing, delusion. 
 
 11 The energy supplied" to this " machine of great 
 complexity" must come from without, for otherwise the 
 author would have contented himself with affirming, 
 " Its vital phenomena depend upon its construction." 
 If the energy supplied was from without, then this 
 molecular machine must have indicated at stated inter- 
 vals its need of new energy, the kind it coveted, and the 
 amount demanded, attracting it as exigency required: or, 
 physical forces, external to the machine, must have been 
 able to see when energy was needed and what kind was 
 necessary; and, having made choice between rival can- 
 didates, must have been equal to the task of enforcing 
 
LIFE AND ITS RELATIONS TO MATTER. 301 
 
 obedience to the conclusions reached. Intelligence must 
 have been resident somewhere, either in the machine it- 
 self, or in the forces which furnished energy. To reason 
 respecting the intelligence and the will of "a mass of 
 living protoplasm " seems like reasoning in reference 
 to the conscience of an insect; and to talk about the 
 intelligent purpose manifested by modes of motion 
 appears like talking about the " horologity " of a clock, 
 or rather, about the " horologity " of clock-force. 
 
 Moreover, the employment of the term vitality, as 
 though it were synonymous with life, tends to produce 
 confused ideas. Does the author mean to intimate that 
 the vitality of each protoplast, in this "molecular ma- 
 chine of great complexity," is the same as the life of the 
 organism which it aids in constructing ? Is the life of 
 each organized being nothing more than the aggregated 
 life of the millions of protoplasts which weave the body ? 
 If so, where is the agency which directs the movements 
 of these protoplasts, or bioplasts ? * How does it happen 
 that the different parts of organic structures are so nicely 
 adjusted, and so correlated each to the other ? Every 
 organ is adapted to the parts adjacent, to the symmetry 
 of the entire body, and to the functions it is designed to 
 perform. A mere " mass of protoplasm " is not a person- 
 ality. To render a bioplasmic mass a personality there 
 evidently must be some superintending agent. What 
 is this agent ? Beale denominates it life. Those who 
 call it molecular machinery seem to us as if they 
 were talking about the length, breadth, thickness, 
 and color of love; or the inertia, figure, and porosity 
 of an abstract conception; or the size, mobility, 
 attraction, and compressibility of a mathematical point. 
 
 * Bioplast and protoplast are regarded as equivalent in meaning, though 
 bioplast is considered the preferable term, having been more accurately defined. 
 
302 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 In entering- upon a refutation of this form of the 
 mechanical theory a few concessions may be made: — 
 
 I. It is conceded that the bioplast, — a transparent, 
 gelatinous substance, apparently structureless, seemingly 
 the same in every plant and every animal, originating in 
 a pre-existing bioplast, dispersed through all tissues, con- 
 stituting a large part of every living organism, throbbing 
 continuously, thrusting out one portion of itself beyond 
 another, etc. — is capable of absorbing nutrient matter, 
 which by some inexplicable process is instantaneously 
 converted into living matter, forming a cell-wall and de- 
 veloping a nucleus, and within this a nucleolus; that of 
 the nutrient matter, transmuted first into living matter 
 and then into formed matter, it constructs nerves, arteries, 
 veins, tendons, brain, bone, etc.; that it is capable of re- 
 production by self-division, the division being sometimes 
 through the nucleus, and sometimes not; that without a 
 cell-wall and even without a nucleus, it can live, move, 
 and transform pabulum into living matter; that it is a 
 morphological unit, that is, it is an ideal unit of the parts 
 of the structure of plants and animals, not an elementary 
 unit of the " vital force" in these organisms. 
 
 " For the whole living world then it results: that the morphological unit— 
 the primary and fundamental form of life— is merely an individual mass of pro- 
 toplasm, in which no further structure is discernible; that independent living 
 forms may present but little advance on this structure; and that all the higher 
 forms of life are aggregates of such morphological units or cells, variously 
 modified." — Prof. Huxley, Encyc. Brit., " Biology," p. 590. 
 
 Divest this statement of the assumption that organ- 
 isms higher than the bioplast are nothing more than 
 aggregates of bioplasts, no " vital force " external to them 
 being necessary to direct their working, and no objections 
 to accepting the statement suggest themselves. 
 
 2. All is conceded that Dr. Lionel S. Beale (whose 
 
LIFE AND ITS RELATIONS TO MATTER. 303 
 
 knowledge of the bioplast exceeds that of Prof. Huxley, of 
 Prof. Bain, of Prof. Tyndall — indeed, of the entire host of 
 materialists) says, in Protoplasm; or Matter and Life, a 
 volume well worthy of careful study. He affirms: — 
 
 "Nothing that lives is alive in every part " (p. 181). " It was shown that 
 upon it [living matter] all growth, multiplication, conversion, formation, and, 
 in short, life, depended" (p. 184). 
 
 " The ultimate particles of matter pass from the lifeless into the living 
 state, and from the latter into the dead state suddenly" (p. 185). 
 
 " Of the matter which constitutes the bodies of man and animals in the fully 
 formed condition, probably more than four-fifths is in the formed and non- 
 living state" (p. 187). 
 
 "No language could convey a correct idea of the changes which may be 
 seen to take place in the form of one of these minute particles of bioplasm, when 
 alive" (p. 207). 
 
 " Though nuclei and nucleoli are living matter, they do not undergo con- 
 version into formed matter except as regards the very thin envelope" (p. 212). 
 " The living matter, with the formed matter upon its surface, ... is the 
 anatomical unit, the elementary part, or cell" (p. 217). 
 
 " Each mass of bioplasm increases in size by the absorption of nutrient mat- 
 ter" (p. 221). 
 
 14 What is essential to the cell is matter that is in a living state — bioplasm, and 
 matter that has been in a living state — formed material. With these is associ- 
 ated a certain proportion of matter in solution, and therefore not visible, but 
 which is about to become living — the pabulum or food" (p. 225). 
 
 " The new centers (nuclei) may divide and subdivide, as well as originate 
 anew in already existing bioplasm; but bioplasm destitute of nuclei and nu. 
 cleoli may divide; so that these bodies are not essential to the process" (p. 233). 
 " If we could only make fluid flow through the cell, after its death, uninter- 
 ruptedly in the same direction and with the same force as it is made to flow dur- 
 ing life by the action of the living matter, ciliary movement, I think, would con- 
 tinue although the living matter of the cell was actually dead" (p. 238). 
 
 " At every period of life in every part of the body, separated from one an- 
 other by a distance little more than one one-thousandth of an inch, are little 
 masses of living matter which are continually absorbing nutrient materials, 
 and undergoing conversion into structures" (p. 304). 
 
 Dr. Beale, who is competent authority in reference 
 to the marvelous power of the bioplast, is a determined 
 opponent of materialism and of the mechanical theory 
 of life. 
 
304 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 3. There is mechanism in every living organism, from 
 the trilobite to the elephant, from the lichen on the ice- 
 fields of the Artie zone, or the algae in springs whose 
 temperature is 200 F., to the philosopher in the process 
 of constructing a new theory of light, or to the theologian 
 bowing at the footstool of The Unfathomable. 
 
 It is denied that the following statements have been 
 established by satisfactory proof: — 
 
 1. Matter may possess spiritual properties. 
 
 2. Life is mere mechanism: "living things are ma- 
 chines in motion." 
 
 No one has proved that the several tissues of living 
 organisms become, or can become, mutually adapted to 
 each other by the operation of purely physical forces. 
 The ultimate arrangement in adult animals must have 
 been foreseen. Preparation for the attainment of a de- 
 finite purpose must have been made before tissue of any 
 kind was produced. The materialistic hypothesis fails in 
 explaining how each part became adjusted to every other. 
 Though some of the phenomena of life can be explained 
 by mechanism and some by chemistry, the ultimate re- 
 sults require the hypothesis of " vital force," distinct from 
 and superior to mere physical forces. More is included 
 in the term life than is contained in the aggregate of 
 elemental units. The formation and growth of tissue — 
 the building up and breaking down, addition of matter 
 thereto and removal of matter therefrom — cannot be 
 fully explained by mechanics and chemistry. The move- 
 ments in and by organized beings are unlike anything 
 that is known to occur in inorgana. Growth by the as- 
 similation of food taken within is diverse from growth by 
 accretion. Attraction does not, and cannot, account 
 for the passage of pabulum towards and into living mat- 
 ter; and no known physical force is competent to trans- 
 
LIFE AND ITS RELATIONS TO MATTER. 305 
 
 mute it into living tissue, the elements being not only 
 re-arranged, but so far altered that compounds which may 
 be detected in the nutriment are not present in its pro- 
 duct. The physical and chemical changes of which we 
 have knowledge are dissimilar to the changes which are 
 designated by the term life. In not one instance have 
 the phenomena of a living organism been explained by 
 physical forces. Those who believe in " molecular modi- 
 fications " have not explained what they mean by the 
 expression; nor have they shown what agencies produce 
 these " molecular changes." It has not been proved that 
 life is in dependence upon mechanics; nor has it been 
 proved that no forces are operative in the formation of 
 bodily structures except material, nor even that these 
 act exclusively through the bioplast. The elemental 
 units of man's body are arranged, directed, and con- 
 trolled, as material forces nowhere else direct and control 
 matter. The material of the human organism comes and 
 goes: the power remains substantially unchanged. Vital 
 force suspends the action of chemical affinity; it defies 
 the force of gravitation, carrying sap to the top of 
 the tallest cedar. It controls electrical currents. Are 
 such results possible to mere aggregations of infinitesimal 
 bioplasts, no one of which has any discoverable organism, 
 or any machinery whatsoever ? 
 
 3. It is denied that, " If an entirely organless mass of 
 matter may have life, either actual or potential, then life 
 must be molecular arrangement effected by ordinary 
 forces." If the bioplast is structureless — which has not 
 been proved and is apparently inconceivable — it is seem- 
 ingly necessary to assume the existence of a vital force, 
 if the phenomena are to be explained. If it is to be 
 conceded that the organless condition of the bioplast 
 is proved, then, as is apparent, the difficulties are aug- 
 
306 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 mented, instead of being diminished. Can an organless 
 mass build up a complicated organism ? In degrading 
 the bioplast to such an extent as to characterize it as a 
 structureless mass, its friends have tempted us to pro- 
 nounce it unequal to the tasks imposed upon it. Admit- 
 ting, however, that a " totally organless mass may have 
 life," does it follow that life is " molecular arrangement 
 effected by ordinary forces " ? May it not be an inde- 
 pendent " force " ? Moreover, it seems like labor lost to 
 take pains in attempting to prove that infinitesimal masses 
 of bioplasm are the elementary units of life, and then, after 
 striving to induce the acceptance of this as an ultimate 
 fact, proceed to assert that life is a particular arrangement 
 of atoms effected by "ordinary forces." Has it been 
 proved that these are capable of so arranging molecules 
 as to impart bioplasmic life ? The difference between a 
 dead and a living organism, is it merely the way in which 
 the particles stand related inter se ? Is life originated 
 by placing material atoms together in a specific way ? 
 Again: it may be asked, Is it susceptible of proof that at 
 the death of an organism some extraordinary force has 
 prevented these " ordinary forces" from acting any longer 
 as they have acted since the birth of the organized being ? 
 If these ordinary forces act in a certain way for a pro- 
 tracted period, what prevents them from continuing to 
 act in the same way ? Seemingly, if life is not independent, 
 there must be some force whose nature is as yet unknown 
 beyond the simple fact that it controls " ordinary forces " 
 to the extent of preventing them from continuing the 
 existence of the living organism. So then, if life is 
 not an extraordinary force, death, apparently, must be 
 so regarded. Death is defined as loss of correspond- 
 ence with environment; but what causes the loss of 
 correspondence ? 
 
LIFE AND ITS RELATIONS TO MATTER. 307 
 
 4. It is denied that bioplasts can perform this mar- 
 velous work without a directing agency. If bioplasts 
 build up all living organisms, there must be in every or- 
 ganism a power which directs their working; or, over 
 and above the kingdom of life, there must be an intelli- 
 gence which employs bioplasts as instrumental agents in 
 constructing organisms. If there is a directing agency in 
 every organized being, are there any objections to de- 
 nominating it life ? If there is no such directing agency, 
 God must be "working all in all." An organization 
 without an organizer is an impossible conception. Life 
 is an independent entity, owing its existence to the 
 same cause which originated matter; or God, without 
 the intervention of a secondary agent, is the Life of the 
 universe. The latter, or pantheistic conception, finds its 
 refutation elsewhere, leaving reason free to assert: If 
 bioplasts build up living organisms, something must 
 direct their working. 
 
 A few concessions have been made by materialists, as 
 follows: — 
 
 1. M The phenomena which living things present 
 have no parallel in the material world." — Prof. T. H. 
 Huxley, Encyc. Brit., " Biology." 
 
 2. " The increase of size which constitutes growth is 
 the result of a process of molecular inter-susception, and 
 therefore differs altogether from the process of growth by 
 accretion." — Idem. 
 
 3. Any and every mechanical theory of life finds a very 
 serious obstacle in the genesis and continuance of self- 
 consciousness. This is conceded by Huxley, Tyndall, 
 Spencer, Haeckel, Bain, indeed by nearly all the advo- 
 cates of the molecular hypothesis, some even acknowledg- 
 ing that it is an obstacle that has not been surmounted, 
 and is seemingly insurmountable. Undisputed. 
 
308 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 4. The bioplasts which produce nerve cannot be con- 
 strained, either by forces resident in the body or by ex- 
 ternal influences, to produce muscle. Each set performs 
 the work for which it was designed, and no other. 
 Though they are apparently the same, in plant and in 
 animal, in muscle and in brain, the results of their 
 labors are entirely different. This is conceded by all. 
 
 5. Bioplasts, though very near each other, never 
 interfere with each other's growth, and never coalesce. 
 Conceded. 
 
 6. The several sets of bioplasts, each independent of 
 the other, produce, as a joint result of their labors, a 
 complicated net-work of muscles, tendons, nerves, etc. 
 This result, not alone in its individual parts, but in its 
 totality, evinces design. Undisputed. 
 
 7. " All that is at present known tends to the con- 
 clusion that no cell has arisen otherwise than by becom- 
 ing separated from the protoplasm of a pre-existing 
 cell; whence the aphorism, omnis cellula e cellular — Prof. 
 Huxley, Encyc. Brit., " Biology." 
 
 8. Substances which are appropriated by one form of 
 bioplasts will act as poison on another. This is asserted 
 by Dr. Beale and is unchallenged by his opponents. 
 
 9. " The chasm between the living and the not- 
 living the present state of knowledge cannot bridge." 
 — Prof. Huxley, Encyc. Brit., " Biology." 
 
 Is it not possible from these concessions alone to con- 
 struct an argument sufficiently powerful to overthrow the 
 mechanical theory ? If " the phenomena which living 
 things present have no parallel in the mineral world," is 
 it legitimate to assert that life is molecular arrangement ? 
 The assertion, unsupported by proof, is a pure assump- 
 tion. To assert that because matter under different 
 forms may have different properties, therefore, when its 
 
LIFE AND ITS RELATIONS TO MATTER. 309 
 
 molecules are arranged in a particular way by " ordinary 
 forces," life is one of its properties, seems like a petitio 
 principii. That inertia is one of the properties of aggre- 
 gated matter, science has proved, as is generally believed. 
 That mobility is a property of air can be established. 
 That expansibility is a property of gas is susceptible 
 of proof. Has it been proved that life is a property of 
 matter, provided its atoms are arranged in certain 
 ways ? It has been assumed to be, merely because 
 matter assumes new properties when new combinations 
 are effected. 
 
 Moreover, if we are to accept this theory we are un- 
 der the necessity of regarding bioplasm, Dr. Lionel S. 
 Beale assures us, as " hard and soft, solid and liquid, 
 colored and colorless, opaque and transparent, granular 
 and destitute of granules, structureless and having 
 structure, moving and incapable of movement, active and 
 passive, contractile and non-contractile, growing and 
 incapable of growth, changing and incapable of change, 
 animate and inanimate, alive and dead." 
 
 This theory, under whichever aspect we view it, the 
 purely materialistic or the semi-teleological, fails in ex- 
 plaining the sense of personal identity. If man is simply 
 a mechanism — molecules of matter braided together in 
 certain ways, which molecules are incessantly chang- 
 ing, new ones taking the place of those removed from 
 the system — how does it happen that he retains the 
 sense of personal identity down to old age ? He be- 
 lieves himself the same person who at the age of five 
 years received the dying counsel of an endeared father. 
 The body, however, has passed through several entire 
 changes: modern science says it has been renewed every 
 year. How could these evanishing atoms, whatever their 
 molecular arrangement may have been, communicate to 
 
310 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 their successors the facts entrusted to memory ? Can 
 they convey down to old age, the loves and the hatreds, 
 the moral principles and the settled judgments, the 
 fears and the hopes, of an antecedent life ? Strange ! 
 If, as some assert, these treasures are the possession of an 
 underlying reality, which has two sets of properties, the 
 material and the spiritual, then what is the agency by 
 which this " single undivided reality" becomes possessed 
 in man of properties so diverse from those it possesses 
 as it underlies platinum ? Has platinum sensation and 
 consciousness and memory ? Does the mentality of the 
 crystal differ only in degree from that in man ? Reason 
 is disposed to answer: Upon the theory in question no 
 explanation of the phenomena of conscious existence is 
 possible. 
 
 If, as is confidently affirmed, bioplasts are precisely 
 the same in every living organism, then — since some 
 weave tendon; some, muscle; some, nerve; some, brain; 
 some, mule; some, cabbage; some, oyster; some, rose — 
 there must be some power back of them which causes 
 them to produce such diverse results. If these material- 
 istic philosophers are mistaken in affirming that all bio- 
 plasts are alike, then what makes them to differ ? Has 
 each species of bioplast a molecular arrangement peculiar 
 to itself? Science, it would seem, has not yet struck its 
 hammer upon the foundation stone of life. If bioplasts 
 do not differ, why do the results of their working differ so 
 widely ? Causes precisely alike ought to produce effects 
 precisely alike. If they differ, and the difference is due 
 to different "molecular arrangements effected by ordinary 
 forces," what is the agency which causes these "ordinary 
 forces" to present such diverse products? Who taught 
 these various kinds of bioplasts to work harmoniously in 
 the production of the greatest miracle ever performed in 
 
LIFE AND ITS DELATIONS TO MATTER. 311 
 
 the universe, the construction of a human body ? Who 
 gave them instruction in so correlating its parts that they 
 might be all subject to the will ? Who educated them in 
 the art of transmuting nutrient matter into living matter ? 
 If the transformation is a mere change in the arrangement 
 of the molecules, effected by physical forces, why may not 
 physical forces effect, in the animal kingdom, the requisite 
 molecular arrangements with inorganic matter, con- 
 structing animals directly from mineral substances, and 
 not as is invariably the case from pre-existing bioplasm ? 
 After explaining why animal bioplasts are thus restricted 
 in their operations, while vegetable bioplasts, which are 
 declared to be the same, are capable of working inorganic 
 matter into living organisms, the materialist may pro- 
 ceed to explain whence the animal bioplast acquired the 
 skill of weaving a nerve through and around a muscle, a 
 tendon through an opening left in a bone for its reception. 
 What agency directs the working of these infinitesimal 
 units of life ? Materialism answers: It is all mechanism, 
 pure mechanism, without any superintending agency 
 which directs the myriad movements of the complicated 
 machine. Reason asserts: No. 
 
 It is irrational to assume that several sets of bioplasts, 
 acting independent of each other and without any su- 
 perintendent, may produce a joint result which evinces 
 design. How do they happen to construct a socket and a 
 ball to constitute a joint ? How are they induced to con- 
 struct an eye fitted to receive light, and a nerve adapted 
 to communicate the sensation of light to the brain ? How 
 came they to fashion an ear adapted to the reception of 
 sound ? Is it possible that the labors of ten thousand 
 slaves, who worked upon the great Pyramid of Gizeh, 
 were not directed by any superintendent ? If there 
 had been as many independent wills as there were 
 
312 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 workmen, or rather if there had been no wills what- 
 ever, would there have been unity of design in the 
 result ? The illustration, however, does injustice to the 
 teleological theory of life, for the bioplasts that work in 
 the human body are numbered by millions, not merely 
 by thousands; nor are they capable of holding con- 
 sultations and determining upon a plan which shall have 
 its parts so related as to manifest a settled purpose 
 looking to remote results, as Egyptian pyramid-builders 
 might have done; nor is the life of bioplasts extended 
 to nearly half a century, thereby enabling them to real- 
 ize the completion of their plans, as is true in the case 
 of the human beings whose bodies they build. What, 
 then, is the power which moves, directs, and controls 
 bioplasts ? Materialists answer, Physical force. Reason 
 answers, Life. Beale, and Carpenter, and Frey, and a 
 host of other specialists answer, Yes, life. 
 
 Dr. Lionel S. Beale says: — 4< In the first place, no one 
 has been able to explain, by known laws, the facts of de- 
 velopment; and secondly, no one is able to premise from 
 the most careful and minute examination of living mat- 
 ter that can be instituted, what form will result from its 
 development, or what kind of organism has given origin 
 to it; and lastly, the occurrence of successive series of 
 structural changes which occur at definite periods of de- 
 velopment of a living being as its structures and organs 
 gradually progress towards completeness, and which are 
 as it were foreseen and prepared for at a very early pe- 
 riod, long before any structure whatever has been evolved, 
 cannot be accounted for unless some guiding power un- 
 known to physics, and not yet brought within the grasp 
 of law, is assumed to exist." 
 
 Again: " I have ventured to speculate concerning 
 vital power simply because I find it impossible to account 
 
LIFE AND ITS RELATIONS TO MATTER. 313 
 
 for the ordinary universal life-phenomena without the aid 
 of an hypothesis of this kind. I ask by what means the 
 matter of a living being is made to assume certain defi- 
 nite relations in order that a fixed purpose may be carried 
 out at a distant period in time ? It is asserted confi- 
 dently that all is due to physics, that life is inorganic 
 force; and it has even been affirmed that life is associated 
 with every kind of matter, non-living as well as living, 
 that physical force is life, and that life is physical force. 
 But this is pure assertion, for no form or mode of force 
 under any conditions has been known to effect changes 
 in any way analogous with those by which every form 
 of matter that lives is characterized." 
 
 Once again: " If I may be allowed to state, what ac- 
 cording to my idea would be the inference deduced by an 
 unprejudiced scientific observer who had studied the min- 
 ute changes in living matter and the gradual development 
 of lifeless form out of the living formless, it would be this: 
 That the true cause of what he observed could not be 
 physical, and that the remarkable phenomena he noticed 
 were not due to ordinary material forces." * 
 
 * Protoplasm; or Matter and Life, Dr. Lionel S. Beale, 1874, pp. 310, 
 357, 359- 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 LIFE AND ITS RELATIONS TO MATTER {CONTINUED). 
 
 It may perhaps be said that a complete refutation of the 
 mechanical theory necessitates a consideration of the 
 views of those who do not regard life as an attribute of 
 matter, but as an attribute of an underlying reality which 
 has two sets of properties, the material and the spiritual. 
 Has the existence of any such underlying single reality 
 been proved ? If so, what is it ? If not, why push the 
 question into the field of pure speculation ? Besides, if 
 there is any such undivided reality underlying all things, 
 whether it be material or immaterial — and it must be one 
 or the other — it must be a very singular reality which 
 is capable of possessing two directly opposite sets of 
 qualities, extension and non-extension, activity and 
 inactivity, form and formlessness — the distinctive prop- 
 erties of mind and the distinctive properties of matter 
 also. 
 
 This theory, in the hands of Prof. Alexander Bain 
 and Prof. Tyndall, assumes the form of an elaborate 
 attempt to combine two theories of life, — the mechan- 
 ical and the teleological. " The arguments," says Prof. 
 Bain, " for two substances, have, we believe, now en- 
 tirely lost their validity; they are no longer compatible 
 with ascertained science and clear thinking. The one 
 substance, with two sets of properties, two sides, the 
 physical and the mental — a double-faced unity — would 
 
LIFE AND ITS DELATIONS TO MATTER. 315 
 
 appear to comply with all the exigencies of the 
 case." * 
 
 The advocates of this view claim for it the honor of 
 doing full justice to both phases of life, the material and 
 the mental. They pronounce it competent to explain 
 all the phenomena of organic existences, regarding them 
 as an intimately connected, and uninterrupted series of 
 purposive effects resulting from the varied combinations 
 of the two sets of qualities which inhere in the one sub- 
 stance. Life, then, is not to be regarded as a necessary, 
 nor even as an ordinary, quality of matter, indeed not as 
 a quality of matter at all, but as the quality of a sub- 
 stratum in which inhere both the matter and the life of an 
 organism. Life is an affection which matter seems to as- 
 sume when its molecules are arranged according to a 
 certain extended class of forms, that is, in the vegetable 
 and animal kingdom; in reality, the spiritual side of this 
 "double-faced unity " is more fully turned towards the 
 observer — simply this. Matter, whatever its primary 
 qualities may be, takes upon itself new qualities with 
 new arrangements of its molecules. Life, whatever its 
 essential attributes may be, manifests different phe- 
 nomena according to the combinations of spiritual qual- 
 ities displayed by this underlying reality in each living 
 organism. Life, so far as science is able to determine, is 
 never separate from matter. Matter, under every form, 
 has some measure of life. The one substance has two 
 sets of properties; here, the physical are more conspic- 
 uous; there, the mental are. Mental qualities, transmis- 
 sible in a material germ, are so far independent of ex- 
 ternal influences, and so far permanent in each organism, 
 as to need no internal directing agent to control them, 
 only a certain environment being necessary to their full 
 
 * Mind and Body, p. 196. 
 
316 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 development. Physical forces, during the life of each 
 organic being, maintain that arrangement of the material 
 molecules which enables the underlying substance to 
 manifest its non-material qualities. The bioplast is the 
 morphological unit, every living organism being merely 
 an aggregate of bioplasts. The infinitesimal units of life, 
 being capable of reproduction, build up animal structures 
 by converting nutritive matter into living matter. 
 
 It is safe to say that this is also a mechanical view of 
 life. Huxley admits that " It may be combined with a 
 strictly mechanical view of evolution." It is difficult to 
 see how we can regard it as anything else, unless under 
 its guidance we pass into some pantheistic theory of the 
 universe. We do not account for the evidences of design 
 everywhere apparent in nature, especially in the kingdom 
 of life, by assuming that there is an underlying substance, 
 which, when matter assumes the molecular arrangement 
 peculiar to bioplasm, is capable of manifesting spiritual 
 attributes, the spiritual gleaming, as it were, through the 
 interstices of the material. Most of those who are famil- 
 iar with the teachings of modern physics are prepared to 
 admit, with Prof. J. Clerk Maxwell, that matter may as- 
 sume new affections when new combinations are effected;* 
 that the magnitude and motions of the molecules which 
 combine, and the physical forces which are operative in 
 effecting the combination, determine in measure the 
 properties which they shall manifest under their new 
 forms; but, though the present tendency is manifestly 
 towards the acceptance of the theory that matter is 
 merely phenomenal, it has not been proved that matter 
 and spirit are but two phases of one undivided substance, 
 
 * " In modern times the study of nature has brought to light many properties 
 of bodies which appear to depend on the magnitude and motions of their 
 ultimate constituents." — J. Clerk Maxwell, Kncyc. Brit., art. "Atom," p. 33. 
 
LIFE AND ITS RELATIONS TO MATTER. 317 
 
 in which inhere inertia and sensation, changefulness and 
 the sense of personal identity, powerlessness and will- 
 force, insensibility and self-consciousness. 
 
 If, as every form of the mechanical theory assumes, 
 molecules of matter braided together in certain forms 
 have inherent power adequate to the construction of 
 every living organism, that is, if the structureless infini- 
 tesimal bioplast is the artificer of all living forms; then, 
 everything is explained in the kingdom of life, save this 
 marvelous "morphological unit." How came this pos- 
 sessed of such wonderful powers ? If it is structureless, 
 then life is antecedent to organization, and may be its 
 cause. A living atom without organs produces mar- 
 velous results. These results cannot be attributed to 
 the atom, for that would be to assign effects to an in- 
 adequate cause. Nor are the effects produced by the 
 organs of the bioplast, for organs it has none. 
 
 Dr. Joseph Cook has defined life as " the power which 
 directs the movements of bioplasts." Against this defi- 
 nition objections may be raised. It has not been proved 
 that life is a power which is restricted to the production 
 of movements in bioplasts. Is it impossible that life 
 should produce any other modes of motion except those 
 peculiar to bioplasts ? Do all movements of the body 
 originate in movements of bioplasmic masses ? Besides, 
 the bioplast, we suppose, possesses life, and is not a mere 
 machine driven by life. It may be regarded as possess- 
 ing vitality independent of its movements. Consequently, 
 life, as represented in this first link in the chain of the 
 living is not defined by saying, "Life is the power which 
 directs the movements of bioplasts." 
 
 If the bioplast is structureless, though possessing 
 power adequate to construct all organisms; and if it has 
 no individual life, though capable of imparting life to 
 
318 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 nutrient matter; then why regard it as the true morpho- 
 logical unit ? The unit ought, it would seem, to possess 
 a structure of its own, and a life of its own. Not pos- 
 sessing these, the task is imposed upon it of producing 
 effects not contained in itself as cause. If, on the other 
 hand, the bioplast has an individual life of its own, whence 
 did this life originate ? To say that molecules of matter 
 chanced to come together in such forms as to originate 
 life, does not satisfy reason. God is not eliminated. If 
 He is needed nowhere else, He is indeed as the Creator 
 of bioplasm. 
 
 If it is said that the bioplast has an organization, 
 though it cannot be discovered under the most power- 
 ful microscope, then how came it to possess this organiz- 
 ation ? How did it happen to be an organization en- 
 dowed with skill adequate to the marvels attributed to 
 it ? A cause must be equal to the effect produced by it. 
 Consequently, small as it is, it must be equal to the pro- 
 duction of every species of plants and animals, if, as we 
 are told, they are all constructed by it. Accordingly, it 
 must be the most powerful agent in the universe. But 
 it is unquestionably an effect. Can that which is capable 
 of constructing organisms originate without an organ- 
 izer ? As the effects which it produces evince design, 
 can it possibly have come into being without a designer ? 
 Purpose implies will. The more wonderful the results 
 the bioplast is capable of producing, and the more com- 
 pletely its working is independent of superintendence, 
 the greater the need of assuming that it must be the pro- 
 duction of an Intelligent Designer. 
 
 Life has been defined as intangible, incorporeal, 
 highly attenuated matter; not as ordinary matter with 
 its commonly accepted properties, but as matter atten- 
 uated to the last degree, inponderable, incapable of 
 
LIFE AND ITS RELATIONS TO MATTER. 319 
 
 being- subjected to investigation of any kind whatsoever, 
 having still greater tenuity than odor from zinc, than 
 diffused particles of musk, than scent from the track of 
 the fox; more attenuated than the hypothetical ether 
 which is supposed to pervade interstellar space; rivaling 
 in tenuity light, heat, sound, electricity, magnetism, 
 which are regarded as corpuscular emanations from the 
 grosser forms of matter, not as undulations; existing in 
 a state of rarefaction scarcely conceivable except upon 
 the hypothesis that matter is infinitely divisible. 
 
 This attenuated material substance is regarded as pos-. 
 sessing the properties commonly considered as belong- 
 ing to spirit. The advocates of this theory deem it 
 unnecessary, and indeed irrational, to make any essen- 
 tial distinction in the fundamental nature of material and 
 spiritual substances — all are material, though the distance 
 between the two extremes is almost infinite. Conse- 
 quently, no practical harm can come, they think, in con- 
 tinuing to employ the two terms, matter and spirit, the 
 ponderable and the imponderable, "soma' and "pneiima" 
 it being understood that the former is a visible, tangible, 
 ponderable body, and that the latter is an invisible, im- 
 ponderable, intangible, incorporeal substance. 
 
 This theory, though occasionally employed in defence 
 of theistic conceptions of the universe, is nevertheless 
 only a modified form of materialism, and shares its fate. 
 
 MR. SPENCER'S DEFINITION OF LIFE. 
 
 The famous definition of life given by Mr. Herbert 
 Spencer merits attention, and may as well be considered 
 at this point. He defines life as " The definite combi- 
 nation of heterogeneous changes, both simultaneous and 
 successive, in correspondence with external co-existences 
 and sequences." 
 
320 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 This has one recommendation at least, — it is a labored 
 attempt to employ terms sufficiently broad to embrace all 
 life from a lichen to an archangel. Whilst, however, it 
 manifestly includes "the life of the crystal" formed by 
 the chemist in the laboratory, it is doubtful whether it can 
 be regarded as embracing germ-life when in a state of 
 suspended development. In the kernel of wheat which 
 retains life in suspense after lying in an Egyptian sarco- 
 phagus three thousand years or more, has there been a de- 
 finite combination of heterogeneous changes both simul- 
 taneous and successive ? Is there any special propriety in 
 a definition which excludes life in this form, while includ- 
 ing it in a form less analogous to the life of human beings ? 
 
 " A combination of heterogeneous changes " ! Why 
 exclude from the conception the cause or causes which 
 produce these changes ? It would, to appearance at 
 least, be more consonant with reason to define life as the 
 efficient cause in the production of a series of changes. 
 What agency produces this " combination of changes," 
 and how are they related to each other ? Is each a 
 necessary effect of a pre-existing change in the organism 
 itself? Again: is the term life to be conceived of as 
 including all heterogeneous changes? If so, how shall 
 the changes in the mineral kingdom be distinguished 
 from those in the animal ? Inorganic matter undergoes 
 changes from the simple to the complex, from the 
 homogeneous to the heterogeneous. Are these included 
 in the combination which defines life ? Mr. Spencer in- 
 tended them to be. If not all " heterogeneous changes " 
 are included in this " definite combination," which are ? 
 Until this is determined, no definition is furnished of 
 the life characteristic of the organic world, the thing 
 to be defined. Unless this is distinguished from every- 
 thing else, no tangible result is reached. 
 
LIFE AND ITS RELATIONS TO MATTER. 321 
 
 To the term " combination " the author has prefixed 
 the word " definite " with the view, apparently, of limit- 
 ing its application. Does this restrict the combination 
 to changes occurring in the animal and vegetable king- 
 doms ? No: for there are definite combinations of 
 changes in the inorganic world. He adds, however, 
 " both simultaneous and successive," with the view of 
 further limiting the terms employed. As such changes 
 occur, however, in the domain of matter, as well as in the 
 kingdom of life, no assistance is rendered in acquiring 
 clear conceptions of what organic life is. He adds an- 
 other limitation; this "definite combination of heteroge- 
 neous changes, both simultaneous and successive," must 
 be "in correspondence with external co-existences and 
 sequences." The substratum, then, in which these 
 changes inhere must be subject to influences from 
 environment. The simultaneous and successive changes 
 which take place in the crystal, under the hammer of 
 the geologist, are in correspondence with co-existences — 
 the hammer and the human arm, — and in correspondence 
 with sequences — the fragments. Is the pulverization 
 of the crystal to be regarded as life ? There was a sub- 
 stratum in which the changes inhered. There was a 
 combination of " heterogeneous changes, both simul- 
 taneous and successive." This combination was " defi- 
 nite." It was also "in correspondence with external 
 co-existences and sequences." 
 
 Is the labored definition a philosophical explanation, 
 from the stand-point of evolution, of the inexplicable 
 process by which a definite combination of infinitesimal 
 molecules of "star dust" become condensed into the 
 planet Jupiter, in correspondence with co-existing nebu- 
 lous masses of " mind-stuff," and in complicated corre- 
 lations with worlds and suns floating purposelessly in the 
 
322 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 undisturbed ocean of immensity, and in admirable con- 
 gruity with infinite sequences, both proximate and re- 
 mote, not alone in the planet formed, but as well also in 
 everything that has, can, shall, or may come under the 
 limitless sway of its incomprehensible potentialities ? 
 Does it render it possible to assert that the life of this 
 measureless universe, as it gleams on the outer fringes of 
 immensity, is the same in kind as that which pulsates in 
 a Sir Isaac Newton, differing only in degree. May we 
 not affirm that the hitherto insolvable problem, " How 
 to define life," has been solved ? When the philosophy 
 of agnosticism has found a grave behind the western 
 hills, being laid to rest in the mausoleum where innumer- 
 able systems of philosophy have found a sepulcher, one 
 fact which it knew, the content of the term life, will be 
 left as a legacy to befogged humanity. 
 
 Some adherents of the materialistic school fail to ap- 
 preciate Mr. Spencer's elaborate definition. They assert 
 that he should have limited the changes of which he 
 speaks, to those which occur in the life of a bioplast. 
 Consequently, they charge him with deficiency of know- 
 ledge in reference to the powers of bioplasmic elements; 
 and hence repudiate the definition. 
 
 II. Definitions which regard life as a substantive 
 entity; a substance, but not matter; an entity, but not a 
 material entity; a substantial and independent existence, 
 possessing organizing power and the capacity of repro- 
 duction; susceptible of being influenced by matter and 
 by physical forces, and of influencing them; having power 
 in animals adequate to the assimilation of organic ma- 
 terials, and in plants adequate to the incorporation of 
 inorganic matter; having the power of adapting itself to 
 environment within certain limits, and of varying the 
 individual organism to a limited extent. 
 
LIFE AND ITS RELATIONS TO MATTER. 323 
 
 Life has been defined as "a directing- agent," "an 
 organizing principle," "the cause of form in organisms," 
 "a vital force." 
 
 These attempts to define the term, and as well all 
 others made by teleologists, proceed upon the apparently 
 rational assumption that an organizer must exist before 
 organization can begin; that the entity which exists ante- 
 cedent to organization may continue to exist after the ma- 
 ted . 1 organism which it constructed has been resolved into 
 its original elements. This teleological theory denies that 
 man is mere matter, there being no spiritual superinten- 
 dent. It affirms that the ordinary forces of nature could 
 not have produced a body with such intricate, ingenious, 
 and delicately woven tissues. It concedes that the sculp- 
 tor can chisel the marble till his genius glows on every 
 atom of its surface: it denies that he can impart life to 
 the statue. It acknowledges that the painter can blend 
 his colors till they express hope, love, fear, or hatred: it 
 affirms that he cannot give life to the canvass. It ad- 
 mits that the skilled workman can weave his threads into 
 a delicate texture; that taking them apart one by one, 
 he can weave them into a new texture with different de- 
 signs: it denies that he can give that texture the power 
 of self-movement, the capacity of reproduction, the power 
 of transmuting flax into wool, and of incorporating the 
 transformed material into its own structure. It asks, If 
 life is simply matter and physical forces, then, why may 
 not the enfeebled body be rejuvenated, and the corpse be 
 revitalized ? Chemists, it would seem, ought to be able, 
 in that case, to restore the dead to life; indeed, science, 
 ere this, should have taught us how to exempt a mate- 
 rial organism from the ravages of approaching dissolution. 
 The magnet can be magnetized; after losing the magnetic 
 influence it can be re-magnetized. But life once gone, no 
 
324 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 physicist can recall it. If life is a result of physical forces, 
 we ought to have learned how to keep the machinery 
 running uninterruptedly. What leaves the body when 
 death claims it as her own ? From the germ that has 
 been capable of development, but has become incapable, 
 what has departed ? The teleologist asserts, Vital force 
 is gone. When what we denominate life has departed 
 from an organism, leaving it nearly unimpaired, as when 
 one dies from fright, why are physical forces and matter, 
 if they alone constructed it in the first place, incapable 
 of repairing it, thereby setting the machinery to running 
 again ? We answer, The vital force is gone. Can mate- 
 rialists give a more satisfactory answer ? If a few atoms 
 of flax, after weaving themselves into a fabric, were ca- 
 pable of taking wool, cotton, paper, and straw, and, after 
 transmuting them, incorporate them into their own struc- 
 ture, thereby enlarging and strengthening that structure 
 as well as providing against the incessant wear and waste 
 to which it was subjected, there would seem to be no as- 
 signable reason why the process should not be continued 
 indefinitely. 
 
 While it is safe to say that the term life — like the terms 
 time, space, matter, spirit — has not been defined, the de- 
 finitions given by teleologists being too indefinite to satisfy 
 reason, it is nevertheless reasonable to assert that there 
 is such an entity as " vital force," distinct alike from matter 
 and from the ordinary forces of nature. Deeming this, 
 susceptible of proof, we present a series of arguments sue-"* 
 cinctly stated. 
 
 i. Life has not been produced in the laboratory of 
 the scientist. Chemistry and mechanics are as yet 
 childless. They have not presented the world with 
 a drop of albumen capable of taking food, assim- 
 ilating it, moving, growing, and reproducing itself. 
 
LIFE AND ITS RELATIONS TO MATTER. 325 
 
 This ought to have been done, if life is mere 
 mechanism. 
 
 2. There is no evidence that spontaneous generation — 
 what Huxley denominates abiogenesis — is now occurring, 
 or ever has occurred, anywhere in the universe. Mr. Hux- 
 ley says in the Encyclopedia Britanuica, in his treatise on 
 " Biology": "At the present moment there is not a shadow 
 of trustworthy direct evidence that abiogenesis does 
 take place, or has taken place, within the period during 
 which the existence of life on the globe is recorded." If 
 life is not a something distinct from matter and from or- 
 dinary forces, spontaneous generation ought to be occur- 
 ring continuously. 
 
 3. No known force has been converted into vitality; 
 nor has vitality been converted into any one or more of 
 the physical forces. Consequently, vitality must be some- 
 thing distinct from ordinary forces. 
 
 4. Nutritive matter passes instantaneously from the 
 non-living to the living state, and under conditions 
 where the change is inexplicable by the ordinary inor- 
 ganic forces. So likewise death is instantaneous. 
 
 5. So far as is known to science, no force, save that 
 denominated "vital," is competent to account for the 
 passage of nutrient matter towards and into the center of 
 living matter. Dr. Lionel S. Beale says that chemical 
 affinity cannot explain it. 
 
 6. No inorganic force furnishes a satisfactory explan- 
 ation of the fact that the moment nutrient matter be- 
 comes living, it moves from the center of the cell out- 
 wards. Why is the flow of the non-living centripetal, and 
 the flow of the living centrifugal ? Why is the movement 
 of the one invariably in an opposite direction to that of 
 the other ? Dr. Beale affirms that no form of attraction 
 and repulsion accounts for the phenomena. To reduce 
 
32G THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 life to "mere attractions and repulsions," and to " regard 
 physiology as a complex branch of physics," Huxley 
 severely denounced it in 1853. He prefers to view " vital- 
 ity as a property inherent in certain kinds of matter." He 
 thinks the life-property of protoplasm is due to its ele- 
 ments, — oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon, and phos- 
 phorus. He says: — " If the nature and properties of 
 water may be properly said to result from the nature and 
 disposition of its molecules, I can find no intelligible ground 
 for refusing to say that the properties of protoplasm 
 result from the nature and disposition of its molecules." 
 He has not proved, however, that the properties of 
 different substances are properties in the same sense, 
 nor that they are properties of the same order. What 
 is the particular property of protoplasm which causes 
 nutrient matter to move inwards towards its center, and 
 living matter to move outwards towards its circumfer- 
 ence ? We have the authority, not only of Beale, but 
 even of Huxley, for affirming that the phenomena are 
 not produced by attraction and repulsion. Are they 
 an effect of vital force ? 
 
 7. The changes effected in substances by living matter 
 are essentially different from those produced by other 
 agencies. Nutrient matter is changed when it is trans- 
 muted into living matter. 
 
 8. Neither the formation, nor the growth, of the 
 simplest living thing can be explained without the as- 
 sumption of some force independent of, and superior to, 
 chemical and mechanical forces. If, according to the 
 theory now popular, the living and the not-living alike 
 consist of ordinary matter and ordinary force, being the 
 same in kind and differing only in degree; and if, as we 
 are told, there is in living things no vital principle sep- 
 arable from the matter with which it is associated, and 
 
LIFE AND ITS RELATIONS TO MATTER. 327 
 
 from which, as well as from ordinary force, it is essentially 
 different, — then why are scientists unable, with the assis- 
 tance of matter and mere physical force, to explain the 
 formation and growth of any living organism ? Why is 
 every explanation that is given incessantly assuming the 
 existence of a force diverse from any force known to 
 exist in the inorganic world ? 
 
 9. There is a wide difference between inanimate mole- 
 cules and animate molecules; and yet both are subject 
 to the ordinary forces of nature. The lifeless and the 
 living are governed by laws essentially different. There 
 must be a vital force, whose laws and modes of operation 
 are diverse from those of any other force. 
 
 10. A mass of protoplasm moves and converts pabu- 
 lum into living matter without any waste of either ma- 
 terial or force. This, chemistry and mechanics cannot 
 do. Let materialists produce, without leaving any chips 
 in their workshop, a little speck of jelly throbbing with 
 life, and it will be easier to believe that there is no 
 " vital force " distinguishable from ordinary force. 
 
 11. The brain is not competent to secrete mind as the 
 liver secretes bile. The relation of mind to brain is 
 different from the relation of bile to the liver. No true 
 analogy exists. Mind is not tangible. 
 
 12. Vital power is necessary to account for the differ- 
 ence between brain-cells, liver-cells, and nerve-cells. It 
 is inconceivable that these — indistinguishable under the 
 microscope — should produce such diverse results, if sub- 
 ject to no influence except that of physical force. Why 
 is it impossible for the one set of cells to perform the 
 functions belonging to either of the others ? 
 
 13. There is life in the germ before there is any ma- 
 chinery in it. Why, then, should we affirm that living 
 things are mere machines ? If the " vital machine " dif- 
 
328 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 fers radically from every other kind of machine, the term 
 " machine" should not be employed. To employ it with- 
 out an accurate statement of the respects in which it 
 differs from the term as used to define life, is as unfair 
 as it is unphilosophical. It assumes the very thing which 
 is to be proved. 
 
 14. Inorganic matter, which is itself subject to the 
 ordinary forces of nature, does not grow from within by 
 taking matter unlike itself and communicating to it its 
 own properties. Why, then, may we not apply the term 
 "vital force" to that which is characteristic of life and is 
 different from all ordinary forces ? 
 
 15. Living matter moves and forms, self-impelled; 
 non-living matter can do neither. Why regard two things 
 which are diverse, as differing in degree, not in kind ? 
 
 16. All animals, and pre-eminently human beings, have 
 sensation and volition. Inorganic substances have neither. 
 
 17. All organisms have personal identity, though the 
 molecules composing them are in constant flux. In what 
 does the identity inhere, if there is no vital force ? 
 
 18. Man, at will, can employ language expressive of 
 inward feelings, thoughts, fears, and hopes. Matter can- 
 not. Machinery does not start and stop at pleasure. 
 
 19. Man has self-consciousness. To apply the term 
 machine, and without limiting its meaning, to a being 
 possessing a consciousness of its own existence appears 
 preposterous. 
 
 20. Embryos are, to appearance, the same. If there is 
 no individual " vital force," what makes them to differ ? 
 Why does not the potato develop into an elephant; the 
 dog-embryo into a Socrates; the midge-embryo into a 
 monkey ? 
 
 21. The matter of man is no more complex than 
 that of other animals. He is subject to the same forces 
 
LIFE AND ITS RELATIONS TO MATTER. 329 
 
 of nature that other animals are. There is no force 
 operating from inorganic nature upon him which does not 
 operate on every living thing. Why, then, if he has no 
 individual vital force, does he differ from other animals, 
 being more intelligent, possessing moral convictions, and 
 having religious impulses ? 
 
 22. If there is no ''vital force," what causes the 
 various parts of every organism to be correlated ? Is 
 the question answered by assuming, as Professor Hux- 
 ley does, that " a particle of jelly" is capable of guid- 
 ing physical forces in such a manner as to give rise 
 to exquisitely arranged structures? How came a " par- 
 ticle of jelly " in the brain so related to a "particle of 
 jelly" in the toe as to report the prick of a needle 
 and induce the promulgation of a decree for its re- 
 moval, putting the organism into motion for the attain- 
 ment of this result ? Nor could chance have proved 
 more successful than structureless bioplasts in adjusting 
 all the parts of the body one to another. 
 
 23. Life is more than an aggregate of elemental units. 
 St. Peter's, at Rome, is not a mere aggregation of grains 
 of sand. As no one has been able to discover structure 
 of any kind whatsoever in these elemental units, why re- 
 gard a living organism as an aggregate of these ?' To 
 say that what is designated as man's life is the aggregated 
 life of the bioplasts which are at work in his body, is as 
 if I should say that the laborers who worked upon the 
 Brooklyn bridge were the architects of the structure. 
 
 24. Bioplasts may be living in man's body after it 
 has become a corpse. Then some bioplasts, by an inex- 
 plicable blunder, were not aggregated into that life 
 whose mystery they are supposed to aid in solving. The 
 superintendent may depart, while many of the workmen 
 are still living and blindly working on. 
 
330 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 WHAT IS THE ORIGIN OF LIFE ? 
 
 To this question various answers have been given: — 
 
 1. Life on the earth came from some other planet. 
 This is, of course, no solution of the problem. It merely 
 affirms that the life which exists on this planet had an 
 extra-mundane origin. 
 
 2. Life originated itself. This theory has no basis 
 upon which to rest except the exigencies of the evolu- 
 tional theory. This, even Mr. Huxley admits. It is 
 safe to assert that matter never could have originated a 
 new set of molecular arrangements, thereby generating 
 the bioplasmic elements from which bodies were self- 
 constructed. To believe that a few atoms of matter 
 chanced to combine once, and once only, in such ways as 
 to originate "a homogeneous atom of plasson " ; that 
 this " primeval parent of all organisms," though organless, 
 evolved higher organisms, by molecular changes between 
 its own particles; that it moved forwards to the attain- 
 ment of intelligent results, though devoid of intelligence 
 and without a superintending agent; that there is no 
 basic difference between the living and the not-living, — 
 is to most minds impossible. 
 
 3. Life is the immediate creation of an Omnipotent 
 Personality. This theory, which is more widely accepted 
 than any other, maintains that every true species is a 
 direct creation. It repudiates that form of evolution 
 which assumes that all organisms are evolved from pre- 
 existing organisms by forces inherent therein. It asserts: 
 If, as is conceded, life must have been breathed into at 
 least one organism by an Intelligent Personality, there 
 is nothing unphilosophical in supposing that it may have 
 been breathed into each distinct species. If one miracle 
 must have occurred, as science is constrained to admit. 
 
LIFE AND ITS RELATIONS TO MATTER. 331 
 
 others may have occurred. God is eternally existent, 
 and eternally omnipotent. He did not cease exist- 
 ence, nor cease to be all-potent, after creating one 
 germ. 
 
 4. Life, as it now exists in various species, is an 
 evolution from parental forms which were a direct crea- 
 tion of God. Life came from Deity, being an immediate 
 creation ex niJiilo. The various organisms in which it 
 now pulsates owe their origin to creation by derivation 
 from pre-existing species, or to evolution in some form 
 not at variance with theistic conceptions of the universe, 
 and not open to the objections which lie against all 
 atheistic forms of the doctrine. 
 
 5. Life is a necessary and involuntary effluence from 
 God. It is a drop from the fountain of His own being, 
 possessing as He does, and necessarily must possess, life, 
 consciousness, mentality, will, affection, moral-sense, etc. 
 The life He possesses, being infinite, must necessarily 
 flood the universe. As He is eternally active, His life 
 must assume all possible forms. The totality of life in the 
 universe is God. His life could not be infinite unless it 
 were the life of all organisms. If plants and animals had 
 an independent existence, in other words, if they were 
 not an integral part of Him, an infinite life could not be 
 regarded as one of His attributes. 
 
 6. Life is a volitional effluence from God. From Him, 
 by an act of His own will, flows a limitless ocean of 
 existence. Individual organisms are but drops of spray 
 thrown up from the heaving sea of being. Between two 
 vast durations, a past and a future, they throb with life 
 for a brief moment, and sink back again into the billows, 
 from which new personalities are incessantly emerging. 
 "God is all and in all." 
 
 There are christian theologians who are indisposed to 
 
332 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 permit pantheism to monopolize this last theory. Di- 
 vesting it of the assumption that conscious existence 
 may perhaps lose personal identity, they prefer it to any 
 other speculative explanation yet furnished. Life is a 
 volitional effluence from an Infinite Personality. 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 MIND AND MATTER. 
 
 In this chapter, and in chapters following, the reader is 
 invited to consider the most important question which 
 is engaging the speculative world, — What relation sub- 
 sists between mind and matter ? Is the former iden- 
 tical with the latter ? is it one of its attributes ? Is 
 thought an effect of vibrations in brain-tissue, the vi- 
 brations being results of purely physical changes, the 
 changes unavoidable consequences of the nutriment sup- 
 plied to the system ? Are ideas an evolution from the soil 
 upon which we tread ? Under the influence of air, shower, 
 and sunshine, does the mineral kingdom impart to the 
 vegetable the forces which pass under the designation 
 " vital," being appropriated by man, either directly or 
 through animal food ? Are the intellect, the sensibilities, 
 and the will, modified forms of matter or products there- 
 of ? Are mentality and its fruitage — hope, fear, joy, 
 sorrow, gratitude, love — only transmutations of matter 
 and ordinary physical force ? Is man in every respect the 
 child of evolution, in origin, in life, in character ? Is 
 human freedom but a spark emitted by the machinery of 
 life, as the will is performing its allotted task in move- 
 ments that are as irresistible as omnipotence, and as 
 heartless as fate ? 
 
 The discussion of these and similar questions neces- 
 
334 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 sitates a consideration of theories which pronounce 
 sensation, ideation, and volition simply molecular changes 
 produced in the brain by a force inherent therein; which 
 regard matter as the only reality, mind being one of its 
 qualities or one of its modes of existence; which desig- 
 nate the two as " one substance, with two sets of 
 properties, two sides, the physical and the spiritual 
 — a double-sided unity."* 
 
 Accepting the assertion of Dr. W. B. Carpenter, — 
 " Between matter and mind it is utterly vain to attempt 
 to establish a relation of identity," — we present evidence 
 tending to confirm faith in the immateriality of the 
 latter. 
 
 Other questions also press for solution. How is the 
 immaterial connected with the material ? Has it a 
 special organ ? or is it diffused throughout the body ? If 
 its seat is in the nervous system, in which part are its 
 powers concentrated ? Are they equally in all its parts, 
 or are they resident in certain ganglionic centers, — the 
 spinal cord, the medulla oblongata, the pons varolii, the 
 crura cerebri, the quadrigemina, the corpora striata, the 
 cerebellum, and the cerebral hemispheres ? Is the mind, 
 in its totality, in each ganglionic center, in part in each, 
 or all in one ? If all is in each, how shall we prove it 
 an undivided unity ? If part is in each, are we to under- 
 stand that extension is a property of immaterial unity ? 
 If all is in one, in which is it resident, and how are 
 its mandates communicated to other centers ? As men- 
 tal force and organic structure are so correlated that it 
 is difficult to see how one can be active without the 
 other, if indeed either can exist alone; and afs we have 
 no conclusive evidence that mentality is possible with- 
 out physical organs, — are we to conclude that mind, like 
 * Mind and Body, Alexander Bain, p. 196. 
 
MIND AND MATTER. 335 
 
 the tissues it employs, is a result of growth and perishes 
 with the organism ? If the two are developed concur- 
 rently, are they inseparable as long as either exists ? 
 If not a concurrent development, which is effect and 
 which is cause ? Has the mind developed an organism 
 adapted to its purposes ? or has the organism evolved 
 a mind which shall be its agent ? Can mentality re- 
 tain conscious existence after the material organism 
 has perished ? Can the organism continue to exist after 
 mentality has departed ? Is man's animal-life so far dis- 
 tinct from his mental that it can be maintained after all 
 mind is lost ? 
 
 How many and what are the faculties of mind ? Is each 
 correlated to a particular portion of the brain ? Is each 
 dependent for its vigor upon the quantity and quality 
 of the brain-tissue it employs ? Is each requisite to the 
 mental constitution, being present in the new-born babe 
 — in the human egg ab initio ? If none are evolved, how 
 are we to explain the fact that reason and conscience are 
 in large measure dependent on education, even the adult 
 being capable of acquiring new mental aptitudes, brain- 
 tissue being so modified as to enable him to perform 
 mechanical operations once impossible to him, almost 
 inconceivable ? If one or more faculties are capable of 
 evolution, material agents being efficient in the origi- 
 nation of mental force, why may not other faculties be 
 evolved ? 
 
 Again: does belief in the materiality of mind preclude 
 belief in its immortality ? If, as science affirms, matter 
 is indestructible, may it not be that matter in the form 
 of mind — if mind is mere matter — may be indestructible, 
 not merely in its essence, but in its form, as much so as 
 the atom of gross matter is? If mind is an immaterial 
 force, and by consequence, like all force, indestructible. 
 
336 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 is it so inseparably associated with matter that when the 
 body perishes, it is allied with other matter ? And if 
 being indestructible, it must continue to exist, and must 
 continue its alliance with matter, have we any right to 
 assume, without the shadow of evidence, that it may 
 undergo conversion to such an extent as to lose the 
 consciousness of individual existence and the sense of 
 personal identity ? 
 
 Questions such as these, momentous beyond compari- 
 son and intricate to the last degree, are exciting warm 
 discussions in the present day. Without attempting their 
 solution — a solution which even the ablest philosophers 
 are unequal to the task of furnishing — we may legitimately 
 undertake to present the fruits of modern research, as 
 far as satisfactory results have been attained. Is mind 
 equally diffused throughout the body ? Is it divisible ? 
 Is the brain its organ ? Is it no more than a form of 
 matter ? Is it an attribute of matter ? Is it one side 
 of a " double-faced unity" ? 
 
 Before entering upon the discussion of these and 
 kindred questions — all of which are exceedingly diffi- 
 cult — it is proper to acknowledge indebtedness to Drs. 
 Carpenter, Ferrier, and Dalton, whose views commend 
 themselves to reason and carry greater weight than the 
 reasoning of those who advocate antagonistic opinions. 
 Under the leadership of authors who have studied the 
 subject thoroughly, and who manifest a sincere desire 
 to rid themselves of prejudice, the reader may hope to 
 secure reliable knowledge. 
 
 In order to present the subject in a manner fitted to 
 leave an undivided impression upon the mind, it is nec- 
 essary to consider, briefly at least, the several parts 
 of the nervous system, and ascertain, as far as may be 
 possible, the functions of each. After examining these as 
 
MIND AND MATTER. 337 
 
 minutely as the limits of the present work will permit, 
 the reader, it is hoped, will be in possession of the facts 
 upon which an argument can be constructed. 
 
 THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 
 
 The Spinal Cord: — This, contained in the spinal canal 
 and sending nerves to the muscles and to the epidermis, 
 consists, on its outer surface, of a white substance; and 
 within, of gray matter. The white substance is the 
 medium of communication between the brain and the 
 various parts of the body. The gray substance is a ner- 
 vous center in which impulses may originate. These 
 impulses are reflex in character, not volitional, as will 
 hereafter appear. 
 
 The spinal cord is composed of the same materials as 
 the brain; with this marked difference, however, that 
 whereas, in the former, the gray matter is within, in the 
 latter, the gray matter is on the surface; and whereas, in 
 the brain there is an almost endless variety in structure, 
 in the spinal cord there is a continuous repetition of the 
 same structure. 
 
 Afferent and Efferent Nerves: — There are two sets of 
 nerves; first, those which convey impressions to the brain, 
 called afferent or sensory nerves; second, those which 
 convey impulses from the brain to the parts of the body, 
 denominated efferent, motor, or volitional nerves. It is 
 only through the afferent nerves that the mind becomes 
 cognizant of the external world. * It is only through the 
 efferent nerves that volitions are communicated to the 
 parts of the body. If the finger touches a hot iron, the 
 
 * These nerves invariably report impressions as received at their extremities, 
 and not as received at some point along their path. Consequen tly, if a leg is 
 amputated, the patient may feel pains in his foot; that is, the nerves, which ere 
 the leg was amputated ran to the toes, convey to the brain an impression which 
 is interpreted by the brain as a pain in the amputated foot 
 
338 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 afferent nerves convey an impression to the brain. * The 
 will thereupon orders a withdrawal of the finger from 
 contact with the heated surface. This order is conveyed 
 by the efferent nerves to the muscle which moves the 
 finger. A contraction of the muscle immediately takes 
 place, and the injured member is withdrawn. If the 
 efferent nerves in the finger were all severed, there 
 would be no impression conveyed to the sensorium. If 
 the sensorium were insensible to the impression, there 
 would be no sense of pain, however severe the burning 
 might be. If the efferent nerves in the arm were severed, 
 there would be no volitional movement, though, as is 
 frankly conceded, there would be reflex movement. It 
 has been ascertained that a certain amount of time is 
 necessary for the transmission of a sensory impression 
 to the brain, for the brain to originate a volition, and 
 for the transmission of this volition through the efferent 
 nerves to the part to be moved. Dr. Ferrier has computed 
 the time requisite in each of the three processes. 
 
 These nerves, both the afferent and the efferent, pass 
 into the spinal cord, and constitute its white substance, 
 the spinal cord being thus the only means of communica- 
 tion between the brain and the periphery. The impres- 
 sions upon the periphery are consequently conveyed to 
 the brain exclusively through the spinal cord, by the 
 afferent nerves; and the volitions are transmitted to the 
 muscles exclusively through the spinal cord, by the effer- 
 ent nerves. Hence, as might be expected, the division 
 of the spinal cord destroys at once all sensibility, and all 
 power of voluntary movement, in the parts below the 
 division, communication with the brain being severed. 
 Consequently, there can be no further consciousness of 
 pain in the parts below the division, for they have no 
 connection with the sensorium; nor can volitions be 
 
MIND AND MATTER. 339 
 
 communicated to the parts below the injury, for the only 
 means of transmitting them is destroyed, the efferent 
 nerves being cut. 
 
 Still, after the spinal cord is severed, if the sole of 
 the foot is tickled, convulsive movements are noticeable. 
 They are involuntary, however; and originate in the gray 
 matter of the spinal cord, which is a nervous center for 
 corresponding regions of the body. There is no con- 
 sciousness of the irritation and no volitional movement of 
 the foot, the convulsive jerks being merely reflex actions. 
 It is conceded that the spinal cord possesses functions as 
 an independent nerve-center, as well as the functions it 
 possesses as a medium of communication between the 
 brain and the periphery. The impressions made on the 
 integument are conveyed by afferent nerves to the gray 
 matter of the spinal cord, whence an impulse may be sent 
 along the efferent nerves to the muscles, causing them to 
 contract. Such action is termed reflex, and of it con- 
 sciousness is not a necessary attendant. The palm of 
 a sleeping infant, if touched, will close. There is, how- 
 ever, no consciousness of the tactile impression. The 
 same touch, if the child is in a waking state, would excite 
 conscious sensation, and the closing of the hand might 
 be either reflex or volitional. If a drop of acid is 
 placed on the leg of a decapitated frog, the foot of the 
 same side is raised to remove the irritant. If this foot is 
 'amputated, an attempt is made to scratch the irritated 
 part with the mutilated member; after failure to ac- 
 complish the coveted result, the other foot is raised and 
 the cause of irritation is removed. This, though regarded 
 by some as an evidence of intelligence in the spinal cord, 
 is considered by most physiologists, among whom are 
 Drs. Ferrier and Carpenter, as a purely reflex movement, 
 it being conceded that adapted actions, resembling those 
 
340 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 which sensation and intelligence dictate, are possible to 
 the spinal cord independent of consciousness. 
 
 If two frogs, one of which is rendered sightless and 
 the other brainless, are placed in water and the tempera- 
 ture gradually raised, the former attempts to escape 
 when the temperature reaches 25 C; the latter remains 
 quiet, being apparently insensible to the boiling process. 
 Still, if acid is dropped upon the leg of the brainless frog, 
 reflex action takes place. This seems to prove that the 
 spinal cord is not a nervous center of conscious sensation; 
 and that the brain is. 
 
 Again: if the spinal cord is severely injured immedi- 
 ately below the origin of the nerves belonging to the 
 diaphragm, respiration, though imperfect, continues, and 
 life may be maintained, sometimes for five or six days. 
 Consciousness is retained. Vision is unimpaired. Hear- 
 ing remains as acute as before the injury. The reasoning 
 powers are as clear as usual. The victim is a living head, 
 and nothing more. Hence, we are justified in concluding 
 that the mind is not equally diffused throughout the body, 
 but has its seat in the brain. Mind is seemingly an 
 indivisible unity, its powers being concentrated in the 
 head, though we are not warranted in asserting that 
 mind, as a unity, has a local habitation in any one part 
 of the cerebrum, but rather that intellectual activity, in 
 its totality, is dependent on the conjoint action of many 
 parts, whose several functions are capable of being in 
 measure differentiated. True, grief causes tears to flow, 
 and mental anxiety stops the secretion of saliva, and 
 deep emotion interferes with the action of the heart, but 
 the only legitimate inference from these facts is that 
 different states of mind affect different classes of muscles 
 without any exercise whatever of volition. It does not 
 prove that grief has its seat in the ducts of the eye, nor 
 
MIND AND MATTER. 341 
 
 that anxiety has its seat in the fauces, nor that love has 
 its seat in the heart. 
 
 Nor does the fact that some animals may be divided 
 into several parts, each part becoming a distinct indi- 
 vidual, prove that mind is divisible, and is diffused through 
 the entire body. The animals which may be divided 
 without causing death to the several parts, but producing 
 new complete specimens, may be insensible in all the 
 parts, having no true mind anywhere; or, they may be 
 compound animals with several, perhaps an almost in- 
 numerable, number of centers of sensation, and possibly 
 of volition, each part being capable of an independent 
 life. Undoubtedly mere animal life may exist without 
 either sensation or volition. Those animals, which live 
 after division, exhibit no signs of possessing anything 
 more than the power of reflex movement; and possibly 
 have few if any properties higher than those which belong 
 to forms of vegetable life which reproduce themselves 
 from a single cell. 
 
 The Brain: — This is composed of various deposits 
 of gray matter and of an underlying white substance. 
 The latter, which is of a soft consistence, serves as a me- 
 dium of communication between different sections of the 
 encephalon, or as a means of receiving impressions from, 
 and transmitting volitions to, the different parts of the 
 body through either the afferent or the efferent nerves, sen- 
 sory impressions being transmitted from the periphery to 
 the gray matter of the brain, and volitions being trans- 
 mitted from the gray matter to the periphery. The gray 
 substance is of a still softer consistence than the white, 
 and is cellular in its structure, and is abundantly supplied 
 with blood-vessels. 
 
 In this gray substance the fibers of the white have 
 their origin; and nervous force, which is regarded as 
 
342 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 originating in the former, is conducted, directed, and 
 utilized by the latter. The gray matter is not itself ade- 
 quate to the origination of nervous force, the presence of 
 scarlet blood being indispensable; that is, a fluid manu- 
 factured in the body, and having undergone a chemical 
 change by exposure to air in the lungs, must circulate 
 through the veins of the gray matter, or there is no 
 nervous force. Sensibility, even in cold-blooded animals 
 can continue only a short time after the supply of scarlet 
 blood has ceased; and when the brain has become sur- 
 charged with dark-colored blood, some time must elapse 
 before complete sensibility returns. Certain foreign sub- 
 stances, — alcohol, chloroform, opium, etc., — are capable 
 of producing a similiar insensibility. Indeed, unconscious- 
 ness may be produced in varied ways; and consciousness 
 may continue long after the most skillful observer regards 
 it as lost. It may even continue down to the time of 
 death; almost to the moment of dissolution, as numerous 
 examples incontestably prove. The fear of death which 
 is so common to man in seasons of health, may be taken 
 away, no doubt is taken away, as we draw near the hour 
 of dissolution. The dread of dying, which is given us 
 when we are to live, is generally displaced by satisfaction 
 with life when we are die. 
 
 Some, accordingly, are disposed to regard every form 
 of mental activity as a result of changes in the brain 
 itself; which changes they regard as purely mechanical, 
 or as closely analogous to the chemical changes which 
 occur in inorganic matter, being similar to the phenom- 
 ena which we refer to the agency of the physical forces, — 
 light, heat, electricity, magnetism, and chemical affinity. 
 They are unwilling to regard intellectual exercises as 
 the activity of an independent mental force. 
 
 Possibly it is conceivable that the changes in the 
 
MIND AND MATTER. 343 
 
 brain, both those produced by the reception of sensory 
 impressions through the afferent nerves, and the impulses 
 which originating in the gray substance are transmitted 
 through the efferent nerves, may be results of a force 
 similar to that which produces the phenomena of elec- 
 tricity. It does not follow, however, that mind is an 
 attribute of matter; nor that these changes in the brain 
 may not be a result of mental force, which may possibly 
 be as different from physical forces as these are differ- 
 ent from inertia, impenetrability, etc. The elements 
 of which the brain is composed exist, it is true, in 
 the scarlet blood, and are obtained, in measure, from 
 the air. This does not prove that the brain and the 
 mind are identical. The elements in the scarlet blood 
 undergo a chemical change before they are incorporated 
 into the brain. This does not imply that matter can be 
 so transmuted that mentality may be one of its prop- 
 erties. Again: the material elements which enter into 
 the composition of the brain undergo a chemical change, 
 during the process by which thought is evolved, before 
 they are again received into the circulation. Does it 
 follow that thought is matter, or some quality of matter ? 
 Does it follow that volitional impulses are material en- 
 tities, or are modifications of physical forces ? 
 
 It is conceded that science is at present incompetent 
 to determine the character of the physical changes 
 which take place in the brain in the process of thought; 
 nor is it competent to the task of determining by what 
 agency they are produced. Certainly it is premature to 
 affirm that all these changes are produced by purely phys- 
 ical agents, though it is conceded that the more rapid 
 these physical changes are, the more active the mind 
 is at any given time. But that mental force is an effect, 
 and not the cause, of these physical changes has not 
 
344 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 been proved; and the freedom of the human will seems 
 to render it more than probable that no such conclusion 
 can be legitimately reached. An act of volition can set 
 the entire mental machinery into motion. Is it possible 
 to regard this act of will as a result of purely physical 
 changes ? If so, man is indeed under a fatal necessity, 
 and is yet so deluded as to imagine himself free. Am I 
 to conclude that ere I decided upon the form in which 
 this sentence should be constructed, physical changes 
 had taken place in the brain which irrevocably deter- 
 mined its structure, and the very words which should 
 compose it ? Are the changes antecedent to the vo- 
 lition ? If they are, liberty is a delusion. If they are 
 not, then mental force may set physical forces into 
 operation. As a result of a volition to engage in a pro- 
 cess of thought, the brain becomes active. This activ- 
 ity is accompanied by an elimination of salts containing 
 phosphorus, the quantity of phosphorus being deter- 
 mined, in measure at least, by the amount of nervous 
 activity. The act of will has produced physical effects, 
 not alone in the brain, but throughout almost the entire 
 organization, in the lungs, in the heart, in the kidneys, 
 in the stomach, in the nerves, in the muscles. 
 
 It is idle, however, to speculate on the nature of the 
 relation between mind and matter. We might as well 
 attempt to explain the relation of gravitation to iron, or 
 of electricity to amber. To regard magnetism as a form 
 of matter would be no more unreasonable than to regard 
 mentality as such; but magnetism, and as well light, heat, 
 electricity, and chemical affinity, scientists persist in re- 
 garding as modes of motion, and of course immaterial. 
 Why then may not mind also be immaterial ? And as 
 these several physical forces are uniformly found in con- 
 junction with matter — though the impossibility of their 
 
MIND AND MATTER. 345 
 
 existence separate from matter cannot be proved — is 
 there anything contrary to analogy in finding mental 
 force associated with brain-tissue ? And until it has 
 been conclusively proved that each one of these physical 
 forces is a series of molecular changes in matter, why as- 
 sume that the more complicated force, mind, is nothing 
 more than a succession of such molecular changes ? 
 
 The principal divisions of the brain are: — the medulla 
 oblongata, the cerebellum, the pons varolii, the crura 
 cerebri, the corpora quadrigemina, the optic thalami, the 
 corpora striata, the cerebrum. * 
 
 What are the functions of these several parts ? 
 
 The functions of the medulla oblongata: — This is 
 regarded as a complex center of reflex co-ordination. 
 If the encephalic centers above the medulla are re- 
 moved, voluntary motion ceases, though life continues. 
 Reflex movements may be produced by stimulation of 
 any region which receives its nervous supply from the 
 medulla. Thus, the eyelids may be made to close, the 
 facial muscles to contract, the tongue to move, the ear to 
 
 * "After reaching the foramen magnum of the skull, the spinal cord ex- 
 pands into the medulla oblongata. . . . Through this pass the efferent and 
 afferent nerves, though it is difficult to trace the individual tracks of each. . . . 
 The motor paths undergo decussation at the anterior aspect of the lower extre- 
 mity of the medulla oblongata, at a point termed the decussation of the pyra- 
 mids .... At this point, therefore, the path of the motor or efferent im- 
 pulses from the hemispheres crosses to the opposite side of the cord. . . . 
 Emerging from the medulla oblongata the tracks pass into the pons varolii. 
 . . . The decussation of the various sensory and motor tracks is complete in 
 the pons, hence destruction of one side causes paralysis of motion and sensation 
 on the opposite side, and also paralysis of the cranial nerves on the same side." 
 
 "Beyond the pons varolii and re-inforced by fibers derived from it and its 
 connections, the tracks appear as two peduncles, or limbs, called the crura ce- 
 rebri. On the posterior aspect of the crura, and anterior to the cerebellum, 
 are situated certain ganglionic masses, termed the corpora quadrigemina, or 
 optic lobes. ... In the crura there is a distinct separation between the 
 sensory and motor tracks. . . . The crura cerebri pass into the two great 
 
34G THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 twitch, — if the sensory nerves of these parts are irritated. 
 If food is placed in the back of the mouth, deglutition 
 takes place. These movements — possibly even when 
 every center above the med la is destroyed — are purely 
 reflex. Volition is in no way connected with them; nor is 
 the subject conscious of the movements. 
 
 It is also probable that the medulla is the co-ordi- 
 nating center of the movements concerned in articulate 
 speech, the mere movements being seemingly possible, 
 though of course intelligent speech is not, since this 
 demands the activity of higher nervous centers. Thus, 
 a rat, if deprived of all the encephalic centers above 
 the medulla, gives a cry, as if in pain, when the foot is 
 pinched; but if the medulla is destroyed, no cry is heard, 
 death ensuing without the utterance of any sound. As 
 the medulla is the co-ordinating center of respiratory 
 movements, which are purely reflex, of course breathing 
 continues as long as the medulla remains uninjured; and 
 as long as the possibility of breathing continues, there 
 is also the possibility of uttering cries, which are 
 also simply reflex actions. As soon as the medulla 
 is destroyed, respiration — except in the case of cold- 
 blooded animals, which live for a time by respiration 
 
 ganglia situated at the base of the brain. . . . One of these basal ganglia, 
 the posterior pair, is called the optic thalami; the anterior, the corpora 
 striata. . . . The optic thalami are ganglia of the sensory track, and the 
 corpora striata, ganglia of the motor track." 
 
 " The cerebellum occupies a position above the medulla oblongata and 
 pons varolii and posterior to the corpora quadrigemina. Its surface is dis- 
 posed in the form of laminated folds, the gray matter which forms the surface 
 exhibits on section the form of leaflets. . . . The cerebellum is connected 
 with the medulla oblongata by two peduncles, termed the inferior peduncles of 
 the cerelxdlum." 
 
 " The cerebral hemispheres form each a sort of hollow shell enclosing and 
 overlapping the great basal ganglia." — Functions of the Brain, Ferrier, pp. 6. 
 7, 8, 9, 12, 13. 
 
MIND AND MATTER. 347 
 
 through the skin — is no longer possible, and death 
 follows. 
 
 It is conceded that the mechanism of respiration is 
 essentially reflex in its character, though, as is evident 
 in the movements concerned in articulation and vocaliza- 
 tion, it is subject in measure to the will. The control of 
 the will over respiration is, however, very limited. By 
 an act of will, we may cease to breathe for a brief time, 
 it is true; but control over this reflex activity of the me- 
 dulla cannot be long maintained. The will is forced to 
 succumb. In like manner, the will has a limited control 
 over the movements concerned in the expulsion of the 
 fceces and the urine. The movements, however, are es- 
 sentially reflex. The same is true in reference to sneez- 
 ing and coughing. Each can be partially repressed. 
 Each can be done in obedience to a command from the 
 will; though both, and especially the former, are so es- 
 sentially reflex actions, that the volitional can be readily 
 distinguished from the automatic. 
 
 The pulsations of the heart are also modified through 
 the nerves which center in the medulla. Of these nerves, 
 one set accelerates, the other retards, the action of this 
 organ. The former set can be excited to increased ac- 
 tivity by muscular exertion. 
 
 The blood vessels are also to some extent under the 
 control of the medulla. 
 
 It thus becomes evident that the medulla oblongata is 
 the co-ordinating center of the reflex actions essential to 
 the continuance of life; which is not a result of a series of 
 volitions; nor can it be made to terminate by an act of 
 will. As long as the medulla remains uninjured, even 
 though all above it may be destroyed, life may continue. 
 Respiration goes on. The heart continues to beat. De- 
 glutition is possible, provided the food is placed at the 
 
34S THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 root of the tongue. The sensory nerves re-act to impres- 
 sions. There is, however, no sensation in the proper 
 sense of the word, that is, there is no consciousness of 
 impressions made on the integument; nor are there any 
 movements indicating intelligence. The mutilated or- 
 ganism is simply an automatic mechanism. 
 
 The functions of the mesencephalon and the cerebellum: 
 — For the purpose in view, it is not necessary to enter 
 upon the vexed question, What are the specific functions 
 of each of the parts of the brain designated as the pons 
 varolii, the crura cerebri, the corpora quadrigemina, and 
 the cerebellum. Physiologists concede that it is not 
 possible to differentiate with accuracy the functions of 
 each. Accordingly, it is proper to confine the discussion 
 to a consideration of the function of these parts in to- 
 tality. What these are can be ascertained by removing 
 from animals all the centers in advance of the quadrige- 
 mina, that is, by the removal of the cerebral hemispheres. 
 The frog, deprived of the cerebral lobes, is capable of 
 maintaining its equilibrium. Laid on the back it will 
 recover its normal position. Placed on a board which is 
 gradually tilted to one side, it will make the movements 
 necessary to keep the center of gravity within the base. 
 Pinched, it will hop away. Thrown into the water, it 
 will swim. Stroked gently upon the back, it will croak. 
 Placed in heated water, it will not remain quiet till boiled 
 to death, as the frog will in which all the centers above 
 the medulla have been destroyed. Thrust to the bottom 
 of a vessel of water, it will ascend to the surface for air. 
 It will hop around an object placed in the line of its 
 progress. 
 
 Between the frog deprived of its hemispheres and the 
 unmutilated specimen, there is, however, one marked dif- 
 ference. In the former, all voluntary movements are at 
 
MIND AND MATTER. 349 
 
 an end. Its movements are automatic. Memory also is 
 destroyed, as is evident from the fact that the once timid 
 creature now manifests no fear under any circumstances. 
 It sits quiet, or if induced to move by a momentary im- 
 pulse, moves ordinarily in a straight line till the impulse 
 has exhausted itself, and then again lapses into quiet. 
 Unless artificially fed, it will die of starvation, there be- 
 ing no will to appropriate food, and no memory of the 
 past prompting it to associate food with the gratification 
 of an inward desire; indeed, though dying of starvation, 
 it can have no sense of hunger; and though pricked 
 with needles, it can have no feeling of pain. There is no 
 further consciousness of the condition of the body. 
 
 A pigeon from which the cerebral hemispheres have 
 been taken is capable of maintaining a standing posture, 
 and even of regaining its feet, if laid upon its side; also of 
 flying, if thrown into the air. Left undisturbed, however, 
 it remains perfectly quiet. Ammonia placed near its 
 nostrils causes it to start back. A light flashed before 
 its eyes causes the pupils to dilate. The discharge of a 
 pistol produces .a sudden start. Consequently, smell, 
 sight, and hearing are not destroyed. After each active 
 manifestation, caused by stimulation, it sinks back into a 
 state of repose resembling profound sleep. 
 
 Like the frog, it has no power of volition, no memory, 
 and no consciousness of pain. Unless artificially fed, it 
 will die of starvation. It cannot be frightened by move- 
 ments which produce fright in the unmutilated specimen. 
 It gives no evidence of suffering pain, except movements 
 which may be regarded as reflex. 
 
 A removal of the hemispheres from a rabbit is accom- 
 panied with like results. The animal retains the power 
 of locomotion and of preserving its. equilibrium. If it 
 begins to run, it runs headlong. The pupils contract 
 
3">0 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 under a strong light. The eyelids wink. A loud noise 
 causes a sudden start. Acid placed on the tongue causes 
 attempts to remove the irritant. If the feet are severely 
 pinched, prolonged cries are uttered. Undisturbed, the 
 animal remains quiet and dies of starvation in the midst 
 of plenty. If food is placed in its mouth, it swallows 
 and may be kept alive for an indefinite length of time. 
 
 The conclusion deducible from these and similar ex- 
 periments is, that neither these centers nor those below 
 them are in themselves capable of originating voli- 
 tions or sensations proper. The mesencephalic centers 
 and the cerebellar centers have as their functions, 
 (i) the maintenance of equilibrium, (2) the co-ordination 
 of movements concerned in locomotion, (3) the move- 
 ments expressive of emotions. All actions in these cen- 
 ters are performed in response to stimulus communicated 
 to them through the afferent nerves, except such as are 
 purely reflex. In no case have they any connection with 
 volition, intelligence, memory, or consciousness. Some 
 movements originating in these centers seem volitional, 
 it is true, and appear to manifest an intelligent adaptation 
 of means to the accomplishment of a coveted result. 
 They are volitional, however, only in appearance. When 
 we come to examine the nature of the impressions which 
 are the immediate antecedent of these activities it is found 
 to be purely physical, not psychical. If sensation is to 
 be defined as the consciousness of an impression, the 
 question resolves itself into this, Is consciousness attend- 
 ant on the activity of the mesencephalic centers ? This 
 question Drs. Dalton and Ferrier answer in the negative.* 
 
 * Dr. Carpenter, while asserting that "the motor fibers which pass from the 
 brain, though commonly designated cerebral, cannot be certainly said to have 
 a higher origin than the corpora striata " (p. 121), yet affirms, "Although every 
 segment of the spinal cord and every part of the sensory ganglia, may be con- 
 sidered, in common with the cerebrum, as an independent center of nervous 
 
MIND AND MATTER. 351 
 
 Nor is the simple faculty of adaptation a proof of con- 
 scious choice. Such power of adapted action pertains in 
 measure to the spinal cord, though no physiologist of any 
 eminence regards the spinal cord as capable of conscious 
 activity. It exists in the mesencephalic centers in greater 
 complexity, because there is a much greater complexity 
 of the afferent and efferent relations; but sensation proper, 
 the consciousness of an impression or of a movement, it 
 is conceded is not a function of these centers. Sensation, 
 memory, intelligence, volition, and consciousness, have 
 their seat in the cerebral hemispheres. Even the doubt 
 which formerly lingered in the minds of some, whether 
 the hemispheres were indispensably necessary to the 
 momentary consciousness of tactile impressions, is now 
 effectually dissipated by the fact that, if disease invades 
 the crura cerebri, thereby practically detaching the 
 hemispheres from the lower centers, there is absolutely 
 no consciousness of tactile impressions in the opposite 
 side of the body. Consequently, we infer that in the 
 mesencephalic centers alone sensory impressions are not 
 accompanied with consciousness, but that true sensation 
 must be a function of higher centers. Neither equilibra- 
 tion nor locomotion requires the aid of consciousness, as 
 is evident from the feats performed by somnambulists. 
 Nor is consciousness needed in the movements expres- 
 sive of emotion, as is manifest in watching the features 
 
 power, yet this independence is only manifested when these organs are separated 
 from each other; either structurally, by division, or functionally, by partial 
 suspension of activity. In their state of perfect integrity and complete func- 
 tional activity they are for the most part (at least in man) in such subordination 
 to the cerebrum that they minister to its action, except in so far as they are 
 subservient to the maintenance of the organic functions, as in the automatic 
 acts of breathing and swallowing" (p. 122). " That the will should have a 
 certain degree of control over such movements is necessary in order that they 
 may be rendered subservient to various actions which are necessary for the due 
 exercise of man's psychical powers" (p. 123). 
 
352 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 of the dreaming infant. We may feign emotion, and we 
 may also repress its manifestation to a considerable ex- 
 tent, but in a majority of instances the real emotion 
 will exhibit itself in the features, despite all efforts to 
 conceal it. Consequently, the co-ordinating centers of 
 emotion must lie below the region of volition, of ideation, 
 and even of consciousness. 
 
 Nor does the fact that the frog is capable of croaking, 
 though deprived of its hemispheres, furnish satisfactory 
 proof that it is conscious of the gentle strokes upon its 
 back, which strokes elicit the sounds. The croaking is 
 caused by the rubbing of the cutaneous nerves of the 
 back. If the skin is removed, the croaking ceases, no 
 matter how gently nor how forcibly the stroking is done. 
 The action then is reflex, not volitional. 
 
 Nor are the corpora quadrigemina the center of con- 
 scious vision. The head of an animal from which the 
 cerebral lobes have been abstracted is moved, it is true, 
 when a bright light is flashed before its eyes. The move- 
 ments, however, are regarded as reflex, not volitional. 
 
 In like manner, though a brainless animal starts at a 
 sharp sound, conscious hearing is not regarded as a func- 
 tion of the lower centers. The movements, like those 
 previously referred to, are considered automatic, not a 
 result of volition prompted by the consciousness of hav- 
 ing heard a sound. 
 
 Having reached the conclusion that intelligence, sen- 
 sation proper, memory, and volition, are not functions 
 of any center lower than the corpora quadrigemina, the 
 reader is prepared for the further statement that the 
 cerebellum is not the seat of these mental activities. 
 The cerebellum is an essential part of the mechanism by 
 which reflex action is produced, but is not the seat of 
 intelligence, of volition, of ideation, of memory, or of 
 
MIND AND MATTER. 353 
 
 consciousness. Experiment has established this almost 
 or quite beyond dispute. If the cerebellum is removed 
 from a pigeon, instead of remaining quiet as the pigeon 
 does from which the hemispheres have been ablated, it is 
 in a constant state of agitation. It sees a threatened 
 danger and makes efforts to escape, but is powerless. 
 Equilibration and locomotion are lost. Sensation, vo- 
 lition, intelligence, and memory remain. In numerous 
 experiments made by Dr. Ferrier upon birds and animals, 
 similar results were found to ensue; Viz., disordered 
 movements resembling those of intoxication, but no im- 
 pairment of volition, of intelligence, or of sensation. 
 
 It seems, however, in the case of man at least, that 
 science does not warrant the inference that the cerebel- 
 lum is the center of the co-ordinated movements nec- 
 essary to equilibration and locomotion. Persons in whom 
 the cerebellum is entirely wanting, or in whom it has been 
 completely destroyed by disease, have been able to stand 
 and to walk, generally, however, with difficulty and in a 
 tottering manner. Sensation, volition, memory, sight, 
 hearing, touch, smell, intelligence, will, remain unim- 
 paired. Locomotion is regarded by most physiologists 
 as a function of the corpora quadrigemina. Certainly the 
 above cases seem to prove that if these muscular adjust- 
 ments are ordinarily functions of the cerebellum, they 
 may at least be carried on independently of it. Perhaps 
 the true theory is that equilibration and locomotion are 
 functions of a conjoint mechanism; of which, when one 
 part is destroyed, the remaining parts are capable, after 
 education, of fulfilling the functions previously performed 
 by the conjoint mechanism. 
 
 Though the question, What are the functions of the 
 cerebellum ? is one of the most difficult in human physi- 
 ology, and one upon which great diversity of opinion 
 
354 THE IBM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 exists, there is nevertheless unanimity upon two points: 
 (i) Volition, consciousness, memory, ideation, and intelli- 
 gence are not among its functions; (2) Injuries inflicted 
 upon it ordinarily produce only transient effects upon 
 mental operations, and even from its complete destruction 
 ultimate recovery is possible, its absence leaving no one 
 of the faculties seriously weakened. 
 
 It is conceded, then, that sensation proper, volition, 
 intelligence, memory, judgment, and the instinct of self- 
 preservation, are not functions of any ganglionic center 
 outside of the cerebral hemispheres. Are they func- 
 tions of the cerebrum ? 
 
 The Cerebrum: — This consists of a mass of white 
 substance covered by a layer of gray matter, and is 
 in the form of two ovoidal masses called hemispheres. 
 Their surface is disposed in convolutions, the extent of 
 each convolution being determined by fissures. At these 
 fissures the opposite edges of adjoining convolutions lie 
 in contact. Near these fissures the gray substance is 
 more abundant; consequently, the more numerous the 
 fissures, and the deeper they are, the greater the quantity 
 of gray matter. Neither these fissures, nor the convolu- 
 tions, are the same in all crania. Still, certain fissures 
 and certain convolutions are essential features.* 
 
 * The more important fissures are: — 
 
 1. The longitudinal fissure; which separates the two hemispheres, dividing 
 the brain into two equal parts. 
 
 2. The fissure of Sylvius; which, beginning back of the first temporal con- 
 volution, runs backwards and upwards, and is divided in man into two branches, 
 one of which is denominated the anterior branch, the other, the posterior. 
 The space between the two branches forms the roof of what is denominated the 
 Island of Keil. 
 
 3. The fissure of Rolando; which, commencing near the median line runs 
 nearly to the fissure of Sylvius. 
 
 4. The parietal fissure; which, starting behind the posterior central convolu 
 tion, runs through the parietal portion of the hemisphere. 
 
MIND AND MATTER. 355 
 
 The cerebral ganglia, two in number, are at the base 
 of the brain. The anterior pair are denominated corpora 
 striata, and the posterior pair, optic thalami. 
 
 The Gray Matter of tJie HemispJieres: — This lies in 
 layers on the surface of the convolutions, and into it 
 the nerve-fibers of the white substance penetrate. It 
 consists of nerve-cells with ramifying fibers. In the 
 middle portion of the gray substance the cells are larger 
 than on the surface and are termed " pyramids." Each 
 of these pyramids has its base directed inwards towards 
 the white matter and its apex pointing outwards. The 
 nerve-fibers from the white substance diminish in size as 
 they enter the gray substance, and spread themselves in 
 horizontal layers. 
 
 5. The prcecental fissure; running parallel with the fissure of Rolando, a little 
 in front of it. 
 
 6. The superior frontal fissure; running nearly parallel with the great 
 longitudinal fissure, and separating the first and second frontal convolutions. 
 
 7. The inferior frontal fissure ; surrounding the end of the anterior branch 
 of the fissure of Sylvius. 
 
 The principal convolutions of the hemispheres are: — 
 
 1. The first frontal convolution; running from near the upper end of the 
 fissure of Rolando, along the longitudinal fissure to the anterior extremity of the 
 frontal lobe, where it bends downwards and backwards. 
 
 2. The second frontal convolution; running parallel with the preceding. 
 
 3. The third frontal convolution; at the lower part of the frontal lobe and 
 curving round the anterior branch of the fissure of Sylvius. 
 
 4. The anterior central convolution; running outwards and forwards from 
 the great longitudinal fissure, along the fissure of Rolando. 
 
 5. The posterior central convolution; behind the fissure of Rolando and 
 parallel with it. 
 
 6. The supra-marginal convolution; arching around the upper end of the 
 posterior branch of the fissure of Sylvius. 
 
 7. The angular convolution; following the inferior edge of the pa- 
 rietal fissure to its posterior extremity, where it turns downwards and 
 forwards. 
 
 8. First temporal convolution. 
 
 9. Second temporal convolution. 
 
 10. Third temporal convolution. 
 
35G THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 Differences in structure characterize extended sections 
 of the gray matter. In front of the fissure of Rolando, 
 pyramidal cells predominate. In the parietal and tem- 
 poral lobes, small cells are more numerous than larger 
 ones. 
 
 The White Sub ] stance of the Hemispheres: — This is 
 nerve-fibers. These are of three kinds: — 
 
 (i) Commissural fibers. These connect similar parts 
 of the two hemispheres. The principal mass bears the 
 name of corpus callosum and is a broad band situate at 
 the bottom of the longitudinal fissure, the individual 
 fibers of which spread out to all the convolutions of the 
 frontal, the parietal, and the central lobes. Next in im- 
 portance is the anterior commissure, which connects those 
 convolutions of the two hemispheres which lie below the 
 fissure of Sylvius. It is through the agency of these 
 commissural fibers that the two hemispheres are enabled 
 to act in unison. As long as each hemisphere is in a 
 healthful condition, and these connecting fibers are un- 
 impaired, there is unity of action in the two associated 
 halves. 
 
 (2) The fibers of association. These connect the con- 
 volutions of the same hemisphere. Of these, some unite 
 adjoining convolutions; some, passing under two or three 
 adjacent convolutions, connect those somewhat remote 
 from each other; some run from one side of the hemi- 
 sphere to the other, putting the most distant parts into 
 immediate communication with each other. 
 
 (3) The medullary fibres. These connect the hemis- 
 pheres with the medulla oblongata, and consequently 
 with the spinal cord, and through it with the gray part 
 of the organism. 
 
 Functions of the Hemispheres: — These, as has been 
 shown negatively, are sensation, volition, and ideation, 
 
MIND AND MATTER. 357 
 
 for removal of the hemispheres destroys consciousness, 
 voluntary power, and memory, leaving an animal a 
 mere automaton, the movements which resemble those 
 prompted by conscious sensation, intelligent adaptation, 
 and volitional control, being regarded as simply reflex 
 and having no connection whatever with mind, but hav- 
 ing their origin in ganglia which are capable of being 
 stimulated to unconscious activity. 
 
 On the other hand, as has been seen, the hemispheres 
 are not to be regarded as directly connected with the 
 maintenance of physical life. In quadrupeds large por- 
 tions of them can be removed without impairing the vital 
 functions. In fishes, reptiles, birds, and even in some 
 quadrupeds, they may be entirely destroyed without caus- 
 ing death. In man, they may suffer extensive injury 
 without destroying life. The cases are numerous which 
 prove conclusively that the hemispheres are not indis- 
 pensable to a continuance of the functions of animal-life. 
 
 It being thus rendered more than probable that the 
 cerebrum, which is not indispensable to continued physi- 
 cal life, is the seat of intelligence in general, the reader 
 may enter upon an investigation of the more direct evi- 
 dence bearing upon this generally accepted theory. This 
 will be presented in the succeeding chapter. 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 THE CEREBRUM THE ESPECIAL ORGAN OF MIND. 
 
 In proof of this proposition, attention is called to the 
 following considerations: — 
 
 i. Other things being equal, the size of the hemispheres 
 invariably determines the degree of mental power. In 
 idiots the circumference of the head above the ears is 
 uniformly small, sometimes only 12 or 13 inches. The 
 average well-developed head is 22 inches in circumfer- 
 ence. The heads of savages are smaller than those of 
 persons possessing average intelligence in civilized na- 
 tions; consequently, as we might expect, their intel- 
 lectual powers are feebler. The brain-capacity of the 
 negro-race averages 82 cubic inches; that of the Anglo- 
 Saxon, 100. The average weight of the negro brain is 
 46.9 ounces; that of the English and German is 52. The 
 intellectual vigor of each race, and its success in the 
 struggle of life, are commensurate with the size of the 
 brain possessed. 
 
 2. The greater the mental strength and the more 
 numerous the faculties in active exercise, the larger, as a 
 rule, is the cerebrum. Thus, it is more fully developed in 
 insects than in worms; more fully in birds than in rep- 
 tiles; more fully in monkeys than in elephants, in pro- 
 portion to the size of the body; more fully in man than 
 in any other animal. Indeed, its development in the 
 
THE CEREBRUM. 359 
 
 several species of animals, and as well also in different in- 
 dividuals, is the measure of mental power possessed. In 
 primitive races it was small. There is, it is true, a dif- 
 ference in the quality of the cerebral matter, as well as 
 in the quantity. Still, whatever the quality may be, in 
 all cases of marked difference in intellectual vigor, there 
 is, as a rule, a perceptible difference in the size of the 
 hemispheres as compared with the weight of the animal. 
 Each species, and each individual in each species, pos- 
 sesses more mental power the larger the hemispheres 
 are, other things remaining substantially unchanged. In 
 animals possessing little intelligence the cerebrum is 
 small, and its convolutions are few, if not entirely want- 
 ing. The posterior lobes are almost peculiar to man. 
 The monkey has them, but they are small. * 
 
 Increased strength in certain faculties is also well 
 known to be accompanied by an unusual development of 
 certain sections of the hemispheres. A well-developed 
 forehead indicates the possession of good reasoning pow- 
 ers. An unusually large development in any definite 
 extended portion of the cerebrum indicates the posses- 
 sion of unusual faculties of a particular kind; and the pos- 
 session of unusual powers leads us to expect an unusual 
 development in some portion of the cerebrum. 
 
 3. If a portion of the skull is removed, the hemispheres 
 are found, on examination, to be continually agitated 
 
 * Some animals, particularly insects, have what Dr. Carpenter denominates 
 "unconscious cerebration." Ants, we are told, build houses, make diving 
 bells, bore galleries, construct vaults, and erect bridges. They line their houses 
 with tapestry, clean them, air them, and close them by ingeniously constructed 
 doors. They prepare ware -rooms, devise traps, hunt, rob, and plunder. They 
 have social laws, a common language, division of labor, and gradation of rank. 
 They recognize those belonging to the same community, maintain armies, go tc 
 battle, send out scouts, post sentinels, carry off prisoners, keep slaves, and tend 
 domestic animals. 
 
3G0 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 during the time the mind is actively engaged, the agita- 
 tion being proportioned to the degree of mental excite- 
 ment. They are viewed as physical organs which are 
 called into exercise during the activity of the mind. Un- 
 less this theory is accepted, it is difficult to resist the 
 temptation to regard mentality as identical with physical 
 changes, so intimate are the relations subsisting between 
 psychical and physical states. These countless molec- 
 ular vibrations, and these numberless physical changes 
 have been viewed under three aspects: (i) As efficient 
 agents in the evolution of thought; (2) As identical with 
 mental activities; (3) As instrumental agents in the pro- 
 duction of ideas, the mind, an immaterial force, being re- 
 garded as the true and only efficient cause. The first 
 regards mental states, — sensations, perceptions, ideas, and 
 volitions — as effects of a definite series of changes in a ma- 
 terial substance, the changes originating in the substance 
 itself, as a result of the operation of purely physical forces 
 which are properties of brain-matter. What these sensa- 
 tions, perceptions, and ideas really are, it makes no effort 
 to determine. It contents itself with pronouncing them 
 effects of changes in matter. The second theory views 
 mental operations as identical with these physical changes 
 and molecular vibrations. Sensation is a change in a 
 definite portion of brain-tissue. Volition is a change in 
 the gray matter of the cortex. Thoughts are vibrations 
 of matter. Imaginations are vanishing atoms wreathed 
 into fantastic forms. Conscience, and its commendations 
 and reproaches, are states of unstable matter. Memory 
 is aggregated particles of matter stored away for future 
 use. The third of the three aspects, under which these 
 changes may be viewed, regards them as effects of 
 the activity of mental force, the brain being the organ 
 of mind. 
 
THE CEREBRUM. 361 
 
 4. The several faculties of the mind, and the mind in 
 its totality, can be strengthened by judicious use. This 
 seems to carry with it the inference that the brain, which 
 may be strengthened by exercise in the same way that 
 the muscle of the arm may be, is in all probability the 
 organ of the mind. What is called " muscular strength," 
 being in fact strength of will, may of course manifest 
 itself with increased power if the muscles are repeatedly 
 called into judicious exercise, the will thereby rendering 
 them capable of greater exertion. Indeed, not only may 
 the will impart unwonted strength to the muscular system, 
 but its own power may be greatly augmented, as subse- 
 quent considerations will make apparent. In like man- 
 ner, mental strength, of whatever kind it may be, — voli- 
 tional, intellectual, sensory, or inferential, — and however 
 vigorous it may be, is dependent, for the power of mani- 
 festing itself, upon the brain. Consequently, faculties 
 may acquire increased power of manifesting themselves, 
 by becoming possessed of more fully developed organs; 
 and the mind, in its totality, may become more vigorous 
 in its manifestations, in proportion as the entire brain 
 becomes more fully developed by judicious exercise in 
 psychical operations. Thus, an intelligent youth who 
 passes his life in mental idleness becomes a stupid old 
 man. A dull youth, if persistent in the cultivation of his 
 intellectual powers, becomes the possessor of more than 
 ordinary mental vigor. The phenomenon may be ex- 
 plained by supposing that, — as in the case of the muscle 
 of the arm which may be strengthened by exercise under 
 the direction of the will, — the physical organ of the mind, 
 the brain, has been strengthened by judicious use under 
 the superintendence of mental agents. 
 
 In like manner, in the use the intellectual faculties 
 make of the brain as their organ, we may discover a 
 
362 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 solution of the admitted fact that they lose their elasticity, 
 causing a sense of mental weariness, if strained beyond 
 their natural power, or kept under tension for too long a 
 time. The intellectual languor is probably simple weari- 
 ness of a physical organ, which is equal to only a defi- 
 nite measure of active exercise. Sir Walter Scott, in his 
 early life, devoted about six hours daily to intellectual 
 labors, and was eminently successful. After his accumu- 
 lated misfortunes he labored to excess and became the 
 victim of the brain disease which eventually caused his 
 death. 
 
 The intimate relation between mind and matter is also 
 observable in the results which are so liable to ensue on 
 the sudden cessation of mental activities which have been 
 long maintained. The business man who abandons em- 
 ployment under the mistaken conception that idleness 
 will produce health and happiness, not infrequently finds 
 himself the victim of bodily disease and of mental infir- 
 mities to which he was previously a stranger. Organs, 
 through disuse, become in measure weakened, possibly 
 diseased; and he who had sufficient intellectual vigor to 
 amass a fortune, is now, it may be, scarcely competent 
 to the task of guarding his possessions, though still 
 on the sunny side of fifty. Possibly he might have 
 retained his strength, his intellectual as well as his 
 physical, if he had continued the judicious use of all his 
 organs. 
 
 And it is well known that the will aids very materially 
 in conquering diseases, those to which the brain is subject, 
 and as well those to which the body is heir. A morbid 
 sensitiveness to the approaches of death, or settled de- 
 spondency in reference to the state of the health, invites 
 the attacks of disease. The mind affects the body, the 
 body affects the mind. The communication takes place 
 
THE CEREBRUM. 363 
 
 through the brain, which may therefore be regarded as 
 the organ of the mind. 
 
 The mind is even capable of exerting an unconscious 
 influence over the body, and no doubt over the brain, its 
 organ of communication with the body. The man who, 
 on testimony, is led to believe that a piece of steel sus- 
 pended by a string will oscillate when held over certain 
 substances and remain at rest when held over other sub- 
 stances, will find in all probability that such is the case, 
 though the movements in the one case, and the rest in 
 the other, can be proved to be results of an unconscious 
 volition directing the hand. The mind, then, which can 
 control the body without being in any degree aware of it, 
 can be the unconscious agent in producing modifications 
 in the brain itself, fitting it as an organ precisely adapted 
 to its uses. If the billiard player who is intent on driv- 
 ing his ball to a certain point on the table inclines his 
 head unconsciously in the coveted direction, and that 
 too after the stroke is delivered — seeming to imagine it 
 still possible for him to give direction to the ball — surely 
 it requires no great stretch of imagination to suppose 
 that the mind may be capable of producing physical 
 changes in the brain, causing new particles to be incor- 
 porated into its structure, waste matter to be eliminated, 
 new strength to be imparted, and unaccustomed "trills" 
 to become easy through continued repetition. Certainly 
 intellectual powers may be increased, may also be 
 diminished, by the way they are employed; and it is pos- 
 sible to conceive that this may be a simple result of their 
 possessing well-developed or poorly developed organs. 
 
 5. During sleep, the mind though unconscious of the 
 existence of an eternal world and even unconscious of 
 the fact that its dreams may be occasioned by impres- 
 sions received from without, is nevertheless conscious of 
 
3G4 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 changes in the hemispheres themselves. The dreamer 
 may hold an extended controversy with an imaginary 
 opponent, presenting arguments which he regards as 
 those of an antagonist, thus actually losing the sense of 
 personal identity. The reasons presented by the mind 
 are regarded as presented by another, their authorship 
 being seemingly unknown. The dreamer is not unaware, 
 however, of the activity of his mental faculties. He may 
 regard the arguments of his supposed antagonist as formid- 
 able, or as weak; and may proceed to refute them, or may 
 pronounce them unworthy of an effort at refutation. From 
 first to last, he is conscious of intellectual activity; that is, 
 he is conscious that changes of some kind are taking place. 
 The mind and its organ are in active exercise. The mind 
 may regard a sentence as uttered, which it has delivered 
 to the organism to be uttered. It may regard an antag- 
 onist as answered, inasmuch as the refutation has been 
 elaborated in the brain; though it is rarely able to con- 
 ceive that a blow has been delivered by the fist to a sup- 
 posed enemy, unless it has been delivered, because the 
 muscle in the arm has not been contracted. The organ 
 by which thought is evolved is the brain. The organ 
 by which a blow is delivered is the muscle of the arm. 
 When the brain has undergone certain changes, the mind 
 rests in the satisfaction of intellectual work done; when 
 the muscle of the arm has contracted and delivered its 
 force the mind rests satisfied. Each impulse must pro- 
 duce changes in its own appropriate organ ere the sense 
 of completed work ensues. 
 
 The singular phenomenon of double consciousness, to 
 which reference has just been made, is sometimes ex- 
 plained by assuming that the two hemispheres of the 
 brain are amusing themselves, whiling away the tedious 
 hours of the will's slumbers, by engaging with each other 
 
THE CEREBRUM. 365 
 
 in an intellectual sparring-match. The explanation does 
 not carry with it the assumption that there are two 
 minds; and, moreover, is seemingly an inadequate ex- 
 planation, inasmuch as large portions of one hemisphere, 
 and indeed an entire hemisphere, may be removed with- 
 out serious injury to intellectual activity, and without even 
 destroying the possibility of such double consciousness. 
 Whatever may be the proper solution of the enigma, 
 physiologists concede that the mind is a unit; indeed, this 
 is a conviction from which we cannot escape.* 
 
 It is also conceded that the mind, during wakeful 
 hours, can reproduce the visions of the preceding night, 
 that is, can reduplicate the physical changes in the 
 brain — the process by which the vision is made to re- 
 appear being of course purely automatic. There may be 
 difficulty in distinguishing such reproduced visions from 
 day-dreams; some are even incapable of distinguishing 
 them from realities, Indeed, phantoms never before in 
 
 * In profound sleep, volition is wholly suspended; all other purely mental 
 operations may be carried on, however, with entire regularity. The imagina- 
 tion may be active — perhaps invariably is. Hence, phantoms may succeed each 
 other with surprising rapidity. Lord Holland fell asleep while a friend was 
 reading to him; he had a succession of mental visions. On awaking, a de- 
 scription of what he had seen, and a recital of the ideas that had occupied his 
 mind, required fifteen minutes. He was able, however, to repeat to his friend 
 the former part of one sentence read, and the latter part of the next, the dream 
 having occurred in the brief interval. 
 
 No doubt, there are laws which regulate this succession of images and ideas. 
 They are unknown, however, and seemingly inscrutable. The order is not 
 determined by the will; for, as Mr. Darwin was the first to prove, the will 
 is in suspension during profound sleep. True, persons turn in sleep, and 
 talk in sleep, and walk in sleep; but it should be remembered that there are 
 different degrees of sleep — every conceivable degree, from the most intense ner- 
 vous excitement, to complete and total insensibility. Certainly, in night-mare, 
 there is an entire absence of will-power. The inability to move is not in con- 
 sequence of disobedience, on the part of the muscles, to commands from the 
 will; but in consequence of the absence of a volition, ordering the muscles into 
 
3GG THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 the imagination present themselves to some minds, even 
 when awake, with such vividness that they are mistaken 
 for realities. They see ghosts, it is true — unsubstantial 
 creations of their own active imaginations, which visions 
 have to them the full force of reality, because the activ- 
 ities of the brain are so purely automatic as to escape 
 notice. The physical organ, under the superintendence 
 of mental force, is in a state of intense activity without 
 the knowledge of the ego. It is perhaps possible in this 
 way to explain the visions of Swedenborg. If he has 
 deceived others, it is most probably simply because he 
 deceived himself. He was no doubt perfectly sincere — 
 his brain was presenting pictures fashioned from mate- 
 rials furnished it, and presenting them without his being 
 aware of it. Deceptive appearances which are not mis- 
 taken for realities are very common; certainly, then, the 
 possibility of their being viewed as real visions, and not 
 as mental pictures having no objective reality, is entirely 
 conceivable; indeed, it is demonstrable that they may be 
 so regarded. The visions of the "biologized" subject 
 have for him all the force of realities. 
 
 action. In such cases, and, according to physiologists, in all sound sleep, there 
 is no voluntary exertion, either muscular or intellectual, though all other mental 
 faculties may be in active exercise. The activity of the mind in sleep (as when 
 one solves a mathematical problem which he could not solve in his waking hours) 
 is to be regarded as purely automatic, being similar to that activity which goes 
 on below consciousness, when, as often happens, after becoming confused with a 
 multiplicity of unarranged facts and abandoning the consideration of the perplex- 
 ing subject, the mind unconsciously arranges the confused materials in such perfect 
 order — assigning each fact its appropriate place, and each argument its own 
 niche — that, on re-examining the subject, clearness prevails where previously ob- 
 scurity clouded everything; or, being similar to the unconscious activity which 
 often takes place, when, after vainly endeavoring to recollect a fact or a proper 
 name, we turn the conscious activities of the mind into other channels and pre- 
 sently are surprised on finding the forgotten fact or the lost name rudely 
 thrust upon our consciousness, the obedient automatic machinery seeming to 
 say, "There is what you ordered me to search for." 
 
THE CEREBRUM. 3G7 
 
 6. In man, as in lower animals, the usual result of in- 
 jury to the hemispheres, as also of electrical stimulation, 
 is disturbance more or less marked to one or more of the 
 mental faculties. Of some of these faculties the portion 
 of the cerebrum which may be regarded as their special 
 organ has been determined with considerable accuracy. 
 In reference to others, as memory, reason, and judgment 
 — endowments mainly concerned in intelligence — it is 
 possible to frame an argument which renders it almost 
 certain that these also have definite sections of the hemi- 
 spheres as their organs. 
 
 (a) Sensation has its own organs, which are situate 
 in the cerebrum. If the angular gyrus receives electrical 
 stimulation of a certain degree of intensity, for a proper 
 length of time, the eye-balls roll. Destruction of this 
 portion of the brain in one hemisphere causes blindness 
 of the eye of the opposite side. Still, if the angular gyrus 
 of the remaining hemisphere is uninjured, the loss of 
 vision is not permanent, the uninjured organ acquiring 
 in time the power of doing double duty. If the angular 
 gyrus in each hemisphere is destroyed, permanent blind- 
 ness ensues. 
 
 Irritation of the first temporal convolution in one 
 hemisphere causes a sudden movement of the ear, resem- 
 bling the start of surprise which accompanies an unex- 
 pected loud sound. Destruction of a certain part of this 
 convolution results in partial deafness in one ear. De- 
 struction of the same portion of the brain in each hemi- 
 sphere produces complete and permanent deafness. 
 
 Electrical stimulation of the subiculum excites the 
 sense of smell, which is, of course, in such cases purely 
 subjective. It also excites the sense of taste. To deter- 
 mine the precise location of each of these organs is, how- 
 ever, impossible, the seat of each being beneath the 
 
3G8 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 convolutions; consequently, accurate differentiation is 
 impracticable. As in the case of sight and hearing, so 
 in the case of smell and taste, injury to this portion of 
 the brain in one hemisphere seriously impairs the func- 
 tions of these organs; complete destruction on each side 
 entirely destroys the sense of smell and the sense of 
 taste. It is an established fact that blows inflicted upon 
 the skull, over the subiculum, sometimes produce tem- 
 porary or permanent loss of these senses. 
 
 The removal or destruction of the parietal lobes abol- 
 ishes the desire for food. Animals thus mutilated die of 
 starvation in the midst of plenty. 
 
 Injury to the hippocampal region in one hemisphere 
 impairs tactile sensation on the opposite side of the body. 
 The paralysis is not a loss of the power to will move- 
 ments, nor a loss of the power to execute the commands 
 of the will in reference to the muscles of the affected side, 
 but simply the loss of tactile sensation. The power to 
 move remains, though the loss of sensory impressions is 
 complete, and consequently there can be no conscious- 
 ness of muscular contraction. Paralysis proper results 
 from the injury of a different part of the brain. Still, 
 without tactile sensation, the limbs become motionless, 
 because no sensory impressions are conveyed to the 
 brain over the afferent nerves, and consequently no 
 orders for movement emanate from the will over the 
 efferent nerves; or, if in consequence of vision an order 
 does emanate, it is carried out with difficulty and only 
 under the direct guidance of the eye. None of these 
 movements rise into the region of consciousness. 
 
 Cerebral hemianesthesia, which may be produced by 
 an injury in the hippocampal region of one hemisphere, 
 and which is a complete loss of tactile sensation, the 
 power of volitional movement remaining nearly or quite 
 
THE CEREBRUM. 369 
 
 unimpaired, may be regarded, therefore, as furnishing- con- 
 clusive evidence that the sense of touch has its organ 
 in the cerebrum. An injury to a certain portion of the 
 brain, or to the afferent nerves at their entrance into 
 this region, causes the loss of both tactile sensation and 
 of the consciousness of muscular contraction on the 
 opposite side of the body. An injury to this portion of 
 the brain in both hemispheres produces these results on 
 both sides of the body. 
 
 {U) The center of volitions for movements of different 
 parts of the body is also in the cerebrum, will-power of 
 this kind being thus proved to have its own physical 
 organ. Injury to a definite section of the frontal con- 
 volution in one hemisphere results in hemiplegia, or 
 paralysis of one side, the opposite. Motality is lost on 
 this side; but sensibility remains unimpaired. An injury 
 to both sides causes paralysis of both sides. Sensibility 
 continues, and the muscles, for example those of the 
 limbs, may be in as healthy a condition as usual, and 
 intrinsically as capable of movement as ever, and as 
 capable of reporting their movements, but they are 
 motionless and powerless simply because the will has no 
 organ by which to communicate orders to them. As 
 tactile sensation and the consciousness of muscular 
 movement continue, it would seem to follow that affer- 
 ent nerves cannot convey volitional impulses; or that 
 these afferent nerves, which still convey impressions to 
 the brain (which impressions are reported to the ego), 
 have no connection with the volitional center of muscular 
 movements; — both which, physiologists regard as estab- 
 lished facts. 
 
 Those suffering from paralysis are sometimes con- 
 scious of expending much energy in the vain attempt to 
 move the paralyzed member. Consciousness of effort is 
 
370 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 not to be regarded, for this reason, as independent of 
 muscular exertion; for, though the paralyzed limb 
 remains unmoved, movements occur, the unparalyzed 
 limb being sometimes violently moved; and even in cases 
 which seem most clearly to prove that consciousness of 
 effort may exist though no muscular contraction has 
 occurred, there will be found to have been laborious con- 
 traction of the respiratory muscles, if of no others. Con- 
 sequently, the conclusion now accepted by most physiol- 
 ogists is that in all cases of consciousness of exertion or 
 a sense of weariness, there have been changes in some 
 physical organ. Hence we infer that mental weariness 
 is a consequence of the weariness of the mind's organ, 
 the brain. 
 
 This sense of weariness, whatever organ may produce 
 it, is dependent upon impressions communicated to the 
 conscious ego through afferent nerves. If these are 
 destroyed all sense of exertion is obliterated. The 
 volitional impulse and the impression of having exerted 
 muscular power do not travel along the same nerves. 
 There is, as Dr. Ferrier asserts, u No physiological or 
 pathological evidence in support of the theory that the 
 motor [efferent] nerves are also the path of transmission 
 of the impressions generated by muscular contraction." 
 Consequently, electrical stimulation at the ends of affer- 
 ent nerves, in the case of a person who has lost a hand, 
 causes him to imagine he has moved the fingers of the 
 lost member; but electrical irritation of the efferent 
 nerves produces no such result. In the former case, he 
 receives an impression similar to that which memory 
 associates with the movement of the fingers, the stimu- 
 lation of afferent nerves which once extended to the 
 fingers actually reviving sensations stored away in the 
 memory. Some persons who have suffered the amputa- 
 
THE CEREBRUM. 371 
 
 tion of an arm are capable of willing movements in the 
 lost hand, and of executing them with satisfaction to 
 themselves, closing it, opening it, pointing with the 
 index finger. Possibly the pain which others feel in 
 the amputated member may be due to the fact that 
 volitions ordering movements in the imaginary hand 
 fail in securing satisfaction; or, as previously inti- 
 mated, to the fact that the afferent nerves are in a 
 cramped condition in the "stump," and so report to 
 the sensorium. 
 
 But whether sensation is restricted to an impression 
 conveyed from the epidermis, as some maintain; or may 
 also be produced by the revival in idea of an impression 
 previously received, — it is an invariable consequent of 
 an impression transmitted to the mind over the afferent 
 or sensory nerves. This, however, is not a transmission 
 to the centers first concerned in the volitional impulse, 
 nor indeed to any efferent center, but to a sensory center. 
 Still the mind, which originated the order of the will, re- 
 ceives the impression in reference to its execution. This 
 seems to render it probable that the mind is a something, 
 which, whether material or immaterial, is distinct from the 
 brain, being an efficient cause, of which the cerebrum in 
 its totality is an organ. 
 
 The differentiated centers of movement, as they exist 
 in the gray superficial matter of the hemispheres, origin- 
 ate only volitions and never receive impressions from the 
 periphery. The afferent centers, which are distinct from 
 the efferent centers, receive only differentiated sensory 
 impressions, and are not the recipients of commands 
 from the will. Destruction of the former leaves the 
 victim powerless in the use of some parts of the body, 
 except so fa'r as he may direct and guide the paralyzed 
 member by the eye, though tactile sensation and the 
 
372 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 inherent power of muscular contraction remain unim- 
 paired. Destruction of the latter leaves him without the 
 consciousness of muscular movement in the affected 
 member, except so far as it may be received through 
 vision, though will-force adequate to order the move- 
 ment, and as well the power of executing the order, 
 remain intact. 
 
 The electrization of the cortex of a particular por- 
 tion of the frontal convolution of a monkey causes him 
 to assume an attitude of fixed attention. Its removal 
 leaves him without the faculty of attentive observation. 
 Though not deprived of intelligence, listlessness charac- 
 terizes his movements, accompanied with loss of interest 
 in everything save passing impressions. It is well known 
 that the frontal lobes in man may suffer extensive injury 
 without producing any serious consequences, though they 
 are certainly connected with efferent ganglia, nerves 
 which radiate from the corpus striatum having their 
 cortical distribution in these regions. 
 
 Basal Ganglia: — At the base of the cerebrum are two 
 ganglia, the optic thalami and the corpora striata. 
 These are masses of fibers, centers of convergence; the 
 former, of afferent nerves; the latter, of efferent nerves. 
 The total destruction of the optic thalami annihilates 
 sensation, — touch, sight, hearing, smell, taste — though 
 will-power remains unimpaired. Total destruction of the 
 corpora striata abolishes the power of voluntary move- 
 ment, though sensation continues. In man, there is but 
 little difference between destruction of the efferent 
 centers at the cortex and destruction of the corpora 
 striata, except that, in the latter case, the effect is 
 produced by one stroke in a limited area, while at the 
 cortex the injury, to produce the same effects, must needs 
 extend over a considerable area. 
 
THE CEREBRUM. 373 
 
 The corpora striata are the center in which habitual 
 movement becomes organized. They are not the center of 
 true conscious activity; but, as a result of education, they 
 are capable of yielding to impressions whose origin is be- 
 low the region of consciousness. A consciousness of im- 
 pressions must precede every act strictly volitional; still, 
 by frequent repetition, an act may become so easy as to fol- 
 low impressions of which there is no conscious knowledge. 
 Possibly, in the case of acts performed from habit, as in 
 measure is true in the case of a well-trained public 
 speaker, impressions may pass directly to the corpora 
 striata below the region of consciousness. This may be 
 true so far at least as the succession of ideas and the 
 choice of words are conceived. It may also be true in the 
 case of the dog whose powers of locomotion, possibly 
 because running has become a habit, are not impaired by 
 destruction of the efferent centers at the cortex. He runs 
 automatically. Some regard it as doubtful whether in 
 man habitual actions can become so entirely automatic 
 as to be below consciousness, having no connection 
 whatever with the volitional centers at the cortex. 
 The questions pertaining to the automatic activity of the 
 cerebrum will come under consideration in a succeeding 
 chapter. For the present, the reader may safely adhere to 
 the accepted theory that even if the optic thalami and 
 the corpora striata in man are not sufficient to execute 
 habitual actions they nevertheless do unquestionably 
 relieve the cortical centers of activity to no inconsider- 
 able extent. Though in mechanical and in intellectual 
 activities requiring careful discrimination the convolu- 
 tions of almost the entire cerebrum may be called into 
 play, it is nevertheless true that in acts which have be- 
 come easy through frequent repetition the basal ganglia 
 perform the greater part of the work, leaving higher 
 
374 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 centers free to employ themselves along other lines of 
 thought. 
 
 When we come to consider the mental faculties more 
 directly concerned in exhibitions of intelligence, viz., 
 memory, reason, and judgment, we find, as in the case 
 of conscious sensation and volition, that they have their 
 seat in the cerebrum. Memory, without which articulate 
 speech would be impossible, the empty present being 
 hopelessly dissevered from the pregnant past, leaving 
 very slender foundations on which to base a process of" 
 reasoning, is the most essential of the faculties upon 
 which intelligent acts are dependent, and is regarded by 
 physiologists as having its seat in the cerebrum. Its 
 nature will come under discussion in a chapter following. 
 
 Reason, the ability to place a proper estimate on the 
 various impressions received from ten thousand sources 
 and to trace each effect to its proper cause, preventing 
 us from assuming the existence of causes which have no 
 efficiency, or from imagining that effects may flow from 
 causes in which they are not contained, is not to be 
 confounded with the simple power of perception and is 
 unquestionably a function of the hemispheres. Judgment, 
 a faculty which calls into requisition both memory and 
 reason in order to supply itself with the materials upon 
 which to base a decision, has its seat in the cerebrum, 
 whether it is regarded as a separate faculty or as a result 
 of adjusted relations between other faculties. 
 
 That these several manifestations of intelligence have 
 the cerebrum as their organ is sufficiently evident, it is 
 believed, from the fact that they have their origin in a 
 sensation or sensations, and terminate in a volition, or in 
 a series of volitions. The materials which they elaborate 
 come to them from the senses, and after the elaboration 
 is completed, an act of will is the result. In the case of 
 
THE CEREBRUM. 375 
 
 memory, this volition is a determination to retain facts 
 deemed worthy of preservation, without which decision 
 they may prove as transitory as the dissolving cloud, but 
 in obedience to which they are stored away in receptacles 
 for future use. In the case of reason, it is a volitional 
 impulse, prompting to the acceptance of phenomena as 
 having value sufficient and causal potency adequate to 
 the establishment of a definite conclusion which the 
 will may regard as irreversible. In the case of judgment, 
 it is a decision that of the many agencies which might 
 prove instrumental in bringing about coveted results, a 
 certain agency, or combination of agencies, is best 
 adapted to that end; accordingly, the will proceeds 
 to issue an order for the employment of these in- 
 strumentalities. 
 
 As the issue, in the case of each of these faculties, is 
 a volition, so also is sensation the source through which 
 the materials necessary to their activity are supplied. 
 Judgment, as is evident, requires the existence of reason 
 and memory. Reason must of course receive impressions, 
 either directly through the senses or from the memory, 
 ere it can appreciate their nature and refer them to ade- 
 quate causes. Memory can neither store away nor retain 
 anything else than impressions. 
 
 This chapter may be appropriately closed with an 
 enumeration of the more important conclusions reached: 
 
 i. The mind is an indivisible unity. 
 
 2. It has its seat in the brain and is not equally diffused 
 throughout the body. 
 
 3. The brain is the organ of the mind. 
 
 4. There is a broad distinction between the afferent 
 and the efferent nerves. 
 
 5. Severance of the spinal cord leaves the parts below 
 the injury utterly powerless. 
 
376 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 6. The medulla oblongata is a complex center of 
 reflex co-ordination. 
 
 7. The mesencephalon and the cerebellum are co- 
 ordinating centers of the activities connected with the 
 maintenance of animal-life. 
 
 8. Removal of the hemispheres destroys the power 
 of volitional movements; destroys memory, conscious 
 sensation, ideation, intelligence, and the instinct of self- 
 preservation. 
 
 9. The cerebrum is the seat of intelligence, volition, 
 memory, reason, and judgment. 
 
 10. Volition, so far as physiology enables us to de- 
 termine, has its origin in the gray substance of the 
 cerebrum. 
 
 11. The cerebral hemispheres are the especial organ of 
 the mind. 
 
 12. It is highly probable that definite sections of the 
 brain are especially concerned in certain muscular move- 
 ments and in certain intellectual activities. 
 
 13. The organs of sensation — touch, sight, hearing, 
 taste, and smell — are localized in the cerebrum. 
 
 14. The power of willing, especially of willing muscu- 
 lar movements, and most probably of willing to retain 
 ideas under the light of reason till a conclusion is reached, 
 is localized in certain sections of the gray matter of the 
 cerebrum. 
 
 15. The optic thalami are centers of convergence of 
 sensory fibers; and consequently their destruction anni- 
 hilates all sensation and destroys consciousness. 
 
 16. The corpora striata are the center in which habit- 
 ual movements become organized. 
 
 17. In the absence of the hemispheres, the lower cen- 
 ters are incapable of originating any movements, except 
 those which are purely reflex. 
 
THE CEREBRUM. 377 
 
 18. These lower ganglia are centers of immediate 
 responsive actions; and of these only; self-conditioned 
 activity being a function of the hemispheres, and of these 
 alone. 
 
 19. The exercise of memory, reason, and judgment is 
 conditioned upon materials furnished by sensory impres- 
 sions, except so far as certain categories of thought are 
 concerned. 
 
 20. The entire absence of the cerebellum leaves all 
 mental processes unimpaired. 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 MOLECULAR VIBRATIONS IN THE BRAIN. 
 
 MENTAL activities are not identical with molecular 
 vibrations in the brain, nor are they a simple result of 
 such vibrations. 
 
 In support of this proposition the following considera- 
 tions are presented: — 
 
 I. The concurrent testimony of eminent physiologists. 
 Dr. J. C. Dalton says, 
 
 11 The intermediate process between the sensation and the volition may be 
 short and simple; or it may be long and complicated, involving the combined 
 suggestion of many successive ideas. There can be little doubt that in either case, 
 it is accompanied by actions of some kind in the gray substance of the cerebral 
 hemispheres. But the nature of the nervous process accompanying mental 
 action is unknown." — Human Physiology, p. 426. 
 
 If the " nervous process," whatever its unknown char- 
 acter may be, only accompanies " mental action," it is not, 
 in the opinion of this author, identical with intellectual 
 activity; and if the nature of this " nervous process " 
 is unknown, we are not authorized in asserting that it is 
 11 molecular vibration " of which thought is a result. 
 Dr. David Ferrier affirms: — 
 
 "That the brain is the organ of the mind, and that mental operations are 
 possible only in and through the brain, is now so thoroughly well established 
 and recognized that we may without further question start from this as an 
 ultimate fact." 
 
 " r.ut how it is that molecular changes in the brain-cells coincide with modifi- 
 cations of consciousness; how, for instance, the vibrations of light falling on the 
 
MOLECULAR VIBRATIONS IN THE BRAIN. 37 d 
 
 retina excite the modification of consciousness termed a visual sensation, is a 
 problem which cannot be solved. We may succeed in determining the exact 
 nature of the molecular changes which occur in the brain-cells when a sensation 
 is experienced, but this will not bring us one whit nearer the explanation of the 
 ultimate nature of that which constitutes the sensation. One is objective and the 
 other subjective, and neither can be expressed in terms of the other. We can- 
 not say that they are identical, or even that the one passes into the other. ' ' — 
 Functions of the Brain, p. 280-281. 
 
 If, as is here affirmed, the brain is the organ of the 
 mind, then it is fair, no doubt, to assert that mind exists 
 as an entity which is not identical with brain, nor with 
 the molecular vibrations of brain-tissue; and equally 
 legitimate to declare that mind is not a product of physi- 
 cal changes. An agent cannot be identical with him 
 in whose service he is engaged; consequently, brain can- 
 not be the agent of mind and at the same time identi- 
 cal with mind. Again, if brain is the agent of mind, 
 then mind cannot be a product of brain, for that 
 would be to suppose that an agent creates, or at least 
 occasions, the existence of him into whose service he 
 enters; but reason clearly asserts that an agent cannot 
 exist, as an agent, antecedent to the existence of him 
 whom he serves; and though he who employs agents can 
 create them, or at least can fashion them to his liking and 
 tutor them to obey his mandates, or dismiss them 
 from his service, — it is a gross perversion of ideas to assert, 
 or even to imagine, that an agent creates, or even occa- 
 sions the existence of him who employs such service. 
 Consequently, if mind is a result of molecular vibrations 
 in the brain, physiologists, instead of recognizing "the 
 brain as an organ of the mind," ought to have been able 
 to recognize mind as an agent or organ of the brain, and 
 should have expressed themselves in language fitted to 
 convey this idea. 
 
 It is therefore legitimate to assert, that as physiolo- 
 
380 
 
 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 gists concur in regarding it as a " thoroughly well estab- 
 lished fact that the brain is the organ of the mind," their 
 united testimony favors the conclusion that mind is 
 neither matter, nor a product of matter; that intellectual 
 force is not identical with brain-substance, nor capable 
 of being produced by its transmutations or by its molecu- 
 lar vibrations. They do not mean to convey the impres- 
 sion that mind is identical with its organ; nor that it is 
 a succession of " trills " in its own organ. 
 Dr. W. B. Carpenter affirms:— 
 
 " It is now generally admitted that we neither know nor can know, anything 
 of matter, save through the medium of the impressions it makes on our senses- 
 and these impressions are only derived from the forces of which matter is the 
 vehicle. ... In fact, instead of matter (as some affirm) being the object 
 of our immediate cognizance, and the laws of matter our most certain form 
 of knowledge, there seems valid ground for the assertion that our notion of 
 matter is a conception of the intellect, force being that externality of which 
 we have the most direct -perhaps even the only direct-cognizance. 
 Mind, like force, is essentially active, all its states are states of change- and 
 of these changes we become directly or immediately conscious by our' own 
 
 experience Now nothing can be more certain than that the primary 
 
 form of mental activity, -sensational consciousness-is excited through physi- 
 ological instrumentality. ... In what way the physical change .is 
 translated into psychical change ... we know nothing whatever 
 There is just the same evidence of what has been termed correlation, between 
 nerve-force and that primary state of mental activity which we call sensation 
 that there is between light and nerve-force: -each antecedent, when the physi- 
 ological mechanism is in working order being invariably folio wed by its cor- 
 responding consequent. . . . Each kind of mental activity-sensational 
 instinctive, emotional, ideational, and volitional-may express itself in bodily 
 movement; and it is clear that every such movement is called forth by an active 
 state of a certain part of the brain, which excites a corresponding activity in the 
 motor nerves issuing from it, whereby particular muscles are called into con- 
 traction. No physiologist can doubt that the mechanical force exerted by the 
 muscles is the expression of certain chemical changes which take place between 
 their own substance and the oxygenized blood that circulates through them- or 
 that the nerve-force which calls forth these changes, is intimately related to 
 electricity and other physical forces. . . . That mental antecedents call 
 forth physical consequents, is just as certain as that physical antecedents can 
 call forth mental consequents; and thus the correlation between mind-force 
 
MOLECULAR VIBRATLONS IN THE BRAIN. 381 
 
 and nerve-force is shown to be complete both ways, each being able to excite 
 the other. ... It is obvious that the view here taken does not in the least 
 militate against the idea, that mind may have an existence altogether indepen- 
 dent of the body which serves as its instrument. All which has been contended 
 for is, that the connection between mind and body is such, that the actions of 
 each have, in this present state of existence (which is all of which science can 
 legitimately take cognizance), a definite causal relation to those of the other; so 
 that the actions of our minds, in so far as they are carried on without interfer- 
 ence from our will, may be considered as • functions of the brain. ' On the 
 other hand, in the control which the will can exert over the direction of the 
 thoughts, and over the motive force exerted by the feelings, we have the evi- 
 dence of a new and independent power, which may either oppose or concur 
 with the automatic tendencies, and which, according as it is habitually exerted, 
 tends to render the ego a free agent. . . . Material conditions, in fact, 
 merely furnish the fuel and the mechanism : it is force or power that does the 
 work." — Mental Physiology, pp. II, 12, 13, 14, 26, 27, 694. 
 
 Even Prof. Alexander Bain, who, with Tyndall, Hux- 
 ley, Spencer, and Haeckel, may be regarded as a special 
 champion of modern materialism, admits: — 
 
 " The inanimate and the animate are not so different as body and mind. 
 . . . Extension is but the first of a long series of properties all present in 
 matter, all absent in mind. Inertia cannot belong to a pleasure, a pain, an 
 idea, as experienced in the consciousness: it can only belong to the physical 
 accompaniment of mind — the overt acts of volition, and the manifestations of 
 feeling. Inertia is accompanied by gravity, a peculiarly material property. 
 So color is truly a material property, it cannot attach to a feeling, properly so 
 called, a pleasure or a pain. . . . These three properties are the basis of mat- 
 ter; to them are superadded, form, motion, position, and a host of other proper- 
 ties expressed in terms of these — attraction and repulsion, hardness, elastic- 
 ity, cohesion, crystalization, heat, light, electricity, chemical properties, or- 
 ganized properties in special kinds of matter. . . Mental states and bodily 
 states are utterly contrasted ; they cannot be compared, they have nothing in 
 common except the same general attributes — degree and order in time; when 
 engaged in one we must be oblivious of all that distinguishes the other." — Mind 
 and Body, pp. 124, 125, 135. 
 
 2. If all mental operations are but manifestations of 
 physical changes in the brain, there can be no such 
 thing as freedom of the human will. 
 
 All physiologists, it is admitted, are prepared to con- 
 
382 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 cede that mental activities are largely dependent upon 
 physical causes, — upon the supply of oxygenated blood, 
 upon the measure of perfection attained by the bodily 
 organism, upon inherited tendencies which have given 
 character to the physical organs, upon the influence of 
 acquired habits which have imparted potency to certain 
 parts of the physical organization, upon the strength and 
 character of impressions conveyed to the sensorium, 
 upon the condition of the nervous system, upon the 
 quality and quantity of the food one eats, upon the pro- 
 cess of digestion and assimilation, etc. The materialist, 
 however, affirms that mental operations of every kind — 
 sensational, perceptive, emotional, rational, and voli- 
 tional — are not only largely dependent upon physical 
 causation, but exclusively dependent thereon. He re- 
 gards man as a mere machine, his sensations, his emo- 
 tions, his ideas, his motives, and even his acts of will, 
 being determined for him, not by him. Every change 
 in him, and every act performed by him, is viewed 
 as a necessary result of physical causes, the brain only 
 acting as it is forced to act under impulses over which 
 the ego has absolutely no control. From this it of 
 course follows that all desires, all conceptions, all 
 judgments, all motives, all determinations, all moral 
 sentiments, all religious impulses, find their origin in 
 purely material conditions. Every person is a creature 
 of stern and inexorable necessity, a helpless child of 
 nature, a mere automaton, whose hidden wires are pulled 
 by uncontrollable physical forces; he is as irresistibly im- 
 pelled to do what he does as the magnetic needle is 
 impelled to point towards the magnetic pole. Con- 
 sequently, he can neither incur censure, nor acquire 
 merit. He cannot be in any respect different from what 
 he is; and consequently is irresponsible for his conduct, 
 
MOLECULAR VIBRATIONS IN THE BRAIN. 383 
 
 as completely so as the raving maniac. He cannot 
 deserve commendation, nor is he justly amenable to any 
 law, human or divine. The decisions of his will are 
 results for which he is in no measure accountable. 
 
 That the human will is not so completely under the 
 control of ungovernable impulses produced by physical 
 agencies, but is capable of rising above the promptings 
 which result from purely material conditions, and may 
 mold outward circumstances in measure at least, is the 
 conviction of every human being who has not speculated 
 himself into skepticism in reference to the plain teach- 
 ings of reason. It is safe to affirm that all, save those 
 who have been long groping in the midnight darkness 
 of materialism, are prepared to concede that man pos- 
 sesses the priceless boon of freedom; that in the will he 
 possesses a power which, by virtue of its control over all 
 mental operations, enables him to determine his opin- 
 ions, to decide what amount of potency shall be accorded 
 to any particular motive, and to elect his course of con- 
 duct. He is conscious of ability to form his own character. 
 
 Nor is this conviction, in reference to a self-deter- 
 mining power of the will, a mere delusion. It exists in 
 greater or less measure in every rational being, and may 
 be developed by judicious exercise. True, it may be 
 allowed to grow weaker and weaker, till self-control 
 becomes nearly or quite impossible, and the character 
 becomes the resultant of inherited tendencies and of 
 environing circumstances; but this does not prove that 
 in the well-regulated mind the will has no determining 
 power. Will-power may be completely lost, as in the 
 case of the insane, whose actions may result from purely 
 physical causes; but this evidently proves that in the 
 normal condition of the mind, the self-determining 
 power of the will is a reality and not a pure fiction. 
 
384 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 Again: if the decisions of the will are not self-formed, 
 but are consequents of material changes over which thv 
 ego has no dominion, then, manifestly, man ought not to 
 be regarded as responsible for his conduct — no act ought 
 to be viewed as reprehensible. It is, however; and this 
 disposition in man to pronounce some acts criminal 
 carries with it the conviction that the will is free. 
 Criminality is not regarded as a form of insanity, for 
 which it is unreasonable to hold men responsible. In 
 every age and in every clime, man has considered his 
 fellow responsible for conduct so long as reason is on its 
 throne. When he has so far lost self-control, by reason 
 of continued transgressions, as to be irresponsible for the 
 criminal act performed, he is justly considered responsible 
 for his irresponsibility; and when, as often happens, 
 reason has fallen from her lofty pedestal, the will being 
 no longer capable of controlling motives, ideas, opinions, 
 and conduct, society regards itself justified in placing the 
 unfortunate automaton under the will of another. Xor 
 does physiology teach that in such cases the mind remains 
 sound, the insanity being due to disordered or diseased 
 material organs. It teaches that the real cause of the 
 unreasonable and irresponsible conduct is that the will 
 has lost its legitimate dominion, being no longer equal to 
 the task of controlling mental operations. 
 
 Consequently, while physiologists admit that the ac- 
 tivities of mind are determined in no small measure by 
 material changes in the brain, they nevertheless insist 
 that the will, in its higher operations at least, is so far 
 beyond the reach of influences purely material that it 
 may be regarded as free in the strictest sense of the word. 
 Physical causes are not in themselves adequate to deter- 
 mine its decisions. This self-determining power of the 
 will is the rock against which the waves of materialism 
 
MOLECULAR VIBRATIONS IN THE BRAIN 385 
 
 have been fruitlessly, dashing themselves for centuries. 
 It remains unmoved. The majority of mankind are in- 
 disposed to consider themselves mere machines driven 
 by invisible physical forces. They are unwilling tobelieve 
 the immoral as innocent as the moral, the murderer as 
 guiltless as the philanthropist: they believe that human 
 beings can merit praise and deserve censure. 
 
 Once more: if our volitions have their origin in molec- 
 ular vibrations, or in physical changes of some kind in 
 the brain; then, in case I will to carry forwards a process 
 of reasoning, thereby setting the rational faculties to 
 work, I must believe that material changes of some kind 
 precede the act of volition, actually producing it. Whence 
 comes the impulse to this act of will ? It may come, some 
 imagine, from without, and in that case may be conceived 
 as having produced some material change in the brain, 
 which change resulted in a volition. This, however, has 
 by no means been rendered clear. Others conjecture 
 that the impulse comes from within and may be regarded 
 as having effected some slight physical change, which 
 may by some possibility have issued in the volition. This 
 has not been proved. When, during the process, I de- 
 cide to pursue one line of reasoning in preference to an- 
 other equally seductive, or when I select one thought from 
 many that well up in the mind, each seemingly as well 
 adapted to my purpose as another, or when, as frequently 
 happens, I appropriate the thought which should have 
 been ignored and choose one unfitted to the end in view, — 
 what material change impelled the decision ? Am I, even 
 in my most purely intellectual processes, a mere puppet 
 whose movements are determined by invisible strings, 
 and so determined as to leave me under the delusion 
 that I have done what was in fact done for me by an au- 
 tomatic machinery ? If so, psychology may as well 
 
386 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 surrender the field to physiology; indeed, in strictness of 
 speech, psychology, if such views have a foundation in 
 truth, has no field of operation, no forces, no laws, not 
 even an existence — is a pure figment of the imagination. 
 That the will has no power of self-determination is 
 so extremely difficult to believe, that it is safe to affirm, 
 Few can be induced to accept the theory. 
 
 3. If mental activities are identical with molecular 
 vibrations in the brain, then these vibrations, and the 
 changes which accompany them, must differ in nature, 
 in degree, or in duration, else the volitions could not dif- 
 fer. What causes these molecular vibrations, and the 
 material changes which occur, to vary to such an infinite 
 extent ? Are the impressions which are conveyed over 
 the afferent nerves different in every case ? In purely 
 subjective activities what causes volitions to differ ? If 
 the will is not possessed of the power of self-determina- 
 tion, there must be an almost infinite number of material 
 causes, many of them possessing only an infinitesimal 
 measure of potency, for otherwise the will could not 
 reach the decisions it does. 
 
 Moreover, that not all these decisions are results 
 of physical changes seems to be rendered probable 
 by the fact that though the application of electricity 
 to some portions of the gray matter of the cortex elicits 
 muscular movements, its application to the frontal con- 
 volutions produces no manifestations, — no muscular move- 
 ments, no subjective activities, no exhibitions of any 
 kind whatever. 
 
 4. If mind and matter are identical, or the former is a 
 product of the latter, then how shall we account for the 
 fact that the mind may perform all its operations though 
 one hemisphere is removed. Certainly, if all mental 
 activities are caused by brain-substance, effects ought 
 
MOLECULUR VIBRATIONS IN THE BRAIN. 387 
 
 to vary when the cause varies. Is it possible, other things 
 remaining the same, that the half of a cause should be 
 removed without producing a change in the effect ? Dr. 
 Ferrier says, " The physiological activities of the brain 
 are not co-extensive with its psychological activities." 
 
 5. If mind and matter are identical in their substratum, 
 it can only be, because, as Prof. Alexander Bain affirms, 
 "Matter is a double-faced unity, with two sets of proper- 
 ties, the physical and the spiritual." Then are we under 
 the necessity of believing that every atom of matter has 
 two precisely opposite sets of properties, which are so 
 conjoined that they cannot be separated without anni- 
 hilating the atom; and of course psychological activities 
 must correspond accurately with physiological activities. 
 This, it is conceded by Dr. Ferrier, and even by Prof. 
 Bain, is not the case. Hence we conclude that matter is 
 not a " somewhat " in which spiritual and physical prop- 
 erties inseparably co-inhere. 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 AUTOMATIC ACTIVITY OF THE CEREBRUM. 
 
 THOSE who regard man as a machine — thoughts, de- 
 sires, judgments, and volitions being mere products of 
 a self-adjusting mechanism which is kept running by ap- 
 propriating air, water, food, and sunshine — are careful to 
 remind us that not only are the spinal cord and the 
 lower ganglionic centers capable of reflex movements, 
 over which the will has no control and of which the 
 ego may be unconscious; but that even the higher cen- 
 ters in the cerebrum have automatic activities which 
 are independent of volition, and of which we may be 
 totally ignorant. 
 
 As it is unwise to ignore facts, which are helpful, from 
 whatever source they may emanate; and as truth is a 
 welcome visitant in whatever garb she may present her- 
 self, and however unexpectedly she may knock for en- 
 trance at the door of the mind, — no harm can come from 
 the following concessions: There is an automatic activity 
 of the cerebrum; of this automatic activity the ego may 
 have no conscious knowledge. 
 
 A brief examination of the evidence upon which these 
 statements rest will aid in establishing the theory that 
 the mind, though some of its activities are automatic, is 
 not a mere machine run by unknown forces. 
 
 These automatic activities in the higher ganglionic 
 centers are of three kinds, as they are in the lower gan- 
 
AUTOMATIC ACTIVITY OF THE CEREBRUM. 389 
 
 glia. (i) Those activities which are purely automatic, like 
 instinctive movements in the lower animals; e. g. y the 
 selection by worker-bees (when no queen is produced) of 
 worker-eggs or worker-larvae not yet three days old, 
 which, after being hatched or carefully deposited in elab- 
 orately constructed "queen cells," are fed on "royal jelly," 
 causing them to come forth perfect queens, their bodily 
 organization and their physical capabilities being there- 
 by essentially changed; — the instinctive acts of a cer- 
 tain species of caterpillar, which, being accustomed 
 to make its hammock in six parts, if taken from its 
 completed hammock and placed in an incomplete one 
 will finish it, or if taken from an incomplete one and 
 placed in a complete one will add to its adopted home 
 the parts it would have added to its own; — the instinc- 
 tive acts of sucking and crying in the human infant born 
 without a brain; — the movements in a human subject 
 after division of the spinal cord. (2) Those activities 
 which are secondarily automatic, that is, such as have 
 become automatic through habit; e. g. t walking, which, 
 though voluntary in the sense that we can start or stop 
 at will, is capable of being continued after the will is 
 withdrawn, soldiers having continued walking, as they 
 have horseback-riding, when in profound sleep, in which 
 state the will is inactive; in which secondarily automatic 
 activities the nervous mechanism acquires the power of 
 movement independent of volition, and acquires it as a 
 result of the repetition of similar acts, especially during 
 youth, when new brain-tissue in which such combina- 
 tions may be established is more rapidly and more easily 
 formed. (3) Those automatic movements which are ef- 
 fects of the two preceding causes — some unusual stim- 
 ulus acting upon centers which are in a state of suscep- 
 tibility to slight influences; e. g. } the convulsive actions 
 
390 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 characteristic of epilepsy and hysteria; the running of 
 an artificially hatched chick in obedience to the call of a 
 hen; the alarm of a young fox on hearing the barking of 
 the hounds; the sudden start man makes on hearing an 
 unexpected sound; the closing of the eyelids when a 
 bright light is suddenly flashed before them— which has 
 sometimes happened in the case of persons who, owing 
 to paralysis, were incapable of closing the eyes by an 
 act of will; muscular contraction which, after being or- 
 dered by the will, continues without any further act of 
 volition until an order to relax is issued. This muscular 
 sense may be lost, a person being thereby rendered 
 incompetent to determine the state of the muscles, for 
 example those of the arm, except by the aid of vision; 
 and consequently being incapable of holding anything in 
 the hand, if the eyes are withdrawn from it, vision being 
 necessary to keep the will in operation and to determine 
 the condition of the muscles. 
 
 Automatic mechanism occurs, then, in the operations of 
 the cerebrum. An animal, so far as it is ruled by instinct, 
 is a mere automaton; but in proportion as it is directed 
 by reason and by will, its purely automatic actions are 
 limited in number. Consequently, if in the ascending 
 series of organic beings, the self-determined activities of 
 each are compared with the cerebral development, such 
 a correspondence is discovered as leaves little room to 
 doubt that the cerebrum is the organ of those psychical 
 operations which pass under the designations, " rational 
 and volitional." When we come to man, in whom the 
 cerebrum is most fully developed, the primarily automatic 
 activities are comparatively few in number; the second- 
 arily automatic actions — those originally initiated by the 
 will, and which have become automatic only through 
 continued repetition — are more numerous; and those 
 
AUTOMATIC ACTIVITY OF THE CEREBRUM, 391 
 
 activities which result from the exercise of reason and will 
 are so numerous as to indicate the possession of a self- 
 determining- power. The lower animals may have no 
 volitional power of directing their mental operations, 
 which may be regarded as purely automatic, being 
 perhaps similar to the mental operations we carry on 
 in dreaming. 
 
 Man unquestionably has the power of determining in- 
 tellectual activities to no inconsiderable extent. True, 
 in man as well as in the lower animals, currents of 
 thought and of feeling may flow on under the guidance 
 of association without any exercise of will-power, the 
 stimulus being imparted either from without or from with- 
 in, and the activity originating in the gray matter of the 
 hemispheres. This activity may be considered a joint 
 result of inherited tendencies, which have been modified 
 by early education, and of past volitional activities, which 
 by frequent repetition have become so easy as no longer 
 to call for a direct act of will, — indeed, in exact pro- 
 portion as the intellectual faculties are made to do 
 the greater part of their work in obedience to direct 
 volitional mandates, the automatic activities become ex- 
 pressive of ordinary modes of mental activity. Improve- 
 ments thus secured, whether by the individual or by the 
 race, are transmissible, automatic actions being thus 
 rendered easier for each succeeding generation, and the 
 progress of the human family being thereby insured. 
 But though many activities of the cerebrum may be re- 
 garded as automatic, as much so as the activities of other 
 centers, the will has nevertheless the power of control- 
 ling the current of thought by the simple intensification of 
 those impressions which it elects from among the many 
 conveyed to the sensory ganglia, some being conveyed 
 over the internal senses and others over the external. 
 
392 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 As we become conscious of these ideas, emotions, and 
 judgments which have been previously elaborated by the 
 automatic machinery, the will proceeds to choose some 
 and ignore others, to magnify some and minify others, 
 thus furnishing material upon which the automatic ma- 
 chinery shall subsequently work. 
 
 That we are not conscious of either the physiological or 
 psychological changes which accompany the formation of 
 ideas in the mind is tolerably evident from the fact that in- 
 juries inflicted upon the brain are not felt in the slightest 
 degree; and of mental processes, we manifestly remain 
 ignorant until their results are laid at the door of con- 
 sciousness. As is well known, memory, working beneath 
 the region of consciousness, frequently surprises us by 
 laying some coveted word beneath the vision of the ego. 
 Nor will it be denied that the process of reasoning may 
 go on, and frequently does, without our knowledge, our 
 judgments being sometimes matured and delivered over 
 to the ego without our being aware of previous mental 
 activity. The artist, whether he be musician, sculptor, 
 or painter, recognizes his best conceptions (though pro- 
 ducts of materials which he has furnished) as results at 
 which the mind has arrived without any knowledge, on 
 his part, of its processes, or even of its activity. It is 
 conceded, consequently, that cerebral centers, as well as 
 lower ganglionic centers, can act not only automatically, 
 but without our being conscious of their acting at the 
 time. 
 
 The mind receives impressions from within as well as 
 from without, as is evident from the fact that we are 
 often presented automatically — as in dreams, or volition- 
 ally — as in waking moments, with pictures which are ac- 
 curate reproductions of pictures previously present in the 
 mind. Evidently, some ganglionic center has reported 
 
AUTOMATIC ACTIVITY OF THE CEREBRUM. 393 
 
 an impression received from the cerebrum over the nerves 
 of the internal senses, which impression is a reproduction 
 of one originally conveyed to the cerebrum by the exter- 
 nal senses, and retained there for subsequent use. In the 
 automatic power, resident in the hemispheres, of con- 
 structing new pictures from old materials as well as of 
 reproducing past impressions, a solution is furnished, 
 some think, of spectral illusions, which not being ex- 
 cited by external objects and having no corresponding 
 reality must of course be understood as originating in 
 the mind itself. 
 
 That the activities of the hemispheres only come into 
 the region of consciousness by being conveyed to some 
 center in which they are reported, seems probable, inas- 
 much as precisely the same effects can be produced by 
 ideas as are produced by sounds, sights, etc. One may 
 call himself in sleep, the quality of the voice being so 
 accurately reproduced in idea as to leave upon the mind 
 the conviction that a certain friend called him. He 
 awakes, and can scarcely persuade himself that his friend 
 did not call him. The hemispheres have conveyed a 
 past impression to the center of consciousness. What 
 prompted the call, the sleeper does not know. He may 
 not even retain the consciousness of having been dream- 
 ing. It is also well known that a " ticklish" person can 
 be affected by simply pointing the finger towards him. 
 The hemispheres, excited to activity by the mere sight 
 of a harmless gesture, have sent a reproduced impression 
 to the seat of consciousness. 
 
 There is, perhaps, or probably, one nervous center, and 
 but one, through which we become conscious, alike of 
 impressions from the external world and of changes in 
 the internal world — from which center emanate the im- 
 pulses to respondent action. 
 
394 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 Many activities of the cerebrum maybe regarded, then, 
 as purely automatic; as when the thoughts run on, in ac- 
 cordance with suggestions, without determination by 
 volition; or, as in muscular movements prompted by 
 simple ideas either with or without the accompaniment 
 of feeling. In the former case, the changes are deter- 
 mined partly by the constitution inherited from ancestors 
 — which constitution was determined in measure by the 
 habits of past generations; and partly by individual 
 habits acquired through frequent repetition of the same 
 or similiar acts — acts done in the past, and the effects 
 they leave on character being the most potent impulses 
 in determining the conduct of the present. In the latter 
 case, the changes are determined by intellectual or emo- 
 tional impulses originating in the mind itself, in which 
 impulses the will might have exercised a controlling in- 
 fluence. And of these automatic activities, whether 
 originating in inherited dispositions or in simple ideas, 
 we may be unconscious. 
 
 Until it has been proved, however, that acts desig- 
 nated " volitional " now receive, and from infancy have 
 received, their stimulus exclusively from automatic cen- 
 ters, it cannot be legitimately asserted that the will has 
 no self-determining power. 
 
 From the nature of the nervous system, sense-impres- 
 sions travel in an upward direction (if they meet with no 
 interruption) until they arrive at the cerebrum, no auto- 
 matic movement being generated in their course. In 
 passing through the sensory ganglia, they give rise to a 
 sensation, which being transmitted to the hemispheres 
 causes changes in their cortical substance, the results of 
 which are, or may be, subsequently sent as an idea to the 
 seat of consciousness and may find expression either au- 
 tomatically or volitionally. If the sense-impression is 
 
AUTOMATIC ACTIVITY OF THE CEREBRUM. 395 
 
 interrupted in its ascending- course, automatic movements 
 result, the nature of the movement being determined by 
 the point at which the interruption occurs. 
 
 If, after the impression has reached the cerebrum, the 
 will for any reason is in abeyance, automatic activities may 
 occur, ideas taking such complete possession of the mind 
 as to excite respondent actions, as in cases where the 
 will has become enfeebled; or when it is inactive, as in 
 sleep; or when its energies are concentrated on something 
 else, as when a speaker's automatic machinery is furnish- 
 ing language and coloring to thoughts already committed 
 to it for delivery, while the will and the reason are gather- 
 ing truths which are to find expression in subsequent 
 sentences.* 
 
 It may be profitable to enumerate the intellectual ex- 
 ercises which may be either automatic or volitional. 
 
 I. Impressions: — These, which are changes in the 
 nervous system immediately antecedent to sensation, are 
 essentially automatic, though they may be intensified by 
 successive acts of volitional attention. By dwelling upon 
 fancied ailments one may produce the disease he dreads. 
 By directing attention to the evidences of recovery from 
 sickness, he may secure return to health, and may be- 
 come convinced that his restoration is in consequence 
 of the remedies he has taken, though he has swallowed 
 no medicine more potent than bread-pills, which being 
 received from the hands of a physician, in the confident 
 expectation that they would effect a cure, prove instru- 
 mental in healing imaginary ailments. 
 
 * Sir Walter Scott's amanuensis says that the celebrated author, while ut- 
 tering the sentence to be copied, would frequently consult a book in his library, 
 accumulating materials tor subsequent passages, the volitional activities being 
 in advance of the automatic, as was evident from the occasional presence, in the 
 sentence uttered, of a word wholly inappropriate, but which, belonging in a 
 subsequent sentence, would appear presently in its proper place. 
 
396 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 2. Sensations : — The ability to locate an impression, 
 which may be regarded as the first mental stage in a con- 
 scious sensation, is unquestionably automatic, whether we 
 view it as an inheritance or as an acquisition under ex- 
 perience. Impressions from the external world are re- 
 ferred to the ends of the nerves which convey them to 
 the sensory ganglia; and the process is purely automatic. 
 In some instances, indeed in not a few, impressions are 
 erroneously located.* 
 
 Nor can it be denied that the effects which these im- 
 pressions produce upon the mind are determined in meas- 
 ure by the condition of the physical organism, through 
 which they are interpreted to the consciousness of the 
 recipient. In sleep, for example, there is diminished re- 
 ceptivity to sense-impressions; though, from the fact 
 that unusual sounds though not loud, or exceptionally 
 loud sounds though usual, generally awaken the sleeper, 
 it is evident that the sensory ganglia are still receptive. 
 So likewise there are states of excessive sensibility to ex- 
 ternal impressions, as in fevers. The measure of recep- 
 tivity in each case is no doubt conditioned in part upon 
 the quantity and quality of the blood present in the 
 brain at the time; and the intensity of the sensation is 
 measured, other things being equal, by the attention 
 directed to the impression, that is, sensations may be 
 augmented or diminished by an indirect exercise of the 
 will. 
 
 The several sensations, — hearing, sight, smell, taste, 
 touch, — which may be produced by impressions received 
 
 * Impressions made upon the cut ends of nerves, in the stump of an 
 amputated arm, may be referred to the fingers. Pains in the hip-joint are 
 reported as painful impressions in the knee. Disease of the heart is fre- 
 quently reported as a pain in the arm. Pain in the stomach, induced by 
 eating ice-cream, is located by some persons in the throat; by others, over the 
 eye. 
 
AUTOMATIC ACTIVITY OF THE CEREBRUM. 397 
 
 from the external world, and are primarily automatic, 
 may also be produced by impulses conveyed from the 
 cerebrum; that is, they may be purely subjective, and are 
 either reproductions of sensations previously experienced 
 or direct products of cerebral activity. Of course, such 
 sensations, like those produced by sense-impressions, are 
 essentially automatic. If one is fully persuaded that he 
 has received a severe injury in any part of his body, he 
 may experience acute pain, at least imagine he does, 
 though the part is absolutely uninjured. Indeed, there 
 are persons, the character of whose sensations can be 
 made to depend upon the idea dominant in the mind at 
 the time; even as there are some whose ideational and 
 emotional states may be determined by the sensations 
 reported from the attitude of the muscles. The "biolo- 
 gized " subject has the sensations which correspond with 
 the ideas having control of his mind at the time. A per- 
 son in a " hypnotic " state has ideas which are suggested 
 by the tension given to the muscles; — a devout man, if 
 placed upon the knees in an attitude of prayer, while in 
 the "hypnotic" state, engages in earnest supplication to 
 the Father of All. Thus, men, at least some men, can 
 be made to feel what they expect to feel, to see what 
 they expect to see, to smell what they expect to smell, 
 to hear what they expect to hear, and even to do what 
 the muscles suggest should be done, because it is usually 
 done when they are under similar tension. Sensations, 
 then, which cannot be distinguished from conscious 
 sense-impressions, may be automatically produced by 
 the cerebrum; and sensations, in which the will is appar- 
 ently unconcerned, may automatically produce idea- 
 tional states. 
 
 In like manner, joyousness and despondency are 
 states produced, not exclusively nor even mainly, by 
 
398 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 external conditions, nor by conscious volitional acts, 
 but by an automatic adjustment of the several mental 
 faculties, which adjustment results no doubt in large 
 measure from the state of the physical health. The 
 origin of these states is to be found in subjective condi- 
 tions, superinduced in part by physical causes, over 
 neither of which the will has any direct control, though 
 it may be regarded as having an indirect influence. 
 While a despondent person, as must be conceded, has no 
 power of becoming cheerful by simply willing to do so, 
 he can will to look upon the sunny aspects of life, to 
 seek cheerful society, to afford healthful occupation to 
 both body and mind, to ignore the existence of those 
 misfortunes which depress his spirits, to divert attention 
 from those rasping anxieties which wear upon the ner- 
 vous system, and to secure for himself an environment 
 which will render joyousness more easily attainable. 
 
 A similar course is always open to those who, in mat- 
 ters moral and religious, have become for the time being 
 the helpless victims of circumstances. They may not be 
 able in the present, it is true, to resist temptations to 
 courses of conduct or to the acceptance of religious 
 doctrines, which are unreasonable and even impolitic; 
 but it certainly does not follow that they are power- 
 less for all time to come, inexorable fate impelling 
 them to courses which can only end in irretrievable 
 disaster. They may resolve to pay more attention 
 to motives which they have too long disregarded; to 
 weigh arguments which, though unanswerable, have 
 been scorned by them till folly has usurped the place of 
 good judgment. 
 
 3. Attention: — This, which is the power of concen- 
 trating thought upon a particular impression or set of 
 impressions, received either from within or from without, 
 
AUTOMATIC ACTIVITY OF THE CEREBRUM. 399 
 
 is at first purely automatic. The child's mind is at- 
 tracted by objects presented to it, independent of any 
 act of volition. In the case of an adult, however, in 
 whom will-power has been strengthened by education 
 and exercise, attention, in reference alike to what is 
 going on in the external world and to subjective states, 
 is either automatic or volitional. Without an act of will 
 he may have his attention directed to a beautiful land- 
 scape. By an act of will, he may direct special attention 
 to it and may fix an appreciative gaze upon some one 
 object in it, to the neglect of all else. In like manner, 
 while volitional power is engaged in riveting attention 
 upon a complicated process of reasoning, he may greet a 
 friend without having any conscious knowledge of his 
 friend's presence, or at least no such knowledge as will 
 leave a remembrance of having met him, the attention 
 bestowed being automatic. 
 
 Not only may attention be automatically, and even 
 unconsciously, directed towards a particular object, but 
 in some instances it cannot be withdrawn by an act of will. 
 The stricken wife, at the bed-side of her dying husband, 
 finds it almost impossible to divert attention from her 
 unhappy condition. The lad who, while concentrating 
 attention upon the successive steps in a difficult math- 
 ematical problem, is summoned to the ball-ground in 
 order to decide whether his " nine" or his rival's " nine" 
 are victors, soon discovers that his will is unequal to the 
 task of riveting the mind upon the demonstration under 
 consideration, no matter how strong his purpose may be, 
 nor how ardent his ambition to secure a prize, nor how 
 earnest his desire to be in readiness for the coming ex- 
 aminations, nor how great his fondness for " pure reason- 
 ing." The attractiveness of the game and of its accom- 
 paniments sets volition at defiance. The business man, 
 
400 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 in the sanctuary, is listening- to the claims of religion; 
 but for six days he has been concentrating his thoughts 
 upon a plan for rescuing his imperiled fortune from the 
 grasp of unprincipled rascality. A new method of 
 procedure has been devised in the active brain and sent 
 thence to the seat of consciousness. His attention is 
 instantly absorbed; and the will may command never so 
 imperatively, " Heed the message of life," but the atten- 
 tion is still directed to the new scheme of escape from 
 environing perplexities. He needs to have a remark- 
 ably well developed will to enable him to control 
 this automatic impulse. 
 
 We should not fail to note, however, that the will 
 maybe strengthened in its power of securing fixedness 
 of attention, whether upon impressions received from 
 external objects or from internal states. Thus, a good 
 musician can develop will-power to an extent which may 
 enable him to single out any one part, or even the 
 sound from any particular instrument, in a piece of music 
 performed by a hundred players. The philosopher may 
 acquire the power of continuing his process of reasoning, 
 though acute disease is making such ravages in his 
 physical organism as would throw him into intense 
 agony, if attention was diverted from the subject under 
 consideration. Impressions which would produce pain, 
 even the most intense, if the attention were not en- 
 grossed in other matters, may thus be entirely unknown. 
 The attention may be directed elsewhere by the force of 
 the will, or by the attractiveness of some other object, or 
 by the united influence of these two agencies. Some 
 persons, possessed of strong wills, can so completely 
 concentrate their thoughts upon a particular subject, 
 especially if it is an attractive one, that they may re- 
 main nearly or quite unconscious of even severe pains. 
 
AUTOMATIC ACTIVITY OF THE CEREBRUM. 401 
 
 Children can be made to cease crying from the pain of an 
 injury, by being attracted to notice some pleasing object, — 
 consciousness of the injury — that is, pain — ceasing, though 
 of course the sensations continue. A soldier in battle 
 may receive a severe wound without being aware of it 
 until the excitements of the hour are past. 
 
 As impressions, which would produce pain if the sen- 
 sory ganglia were disengaged and in a state of receptivity, 
 may exist without affecting consciousness, so also changes 
 may occur in the cerebrum of which we would become 
 conscious if in a condition to notice them, but of which 
 we may remain unconscious, the changes being not only 
 purely automatic, if the will is not concerned in them, 
 but absolutely unknown; and to affirm that such auto- 
 matic activities are incapable of occurring without the 
 knowledge of the ego is a pure assumption and one 
 which the facts will by no means warrant. 
 
 Nor is it unworthy of note that as a result of attention 
 long and frequently concentrated in the performance of 
 any particular act, the several senses can be improved 
 to an extent truly marvelous. The blind can read by 
 simply passing the fingers over small raised letters, and by 
 a mere touch of the hand can recognize a person after 
 long absence. The sense of smell in savages becomes 
 exceedingly acute. Hearing in the musician becomes 
 sensitive to a degree nearly inconceivable. That the 
 sense of taste can be greatly improved is evidenced 
 by the results attainable by tea-testers, who can grade 
 tea accurately by a single sip. We are not at liberty 
 to regard these and similar results as the acquisition, 
 through volitional attention, of an unusual power in de- 
 termining the character of the impression made, for in 
 those forms of somnambulism in which the attention is en- 
 grossed by a single idea, and as well also in " hypnotism," 
 
402 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 there is the same acuteness of the senses, though the will 
 is in abeyance. Persons can be distinguished by smell, 
 even by the smell of the gold ring taken from the 
 ringer. By the acuteness of what is denominated 
 " the muscular sense," somnambulists walk along house- 
 tops; and by the same agency "hypnotic" persons 
 have been known to write a letter, without any assist- 
 ance whatever from vision, with perfect regularity, 
 the lines being equidistant, straight and parallel, the 
 words at proper intervals, the i's dotted and the t's 
 crossed. 
 
 Thus it becomes evident that impressions, which as we 
 have already seen may be automatically registered, may 
 also be automatically reproduced. 
 
 Without troubling the reader with an enumeration of 
 the many ways in which attention may increase or dimin- 
 ish the intensity of sensations, alike those produced by 
 external impressions and those received from cerebral 
 changes, we content ourselves with the affirmation, that 
 in reference to both classes of impressions attention may 
 be either automatic or volitional. Automatic attention, 
 whether concerned with external or internal impressions, 
 is an involuntary absorption of the mind by an object or 
 an idea in virtue of its attractiveness, or in virtue of the 
 vividness with which it is presented, or in virtue of its 
 adaptedness to the state of the recipient's mind, which 
 adaptedness may be the conjoint result of the character 
 of the impression and of the inherited or acquired re- 
 ceptivity of the sensory ganglia for that kind of an im- 
 pression. Volitional attention is the self-determined 
 direction of the faculties upon a sense-impression, or upon 
 an idea, which the individual is solicitous of keeping 
 within the mental gaze; and it is by this power of elect- 
 ing the objects upon which the mind shall employ its 
 
AUTOMATIC ACTIVITY OF THE CEREBRUM. 403 
 
 energies, and of magnifying their importance by contin- 
 ued contemplation, that we are able to free ourselves 
 from the thraldom of the automatic machinery. The will 
 is capable of determining upon what the attention shall 
 be riveted, not always and absolutely, but generally and 
 with a measure of certainty that leaves us conscious of 
 freedom in reference at least to all the more important 
 duties of life; and even in those instances in which we 
 feel ourselves powerless in the present to arrest the 
 automatic activities of the mind, we regard ourselves as 
 the creatures of present necessity simply because we 
 have not wisely employed our freedom in the past, and 
 we are strongly disposed to conclude that by a judicious 
 exercise of the will for a protracted period of time, we 
 may recover the liberty whose loss we so deeply deplore. 
 
 4. Perceptions: — These, which are notions formed in 
 reference to the object which produced a sensation, may 
 be automatic, as all psychologists concede, alike those 
 who regard them as intuitive and those who view them as 
 generalizations based on experience — the former regard- 
 ing them as primarily automatic, the latter, as second- 
 arily so. 
 
 Our perceptions of size, of form, and in measure also 
 of distance, are automatic, except to the limited extent in 
 which the will has the power of determining the elements 
 which shall have most weight in their formation — this 
 being done indirectly by fixing the attention upon that 
 deemed most important. It seems difficult to rid one's self 
 of the conviction that our perceptions are the result of 
 protracted involuntary education, which commencing at 
 the dawn of life is carried forwards with greater or less 
 regularity till death, each perception being in fact a re- 
 sultant of all past experiences in reference to the object 
 which produced the sensation. The act is essentially 
 
404 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 automatic, not volitional, as is also the conviction of its 
 trustworthiness. Each is apparently an immediate and 
 necessary consequent of the impression received. 
 
 This view is in no way inconsistent with the well- 
 established fact that the power of perception can be 
 augmented by the habit of volitional attention. For 
 example, some deaf and dumb persons can acquire 
 the power of " lip reading," interpreting movements of 
 the mouth and the lips into intelligent words. 
 
 Nor is it inconsistent with the fact that any idea or 
 emotion, which may be dominant at the time, may modify 
 the perception formed in reference to any sense-impres- 
 sion. The imagination, under the influence of terror, can 
 construct frightful pictures from very harmless materials, 
 and can invest them with all the semblance of reality. 
 
 Nor is it necessary to assume a hostile attitude towards 
 those physiologists who insist that even the moral sense, 
 as it exists in children and in savages, is a specimen 
 of automatic activity; since it by no means follows 
 that in maturer years, and indeed even in children and 
 in savages, direction may not be given to the automatic 
 machinery by continued volitional attention to those 
 higher motives which reason pronounces too impor- 
 tant to be either ignored or belittled. There is indeed 
 such a thing as the mechanism of moral perceptions, but 
 how that mechanism runs, and what its product shall 
 be, depend in no inconsiderable degree upon what the 
 will keeps prominently before the mind. It is true, that 
 man cannot determine, by a direct act of will and with 
 unerring certainty, how healthful his moral offspring 
 shall be, now that they have come to the birth; but he can 
 determine to feed his moral nature upon such food that 
 its children henceforth shall have certain general char- 
 acteristics, growing out of those habitual states which 
 
AUTOMATIC ACTIVITY OF THE CEREBRUM. 405 
 
 volitional attention has gradually developed without any 
 interference with automatic machinery. I cannot stop 
 the loom, it may be; nor can I determine what shall be 
 the nature of its product, the materials being already 
 in it and partly woven, but I can decide, to some ex- 
 tent at least, upon what materials it shall work in future, 
 whether upon rags or upon golden fibers. It is possible 
 to destroy worthless fabrics and to strangle illegitimate 
 children. 
 
 5. Ideas: — The formation of ideas is less dependent 
 upon changes in the sensory ganglia than sensation 
 and perception are; indeed, in addition to the power of 
 forming distinct mental representations of objects which 
 produce sensations, the mind possesses the ability of 
 forming ideas independent of sensations immediately re- 
 ceived through sense-impressions. It is able to build 
 new structures from the old materials stored away in 
 memory. The past is indeed the father of the present; 
 but the living representatives of former mental activities 
 have an individuality of their own. 
 
 That ideational activities are in measure automatic 
 seems probable from our possession of primary beliefs; 
 from the fact that truths widely and warmly accepted by 
 one generation tend to become intuitive convictions in 
 succeeding generations, the modifications produced in 
 the brain by their acceptance being capable of trans- 
 mission by inheritance; from the possession, by some 
 persons, of the power of performing exceedingly difficult 
 intellectual feats by processes which are inexplicable, 
 not alone by others, but even by those performing them — 
 lads, who have received no instruction, and are totally 
 incompetent to explain the methods pursued, being 
 capable of multiplying large numbers and extracting 
 their roots by mental operations of some kind, though 
 
406 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 probably not by such as are employed by trained mathe- 
 maticians; from the almost marvelous powers exercised 
 without any direct volition by those possessing remark- 
 able intellectual gifts, as by Mozart, Beethoven, and 
 Haydn in music, by Shakespeare and Milton in poetry, 
 by Raphael in painting, by Watts in invention — the con- 
 ceptions which have rendered these names immortal 
 having come into the region of consciousness from a state 
 of automatic, unconscious activity. 
 
 While conceding that the mind may act spontaneously 
 in the formation of ideas and in arranging the order of 
 their succession, one is nevertheless justified in asserting 
 that every person is conscious of intellectual freedom, be- 
 ing convinced that above the automatic machinery there 
 is a controlling will. This may have its limits, it is true. 
 It may be incapable of originating ideas, as all are pre- 
 pared to concede; but from the ideas which well up in the 
 mind, thrown into consciousness by the self-acting ma- 
 chinery, it may make a selection, and by fixing attention 
 upon the elected idea may so deepen the impression it 
 makes as to render all other ideas impotent in compari- 
 son therewith. Consequently, even though the process 
 by which ideas are evolved is regarded as exclusively 
 automatic — which it cannot be — nevertheless man's free- 
 dom is not imperiled. So long as he retains the ability, 
 by fixing attention upon a set of ideas or upon their 
 nexuses, of determining which shall control his conduct in 
 any given case, he cannot be considered as the helpless 
 victim of blind fate; and so long as he retains the power 
 of thus directing the currents of thought and of selecting 
 those which seem best adapted to enforce a conclusion in 
 harmony with judgments maturely formed, he assuredly 
 is not a mere thinking automaton. 
 
 The automatic activity of the cerebral hemispheres, as 
 
AUTOMATIC ACTIVITY OF THE CEREBRUM. 407 
 
 manifested in the formation of ideas, is of course most 
 conspicuous when the intellect is in an excited state and 
 the power of the will is in partial or complete suspense, 
 the mind being possessed by a succession of mental rep- 
 resentations which may either be products of activity 
 called forth by unconscious impressions, or may be re- 
 sults evolved in its own operations carried on under the 
 region of consciousness — suggestions, of whose origin 
 nothing is ascertainable. In like manner, all acts which 
 are expressions of dominant ideas rather than of direct 
 volitional impulse, may be regarded as automatic. It 
 does not follow, however, that the ego is incapable of 
 arresting these automatic movements. Certainly not. 
 A word is misplaced as the epistle is written, the mis- 
 placement being the result of a temporary jumbling of the 
 results of two processes, the automatic and the volitional. 
 The automatic machinery is ordered to pause while cor- 
 rections are made. This done, it is permitted to run on, 
 performing its allotted work, while the volitional activities 
 are engaged in generating new conceptions. While 
 in a state of mental abstraction, the house is passed 
 at which we intended to call. The will orders a halt. 
 After turning round, and while the automatic ma- 
 chinery is engaged in doing allotted work, we again fall 
 into an abstracted state, perhaps actually passing the 
 house again. Somewhat irritated, the command is given, 
 " Halt." We reach our destination because the will has 
 proved master. 
 
 Consequently, strictly speaking, many of these so- 
 called automatic activities may be regarded as auto- 
 matic only in the sense that the will, which has ordered 
 them, has no further concern in them, the extent to 
 which, under a permissive decree of the will, they are 
 left to themselves, and as well also the measure in which 
 
40S THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 their operations are unknown, being determined by the de- 
 gree in which the will is otherwise engaged. Possibly all 
 automatic movements are in some sense volitional, being 
 initiated by the will, or having been so frequently ordered 
 as to have become habitual, or being permitted. This 
 seems possible from the fact that the will may act with- 
 out our knowledge, as heretofore observed. Impelled by 
 expectancy, the will may determine movements, without 
 the ego being in any way aware of it. In many of the 
 phenomena of spiritualism, there can be no doubt that 
 the will is operative, and is free. The table turns at which 
 spiritualists are seated in the confident expectation that 
 it will turn. They willed it should turn. Prof. Faraday 
 has proved that table-moving by spirits is table-pulling 
 by those seated about it, " a pulling," of which they may 
 be unconscious. 
 
 It follows, it is true, that human testimony, even when 
 perfectly sincere, is not always trustworthy. This is no 
 new revelation, however. Free agents may be doing 
 what they are not conscious of doing, and what they per- 
 sist in asserting they are not doing. The will, acting 
 without the knowledge of the ego, may cause a piece of 
 iron suspended in the hand to vibrate in specified direc- 
 tions over specified substances. It can cause a divining 
 rod to testify to the presence of water or of a certain 
 mineral formation. 
 
 As it is a well established fact that the will can act 
 without our being conscious of it, nothing can be gained 
 by an attempted denial. Nor does it follow that man is 
 a mere automaton whose concealed wires are pulled by 
 unknown forces. 
 
 The form of activity which passes under the term im- 
 agination is also essentially automatic, being, as all con- 
 cede, a species of ideation. That this is not necessarily 
 
AUTOMATIC ACTIVITY OF THE CEREBRUM. 409 
 
 dependent upon the will, all are prepared to admit, 
 whatever definition they may feel disposed to give to the 
 term. Those who prefer to regard it as the faculty 
 "which gives to airy nothingness a local habitation and 
 a name," concede that it is automatic. Those who ex- 
 tend it to include the faculty by which materials previ- 
 ously accumulated are brought into forms of beauty, will 
 find it difficult, if not impossible, to deny that to "mirror 
 forth the forms of things unseen " is to reproduce past 
 images, or to construct new images from those repro- 
 duced forms. In either case, the process is as truly 
 automatic as memory is. So also, if imagination is un- 
 derstood in its lowest sense, as the reproduction of past 
 conceptions, it is unquestionably purely automatic. 
 
 Though imagination is thus primarily independent of 
 volition, there can be no question that the will can place 
 the faculties of the mind in a state favorable to the repro- 
 duction of past images, or to the creation of new ones; 
 nay, it can institute a search for them, and though it can- 
 not call them up directly, it can pull at the chain of as- 
 sociated ideas, till pictures which gratify the sense of 
 beauty arise in the mind — new combinations of old im- 
 ages, or creations from materials unconsciously present 
 in the store-house of memory. 
 
 6. The Emotions: — These are of two kinds: (i) Those 
 which have an objective origin: (2) Those whose origin is 
 purely subjective. The existence of the former is de- 
 pendent upon the existence of an external object. The 
 existence of the latter is dependent upon the existence 
 of an idea in the mind. In the former, only the sensory 
 ganglia are concerned. In the latter, the sensorium and 
 the cerebrum are jointly concerned, the cerebrum fur- 
 nishing the idea with which pleasure or pain is associated, 
 and the sensorium effecting the union of the two. 
 
410 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 To that class of emotions whose existence is depend- 
 ent upon an external object belong the sympathetic 
 feelings, as pleasure in another's favorable condition, 
 pity, partiality, dislike, love, hatred, approbativeness, an 
 instinctive respect for M the power which seems to make 
 for righteousness." These several emotions are auto- 
 matically in the mind on the presentation of objects fitted 
 to excite them. 
 
 To that class of emotions whose existence is condi- 
 tioned on ideational states belong benevolence, malevo- 
 lence, pride, ambition, veneration, hope, fear, covetous- 
 ness — in short, any feeling associated in its origin with an 
 idea. In emotions of this nature the idea conveyed to the 
 sensorium excites automatic movements in the same way 
 that sense-impressions do. Laughter may be produced 
 by the remembrance of ludicrous incidents. A feeling 
 of pleasure or pain may be excited by recalling sensa- 
 tions previously felt. The miser experiences a feeling of 
 satisfaction on contemplating schemes for increasing his 
 hoarded wealth. The devout christian is bowed in awe 
 by dwelling upon the inapproachable majesty of the Infi- 
 nite. The daughter, in her new home, though sur- 
 rounded by everything attractive, is melted into tears by 
 the idea that her mother's home is her home no longer. 
 
 The emotions, it is true, are in many instances purely 
 automatic; but they are not invariably so. They are 
 sometimes so powerful as to conquer the will; but they 
 are quite as frequently under volitional control, especi- 
 ally in well regulated minds. Though they often furnish 
 the motives which determine the decisions of the will, 
 they are frequently obedient servants of the volitional 
 powers. Some mothers, under the guidance of involun- 
 tary impulses, may indulge their children in practices 
 which injure them and wound the heart that loved them, 
 
AUTOMATIC ACTIVITY OF THE CEREBRUM. 411 
 
 not too ardently but too indiscreetly. Some fathers, by 
 an act of will, control that form of love which is common 
 to the animal creation, rendering it a most efficient agent 
 in inducing the child to forego present gratification in 
 the hope of securing future advantages, teaching him 
 that by controlling transient emotions he can purchase 
 enduring happiness. Being capable, through the pos- 
 session of a well disciplined will, of rendering paternal 
 affection subservient to the decisions of reason, he is 
 qualified to recommend, and if necessary to enforce, the 
 duty of learning to bring the emotions under volitional 
 control; and that such control is attainable is evident, 
 perhaps from his own example, more manifestly from the 
 fact that the will is frequently engaged in a violent strug- 
 gle with the feelings; and it is still more clearly evident 
 in that muscles which are paralyzed to emotional excite- 
 ment may be still obedient to the mandates of the will. 
 The muscles of the eye and of the mouth, though ren- 
 dered incapable by paralysis of producing involuntary 
 movements indicative of emotions, may still be respon- 
 sive to the will. Though no automatic movements can 
 occur, volitional movements expressive of feelings can be 
 executed. 
 
 That the will has, or may acquire, the power of con- 
 trolling the emotions under a variety of circumstances is 
 accordingly conceded by physiologists as frankly as it is 
 by the majority of mankind, who concur in believing 
 that rational beings may justly be held responsible for 
 exhibitions of temper and for indulging their passions. 
 This control, like that exercised over the formation of 
 ideas, is not direct, it is true; but we may withdraw 
 attention from dominant emotions and so leave them 
 to perish, or we may determinedly fix attention upon 
 something else, and by "the expulsive power of a new 
 
412 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 affection " may enable the mind to escape from what 
 would otherwise be complete thraldom. 
 
 The will may also prevent, in a majority of cases, the 
 expression in act of the emotions struggling in the 
 bosom, leaving them entombed in their cradle. This it 
 can do by controlling the muscles which emotions might 
 otherwise employ. 
 
 In those feelings which have their origin in subjective 
 states, being the result of an activity produced in the sen- 
 sorium by an idea communicated from the cerebrum, it is 
 possible for the will to fix attention upon some other 
 idea, thereby rendering it dominant, and so generating a 
 new or even an antagonistic emotion. Consequently, for 
 the impure thoughts, which being products of the auto- 
 matic machinery involuntarily flash into the mind, we are 
 responsible in so far as they are results of habitual states 
 whose character our wills have not been exerted in ren- 
 dering different; and if, as may be the case, these moral 
 states are in measure an inheritance over which the will 
 can exert only partial control, our ancestors were re- 
 sponsible. "The iniquities of the fathers are visited 
 upon the children to the third and fourth generation." 
 The visitation is not an arbitrary infliction, however, 
 from the hand of an omnipotent Sovereign, but a natu- 
 ral consequence of character formed by acts done. On 
 the other hand, neither do the effects of volitional con- 
 trol of the passions terminate with the life of the individ- 
 ual, but are transmissible to his descendants. Mercy is 
 remembered to thousands of generations. Nor is. this an 
 arbitrary bestowment of unmerited favors, but a perfectly 
 legitimate outcome of causes having an actual existence 
 in the creature. The results of self-discipline are more 
 enduring than those of self-indulgence, because voli- 
 tional control, long continued, produces cerebral changes 
 
AUTOMATIC ACTIVITY OF THE CEREBRUM. 413 
 
 radical in their nature, and permanent in their effects. 
 Character formed under volitional determinations is 
 more unalterable than character formed under temporary 
 impulses. 
 
 Consequently, those who are disposed to charge God 
 with unrelenting malignity towards the children of men, 
 and to regard life as an almost intolerable burden, inas- 
 much as human beings, even from earliest infancy, may 
 be weighe'd down with nearly irresistible tendencies to 
 evil, would do well to remember that as there can be no 
 merit in untried goodness, and as the choice of right 
 ways leaves effects upon character quite as permanent, if 
 not more permanent, than the effects of acts performed 
 from automatic impulses, there can be no legitimate 
 ground for charging God with injustice. He has simply 
 set before us evil with its consequences, and good with its 
 consequences, and left us free to choose either, assuring 
 us that the consequences of neither are confined to our- 
 selves or to this state of existence; and that judgment, 
 in the day of the final reckoning, will be based upon the 
 advantages enjoyed in the probationary state, even in- 
 herited tendencies being taken into account. No one, as- 
 suredly, will presume to affirm that justice required 
 that the physiological changes resulting from right acts 
 voluntarily chosen should be permanent and transmissi- 
 ble to posterity, while those resulting from evil causes 
 should be transient and non-transmissible to children. 
 Could God have presented man with a more powerful 
 motive for shunning the wrong and clinging to the right 
 than is found in the fact that the fruits of each are eter- 
 nal to the individual, and may be an inheritance to chil- 
 dren's children ? A man's own destiny for time and for 
 eternity, and even in measure the destiny of his descend- 
 ants, is suspended upon the manner in which he employs 
 
414 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 his volitional powers. If such motives are inadequate to 
 deter one from evil, what can deter him ? If there can 
 be no real goodness except in the volitional preference 
 of right to wrong, why charge our Maker with cruelty ? 
 
 Consequently, as is evident, there is no difficulty 
 whatever in securing a scientific basis for the assertions 
 of Scripture that "out of the abundance of the heart 
 the mouth speaketh; " that " out of the heart are the 
 issues of life." Certainly science teaches with unmistak- 
 able clearness that the currents of thought determine the 
 acts of life. The past is father of the present. Present 
 character is the legitimate child of past conduct. Domi- 
 nant ideas generate emotions. Emotions impel to acts. 
 Actions, especially if they become habitual, distil into 
 character. In each stage, the will is conscious of freedom. 
 It can determine which ideas shall be consciously present 
 and dominantly operative in the mind. It can decide 
 which motives shall remain in the ascendancy. It can 
 decree which acts shall be performed. It can ordinarily 
 execute these decrees. The effects it is capable of pro- 
 ducing may not be produced directly, as they frequently 
 are not; but as it unquestionably can produce them 
 indirectly in a majority of cases at least, the results are 
 the same as if they were direct consequences of an 
 immediate volition. 
 
 7. Memory: — In this there are four essential constitu- 
 ents, registration, retention, reproduction, recognition. 
 The impression is recorded in the brain. It is retained 
 there by a process of nutrition. It is reproduced there- 
 from. It is recognized as a reproduction of a previous 
 state of consciousness. 
 
 The process of registration is a series of physical 
 changes produced in the brain by some change in the nu- 
 trition it receives. Material particles, received from the 
 
AUTOMATIC ACTIVITY OF THE CEREBRUM. 415 
 
 blood, are deposited in groups of nerve-cells and nerve- 
 fibers; which structure is the material representative of 
 the facts deposited. As these tracks and scars constitute 
 connected systems, one idea suggests another as we re- 
 produce the previous states of consciousness. The asso- 
 ciation of ideas is due to the connected series of material 
 atoms which constitute the physical registration. This is 
 conceded by physiologists. That the process is dependent 
 upon nutrition received from the blood seems exceed- 
 ingly probable from the following considerations; what is 
 soon learned is soon forgotten, probably because insuf- 
 ficient time is allowed for the production of enduring 
 changes in the brain-substance; — what is thoroughly 
 learned, being made a part of one's mental furniture, is 
 remembered for a long time, likely for life, probably 
 because enduring material changes are effected in the 
 brain, rendering it certain that association can call up 
 the registered ideas; — an injury to the head causing 
 temporary insensibility leaves one without the power 
 of recalling events which immediately preceded the in- 
 jury, seemingly because, owing to the shock to the 
 system, nutrition from the blood has not been fur- 
 nished with which to register the events, or because, 
 as in the case of ideas hastily committed to memory, 
 time sufficient during a state of consciousness was not 
 allowed for their effectual registration; — one commits 
 to memory more readily when well and unwearied, be- 
 cause, as seems most probable, the brain is more active 
 and the blood less deteriorated, the process of registra- 
 tion by the formation of tracks and scars being conse- 
 quently more rapid and more effectual; — impressions 
 registered in youth are more enduring than those regis- 
 tered in old age, apparently because the brain can be 
 most modified during its growth, when a sufficiency of 
 
£16 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 healthful blood is furnished for the formation of new 
 nerve-cells and new nerve-fibers; — we reproduce an idea 
 or a sensation which was once within the region of con- 
 sciousness, but eludes our grasp for the present, by call- 
 ing up an associated idea, thereby setting the train of 
 material representatives of past thoughts into motion. 
 
 These scars and tracks (which may be regarded as 
 the physical basis of memory), whether they are the 
 material representatives of nothing else than ideas, as 
 some affirm, or are representatives of sense-impressions 
 as well as of ideas, as others assert, may unquestionably 
 be produced by purely automatic processes without any 
 conscious assistance from the will. The record can be 
 made without any direct act of volition; still, as no one 
 denies, the will can render the registration more rapid 
 and more enduring by riveting attention upon the ideas 
 to be registered, thereby causing the wide difference be- 
 tween ideas temporarily lodged in memory, and those 
 permanently laid away in its enduring structures. 
 
 The retention of ideas registered in the brain is effected 
 by the maintenance of the material structure originally 
 produced. The continuance of this structural registration 
 is secured, notwithstanding the waste continually going 
 on, by the deposit of new materials in the exact form of 
 the old, the new being received from the blood and the old 
 being carried out of the system. Consequently, though 
 the brain undergoes a complete change in every material 
 atom once in every seven years, or once in each year as 
 science now affirms, the material tablet remains essen- 
 tially unchanged; and, as a result, ideas committed 
 to memory in youth remain with us down to old age — 
 some even affirming that facts well imbedded in memory 
 are not obliterated till death. Those received in youth 
 and early maturity, being effectually registered by 
 
AUTOMATIC ACTIVITY OF THE CEREBRUM. 417 
 
 consequence of the vigor of the constitution and the 
 quality of the blood, are retained, that is, reconstructed 
 in new tissue; those received in later years are more 
 readily effaced, because, owing to the impoverished con- 
 dition of the blood, little more is possible than the main- 
 tenance of structures previously perfected, the diminution 
 of nutritive activity leaving new structures to be but 
 imperfectly formed, and consequently effaceable. 
 
 In this constituent of memory, automatic activity is 
 a primary element; still, it cannot be denied that the 
 will can assist very materially in securing the retention 
 of ideas in the mind. This it can do by indirectly calling 
 up the treasured ideas, their mere presence again in the 
 mind rendering it far more probable that the material 
 structure will be effectually perpetuated. It is no doubt 
 owing to this assistance rendered by the will, that the 
 youth, by frequent reviews, ensures the retention of a 
 science whose facts might otherwise slip from memory. 
 The reviews deepen and perfect the furrows made in the 
 brain by the facts entrusted to the keeping of memory. 
 It keeps them, because the material structure, which re- 
 presents them, is kept in good repair by the exercise of 
 the will in putting it in order and guarding it against 
 decay. 
 
 The third constituent of memory is the reproduction of 
 ideas, possibly also of sensations which were previously 
 in the consciousness. This is effected by a pull upon the 
 train of associated ideas, which ideas, by consequence, 
 come trooping into the region of consciousness. Of 
 course, only an infinitesimal part of our knowledge is at 
 any one time within the sphere of consciousness; and the 
 aid we derive from memory in the ordinary business of 
 life, and as well also in processes of reasoning, is depend- 
 ent, in large measure, upon the promptness and accuracy 
 
418 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 with which past experiences can be reproduced when 
 needed. What has been learned is probably always in 
 memory, though often in very shadowy outline; and is 
 always known, provided we can immediately reproduce it 
 as occasion may require. Some of our garnered know- 
 ledge, especially that which we frequently employ, is 
 within easy reach; some, we are sure, we have in the re- 
 cesses of memory, but we are not able at present to pro- 
 duce it, having seemingly forgotten where we deposited 
 it, and how we labeled it; some, we conjecture, was 
 never in mind, though circumstances may prove that it 
 was and still is. 
 
 This reproduction of ideas may be strictly automatic. 
 This is manifest, because, as numerous instances prove, 
 the scenes, the incidents, and the ideas of early infancy, 
 though entirely forgotten, apparently never within the 
 sphere of consciousness, may be reproduced on revisiting 
 the home in which our wondering eyes first received 
 impressions from the external world; nay, instances can 
 be furnished in which persons in advanced life have had 
 pictures presented to the mind which they recognized as 
 reproductions of past states of consciousness though 
 unable to explain when or where they received them, 
 being greatly astonished to learn from others that they 
 were reproductions of scenes upon which their eyes 
 rested in early infancy. Of course, in all such cases the 
 reproduction is purely automatic, being occasioned by 
 mere presence amid the surroundings of infancy, or by 
 some accidental occurrence which started a train of ideas 
 leading to the revival of traces which were still in the 
 brain, though unaccompanied with the ability to deter- 
 mine the time and the circumstances which attended 
 their formation. 
 
 In like manner, during fevers, persons have been 
 
AUTOMATIC ACTIVITY OF THE CEREBRUM. 419 
 
 known to repeat ideas and quote passages, and even speak 
 foreign languages, which in hours of health they were 
 totally unable to do, the automatic machinery reproducing 
 that which, though once within the region of consciousness, 
 perhaps sixty years before, has long since been so 
 completely forgotten that no effort of the will could have 
 brought it again within consciousness; indeed, cases are 
 on record in which persons, during the delirium of fever, 
 have reproduced ideas which must have been impressed 
 upon the memory when they were totally unconscious, 
 unless the unconsciousness was only seemingly complete. 
 
 This at least is conceded, the reproduction of ideas 
 may be strictly automatic, purely physical changes 
 effecting not only what volition may sometimes effect, 
 but in some instances reproducing what volition is unable 
 to reproduce. 
 
 Nevertheless, the will has a powerful indirect influence 
 over the machinery by which ideas are reproduced from 
 the store-house of memory. Recollection is in fact the 
 exercise of the will over this machinery, setting it in 
 operation for the discovery of ideas which we have once 
 possessed, and know we have, and which we now want. 
 Conceding that we cannot call up the coveted idea by a 
 direct volition, it is still true that by riveting attention 
 upon ideas known to be associated with the idea we are 
 in search of, the will can order, and in most instances can 
 secure, its presentation in the presence-chamber of the 
 ego. If, after following the series of ideas which the 
 known idea calls up, we fail in discovering our missing 
 child, we choose another leading idea and examine 
 minutely every entrant within the door of consciousness, 
 continuing to repeat the process till in the ideas which 
 pass under the vision of the ego, presented by the 
 automatic machinery, we recognize the features of the 
 
420 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 truant whose hiding-place was such an obscure corner 
 that we were compelled to pass along several pathways 
 ere we could discover him and drag him into the light 
 again. 
 
 The fourth constituent of memory is recognition. The 
 reproduced idea must be recognized as a revived experi- 
 ence. Without this recognition there would be no past 
 for us, only a teeming present. Neither would there be 
 any sense of personal identity, the ego of the present 
 being totally unconscious of an existence continuing 
 from the past. 
 
 This recognition of reproduced ideas and states as 
 resurrected experiences is essentially automatic. Of 
 course, we cannot will to recognize them. We recognize 
 them spontaneously, or we do not recognize them at all; 
 still, by an act of will, we may keep them under the 
 mental view while we examine them, noting resemblance 
 and dissimilarity. There is, it is true, no volitional recog- 
 nition of reproduced ideas; but by fixing attention upon 
 them we can decide whether they are accurate reproduc- 
 tions. Sometimes, in fixing the inward gaze upon them, 
 we recognize them as perfectly correct revivals; some- 
 times, as only partial revivals; sometimes, as little better 
 than gross perversions, though we are not able to specify 
 the respects in which they differ from their originals. 
 
 8. The Will: — Having seen that there are cogent 
 reasons why we should frankly admit that not alone in 
 animals but also in man, and even in his perceptions, his 
 ideas, his emotions, and his memory — as in his muscular 
 movements — there is an automatic activity as well as a 
 volitional, we come now to consider the question of 
 man's freedom. 
 
 According to Dr. Carpenter, "Will is a determinate 
 effort to carry out a purpose previously conceived." This 
 
AUTOMATIC ACTIVITY OF THE CEREBRUM. 421 
 
 definition, it is believed, ought not to be regarded as en- 
 tirely satisfactory. Whence this previous purpose ? Does 
 not purpose imply will ? Is there will prior to will ? or is 
 this previous purpose an effect of automatic machinery 
 acting antecedent to the possibility of volition ? That 
 he does not wish to be understood as teaching that the 
 term will is a convenient synonym for the outcome of an 
 automatic activity resulting from physical changes is 
 evident, because he presents a series of arguments to 
 prove that " the will is something essentially different 
 from the general resultant of the automatic activity of 
 the mind; " indeed, he regards it as a " power which being 
 completely independent of physical conditions, is ca- 
 pable of acting against the preponderance of motives." 
 It is possible to accept the conclusion, and inasmuch as 
 there is every conceivable measure of volitional power, 
 from simple volitional permission continued without our 
 knowledge after being consciously initiated, to an 
 efficient force directly exerted in the production of 
 coveted results, it is probably safer to acknowledge that 
 science is as yet incompetent to furnish a definition of the 
 term, not being at present in possession of all the facts, 
 and consequently being more likely to produce miscon- 
 ceptions than to promote clearness. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL. 
 
 Before entering upon the question of man's freedom, it 
 may be well to enumerate the propositions which may 
 be regarded as sufficiently well established to answer as 
 a foundation for future structures. 
 
 i. In a healthful organism, the will, under all ordinary 
 circumstances, is capable of putting into activity those 
 muscles whose movements are necessary to the execu- 
 tion of self-formed purposes; indeed, is capable of put- 
 ting into activity all muscles except those termed invol- 
 untary, viz., those of the heart, the iris, the coatings of 
 the stomach, and the intestines. 
 
 2. In a well-disciplined mind, the will is capable of so 
 far determining the motives which shall effectually con- 
 trol its decisions that it may be properly regarded as a 
 self-determining agent. 
 
 3. From the emotions which momentarily well up in 
 the mind, the will is ordinarily capable of selecting those 
 which shall furnish determining impulses resulting in 
 courses which the judgment pronounces advantageous. 
 
 4. In the formation of ideas, the will can decide which 
 shall remain under the vision of the ego, and may thus 
 determine the succession to no inconsiderable extent; and 
 is also capable indirectly of giving potency to ideas which 
 might otherwise have but little cogency. 
 
 5. From the treasures lodged in memory, the will can 
 
THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL. 423 
 
 procure what the ego needs for present use, procuring it, 
 however, by an indirect method; viz., by setting the 
 machinery in motion which shall reproduce ideas by vir- 
 tue of their nexuses, and then choosing from the long- 
 train whatever ideas it pleases to employ. 
 
 6. Volition manifests itself by a determination of blood 
 to that portion of the cortex of the hemispheres which is 
 concerned in the generation and transmission of any par- 
 ticular idea to the sensorium, thereby determining the 
 extent of the influence exerted by the idea upon the 
 conscious ego. 
 
 7. The blood, thus sent in increased quantity to some 
 nerve-center, not only supplies the material from which 
 the nerve-substance receives compensation for the "waste" 
 resulting from activity, making provision for the possi- 
 bilities of future energy; but also furnishes the oxygen 
 which converts the energy accumulated during the past 
 into force acting in the present. 
 
 8. The production and transmission of this will-force 
 are processes resembling in many respects the generation 
 and transmission of an electric current, the discharge 
 taking place, and the circuit being rendered complete, 
 when the tension of the nerve-center has reached a cer- 
 tain intensity. Consequently, as Dr. Ferrier has proved 
 by numerous experiments, electrical stimulation of the 
 cortical centers causes in the voluntary muscles a series 
 of movements which can scarcely be distinguished from 
 movements produced by direct volition. 
 
 9. The amount of potential energy thus converted into 
 actual energy, though primarily dependent upon the in- 
 tensity of the volitional determination, is secondarily de- 
 pendent upon the amount of scarlet-colored blood at the 
 time in the nerve-center, that is, it is dependent upon the 
 amount of oxygen present at the given moment; which, 
 
424 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 in turn, is conditioned upon the general vigor of the con- 
 stitution, will-power being consequently more potent at 
 some periods than at others. 
 
 10. A diminution in the amount of blood sent to the 
 nerve-center at any given moment, though not neces- 
 sarily diminishing the inherent force of the volitional de- 
 termination, does diminish the power of executing the 
 will's commands. One may will to do what he is at pres- 
 ent unable to accomplish, because the organism, per- 
 haps owing to feeble volitions in the past, has not grown 
 to the power of executing all volitional determinations; 
 but, as the physical organism gradually prepares itself to 
 do what it is repeatedly called upon to do and vigor- 
 ously endeavors to do, the time may come when com- 
 mands of the will at present beyond the power of execu- 
 tion may be readily executed. To him who wisely uses 
 the power he has, more will be given. 
 
 It follows, it is believed, that man may be held re- 
 sponsible both for the opinions he entertains, and for the 
 course of conduct he pursues. Being a free agent, and be- 
 ing justly accountable for what he is as well as for what he 
 does, he is accountable to a Higher Power for all his acts, 
 even for those which at the time they were performed he 
 could not have rendered essentially different. He is not 
 as innocent in reference to his beliefs as he is in refer- 
 ence to the size of the pupil in his eye, though he can 
 even increase or diminish the size of this by a volitional 
 determination to remain in darkness or in the full glare 
 of noon-day. He is not as guiltless in reference to his 
 conduct as he is in reference to the twitchings of his 
 stomach, though even these may be determined in meas- 
 ure by the kind of food he feeds upon. He is in posses- 
 sion of a faculty, a self-determining will, which, though at 
 any given time incompetent, it may be, to withhold 
 
THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL. 425 
 
 assent from propositions which are as false as they are 
 pernicious, and though equally incompetent to restrain 
 its possessor from the commission of deeds that are as 
 detrimental to the interests of society as they are to his 
 own well-being, is nevertheless competent to the pro- 
 duction of an organism which will enable him to choose 
 truth in preference to error and virtue in preference to 
 crime. 
 
 Responsibility for beliefs'. — What one shall accept in 
 the present as an opinion meriting an intellectual assent 
 is dependent upon three conditions, for each of which he 
 may be justly held responsible. These conditions are: (i) 
 The opinions already accepted as beliefs, for if the prof- 
 fered proposition is clearly inconsistent with these, it is 
 likely to be instantaneously rejected, the rejecter being, 
 however, strictly responsible for the presence in his 
 mind of those imperious occupants who summarily eject 
 their foes. (2) The disposition or indisposition to heed 
 those arguments which may prepare a receptacle for a 
 proposition which, on first presentation, ran violently 
 against existing prejudices; but which may come to receive 
 a cordial welcome, and even the approval of conscience 
 in ejecting some opinions which were never worthy a place 
 in the intellectual temple sacred to truth — for which dis- 
 position one is clearly responsible. (3) The exercise 
 of will-power in fixing attention upon reasons and 
 motives, which, being thereby augmented or diminished 
 in cogency, are capable of determining with almost un- 
 erring certaintv what conclusion shall be reached and 
 what course of conduct shall be decided upon — most per- 
 sons being capable of believing what they have resolved 
 to believe, and of deciding to do what they wish to do. 
 
 This indirect method of securing acoveted conclusion, 
 powerful as it is when one is weighing the arguments of 
 
426 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 an antagonist, is still more potent when he is engaged in 
 balancing the pros and cons which are products of his 
 own reasoning faculties; for he is less likely to be called 
 to an account for ignoring or insulting his own children 
 than for belittling the children of others, even as he feels 
 more pride in magnifying the boy who calls him father 
 than in magnifying another's son. Consequently, the 
 process of reasoning which we carry on within our own 
 minds, with a view of deciding what we shall believe, is 
 more likely to result in error than are those processes 
 which have to defend themselves before the tribunal of 
 another's reason. 
 
 Responsibility for conduct: — Without entering upon 
 a discussion whether or not acts are invariably a re- 
 sult of the preponderance of motives, it may suffice to 
 present evidence of man's accountability for the power 
 exerted over him by the several motives which ordinarily 
 impel to overt acts. If success crowns this endeavor, the 
 argument in favor of human liberty will be in no way 
 weakened by the concession that at a given time and 
 under prevailing motives, the individual could not have 
 acted differently; nor will this temporary necessity rob 
 him of merit in reference to deserving conduct, nor re- 
 lieve him from censure in regard to sinful practices. 
 What he is, as well as what he docs, has merit or de- 
 merit. Since what he is, is a consequent of what he was; 
 and what he was, was in large measure a resultant of 
 antecedent volitional determinations, present ability 
 is not the measure of present responsibility; nor are 
 present acts meritless because, as a result of past acts 
 of self-denial, he grew to a condition in which the will 
 from inward necessity impelled to the pursuit of right 
 courses. 
 
 Of the motives which influence human conduct the 
 
THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL. 427 
 
 following are the most potent, in each of which, as may be 
 seen, the will has a self determining power. 
 
 I. Habits: — These, it is conceded, almost invariably 
 impel to similar acts under similar circumstances. They 
 furnish a motive which the will can scarcely master — 
 possibly is powerless to conquer. The habit of doing 
 what is regarded as right may become so powerful as to 
 be nearly unconquerable. The habit of indulging a par- 
 ticular appetite, however degrading it may be, engenders 
 a motive which perhaps only an iron will can ignore. Be 
 it so. It was not always thus, however. Who is respon- 
 sible for this altered condition ? By permission, or by 
 direct determination, the will has been instrumental in 
 creating this imperious tyrant. Even if you assume that 
 the individual is now utterly powerless, you may not legit- 
 imately assert that he is irresponsible — unless it be that 
 species of irresponsibility for which one is responsible, an 
 inability to do otherwise than wrong in the present be- 
 cause he has persisted in doing wrong in the past. 
 
 But we are confronted with the assertion, Habits may 
 be inherited from ancestors; and certainly for the motives 
 thence arising one cannot be held responsible. True, 
 habits may be transmitted. True, one may be power- 
 fully disposed to yield to these inherited tendencies. It 
 has not been proved, however, that they are so potent, if 
 resisted with the full power of the will from early life, as 
 to render their possessor helpless. The powerful ten- 
 dency in the human organism to grow to the acts per- 
 formed, and not to the impulses which either find no ex- 
 pression or an expression in defiance of will-power actively 
 exerted, renders it possible to form an antagonistic habit 
 which can eventually master an impulse, especially if, as 
 is possible, an ideational state is produced and a delib- 
 erate judgment is formed which generate a powerful 
 
428 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 counter motive, conscience, meanwhile, rendering efficient 
 assistance, and the will exerting itself, not only directly 
 but also indirectly, by calling attention to the conse- 
 quences of the proposed course of conduct. 
 
 2. Emotions: — These, arising automatically, may impel 
 to acts which give promise of present gratification, or 
 may restrain from acts which, it is feared, may be fol- 
 lowed by pain. But as already seen, the will has the 
 power of determining which of many existing motives 
 shall be allowed to have dominance. Consequently, re- 
 sponsibility does not cease; and when to this power of 
 determining which motives shall be permitted to have 
 the ascendency, the further power is added — unquestion- 
 ably possessed by the will — of calling up new and power- 
 ful motives through the medium of ideational states, it 
 becomes evident that automatic emotions do not destroy 
 responsibility. 
 
 3. A Sense of duty : — Conscience, it is true, is to a large 
 extent a manufactured article, being at any given time a 
 resultant of the fallible judgments formed on all moral 
 questions, many of which judgments are incessantly 
 changing, and many of which questions are continually 
 presenting themselves under new aspects. Consequently, 
 even the motive which presents itself from an imperative 
 sense of duty can neither rob one of merit for doing right, 
 nor exonerate him from censure for doing wrong. A cor- 
 rect judgment in reference to what is proper in any given 
 set of circumstances surely does not render goodness un- 
 worthy of commendation; nor does the conviction that 
 wrong is right leave crime as deserving as virtue. Even 
 admitting that conscience at any given time is the spon- 
 taneous result of all the moral judgments previously 
 formed, or at present potent, it does not follow that one 
 is irresponsible for its decisions. Irresponsibility in the 
 
THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL. 429 
 
 present would imply complete irresponsibility in reference 
 to the moral judgments formed in the past, as well as in 
 reference to those formed in the present, and to the rel- 
 ative importance assigned to each — in each of which 
 class of acts we are conscious of freedom. All men be- 
 lieve that of judgments formed in the past one or more 
 might have been different — quite probably believe they 
 should have been, which implies that they could have 
 been. Of the judgments now formed, they admit that 
 many are founded on uncertain data, and are liable to be 
 reversed any moment, which they deem themselves capa- 
 ble of doing and indeed likely to do. They also feel 
 themselves competent, by the exercise of the will, of in- 
 tensifying the impression made by one judgment over 
 that made by another, even though the intrinsic merit of 
 the two may be apparently equal. By fixing the atten- 
 tion upon one, to the neglect of another, it maybe made 
 to assume an importance out of all proportion to its real 
 cogency. 
 
 Thus, whatever may be the product of the automatic 
 machinery — if it is automatic — which furnishes decisions 
 on moral questions, for that product man may be justly 
 held responsible. If it is a fabric from a self-acting ma- 
 chine, it is from a machine constructed under the effec- 
 tive or permissive decrees of an unfettered will. 
 
 4. Motives arising out of religious beliefs: — As men 
 are responsible for their religious beliefs, even though at 
 the present these maybe a legitimate outgrowth of opin- 
 ions previously acquired, so also are they responsible for 
 the motives thence arising. 
 
 Every person's conduct is determined in measure by 
 his conception of Deity; and every person's conception 
 of Deity is the product of his own self-determined thought. 
 No two worship the same God. Each has a conception 
 
430 THEI3M AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 of his own, though he may designate it by the same 
 term. 
 
 Men's conduct is determined in part by their hopes; 
 but the foundation of these is laid in each person's voli- 
 tional acts. 
 
 Again: our acts are influenced by our fears, which are 
 products of the relation between our intellectual beliefs 
 and our volitional determinations. 
 
 Conduct is determined, not infrequently, by the regard 
 we have to the happiness of others; and this is determined 
 by the views we entertain and by the measure of disin- 
 terestedness we have tutored ourselves to practice. 
 
 The will may be regarded as possessing the following 
 powers: — 
 
 i. The power of initiating activities, both muscular 
 and mental. 
 
 2. The power, after an activity is initiated, of continu- 
 ing it without the conscious knowledge of the ego. 
 
 3. The power, when no motives are present to the 
 mind, at least when none are consciously present, of act- 
 ing in accordance with fixed principles, which have been 
 pronounced worthy of determining the conduct; of the 
 influence of which principles the mind may be, for the 
 time being, entirely unconscious. 
 
 4. The power, in the presence of motives inviting to 
 the abandonment of fixed principles, of calling up new 
 motives and of selecting and intensifying those which the 
 judgment declares most weighty; thus, by magnifying 
 some and minifying others, the will is capable, by the 
 simple control of attention, of giving color to the con- 
 clusion reached and of deciding the course of conduct to 
 be pursued. 
 
 5. The power, in most cases — presumably in all cases, 
 if will-power were duly cultivated — of restraining its 
 
THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL. 481 
 
 possessor from any overt acts till an opportunity has been 
 allowed for further consideration, during which period of 
 suspended action the will may augment or diminish the 
 force of motives which either impel to, or deter from, the 
 commission of the contemplated act. This demand for 
 "a stay of proceedings," formed originally upon a delib- 
 erate conviction that hasty action under unreasoning 
 impulses is liable to prove unwise, becomes, by being 
 frequently made, a confirmed habit, which in many in- 
 stances greatly aids in ascertaining which way duty lies. 
 
 6. The power of confronting its possessor with the 
 probable consequences of his act — consequences near 
 and remote. 
 
 7. The power of impressing its possessor with a keen 
 remembrance of the injurious results of acts performed 
 under impulses unsanctioned by judgment. 
 
 8. The power of forcing its possessor to note his weak- 
 nesses, as well as the parts of his character which are 
 strongly defended. 
 
 9. The power of intensifying the verdict of the moral 
 sense, to the effect that the deliberate decisions of the 
 will have been too often disregarded in the past, and 
 should be obeyed henceforth. 
 
 10. The power of giving to certain feelings such a 
 measure of intensity as shall render obedience to voli- 
 tional decisions much easier. 
 
 Consequently, in a properly constituted human being, 
 in good physical and mental condition, every activity is 
 measurably under the control of the will, either directly 
 or indirectly, at least every activity that is concerned, to 
 any controlling extent, in his moral well-being, even the 
 automatic machinery being so far subject to his control 
 as to leave him responsible for the beliefs he entertains 
 and for the course of conduct he pursues. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 SCIENCE AND THE BIBLE; NO CONFLICT. 
 
 To deem it possible that there may be a lack of har- 
 mony between an accurate knowledge of natural laws \ 
 and a correct interpretation of a supernatural revelation 
 is to assume that there may be more than one originating 
 cause in the universe, or that the First Cause is charge- 
 able with duplicity of purpose, if indeed He may not be 
 guilty of designing to deceive His intelligent creatures. 
 Reason affirms that more than one originating cause is 
 inconceivable. In this opinion physicists and meta- 
 physicians concur. Nor is human reason less emphatic 
 in asserting that unity of design must characterize the 
 works of nature, whatever may have been their origin; 
 and must be a characteristic of the First Cause of all 
 things, if a First Cause exists. Conflicting purposes 
 imply imperfection. They must arise from lack of know- 
 ledge, or from feebleness of will; neither of which is con- 
 ceivable in an Unconditioned Personality, to which, as a 
 Primal Cause, reason is forced to refer all existences. 
 And to imagine that the Ultimate of all ultimates could 
 possibly design to deceive His intelligent creatures is to 
 imagine that He could be less than the sum of all good- 
 ness — that the stream can rise higher than the fountain. 
 Accordingly, he who has faith in a divine revelation (the 
 existence of which is highly probable, if we conceive of 
 God as having regard to the well-being of sentient 
 
SCIENCE AND THE BIBLE; NO CONFLICT. 433 
 
 creatures) need have no apprehensions in reference to 
 the progress of science. Scientific investigation cannot 
 possibly obscure the light of revelation. Only philos- 
 ophy falsely so called can produce this result, and its ef- 
 fects must be temporary in their nature. Theology has i 
 a province of its own, and a right to exact obedience to J 
 its laws. A supernatural revelation is not amenable to/ 
 the laws of physics. 
 
 Nor is the scientist called upon to assume a hos-. 
 tile attitude towards the teachings of Scripture. These,! 
 properly interpreted, can by no possibility retard the 
 progress of physical science. The student of nature may 
 fear, and has cause to fear, that a false exegesis of Scrip- 
 ture may antagonize the established facts of science, 
 though the effects of such antagonism must be tran- 
 sitory. Certainly he has no cause to apprehend any 
 disastrous results from just interpretations of a divine 
 revelation. As long as the scientist is left free to explain 
 everything that is graven on the accessible leaves of 
 nature's great volume, he may safely accord to the theo- 
 logian the liberty of explaining that which is contained 
 in a written revelation. Why should either presume to 
 invade the province of the other ? Neither province is 
 so restricted as to leave its citizens without broad fields 
 awaiting more successful cultivation. 
 
 It is safe, therefore, to affirm that the two volumes, 
 Nature* and the Bible, must be in perfect harmony. 
 Being expressions of the same will, no conflict is possible. 
 Accordingly, when the interpretations given to either are 
 in seeming antagonism with the teachings of the other, it 
 is reasonable to conclude that either the theologian or 
 the scientist is misreading the volume committed to his 
 care. Nor is it possible to deny that each has frequently 
 fallen into serious errors. Scientists have; and they 
 
434 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 frankly admit it. Theologians have; and it would be 
 folly for them to deny it. Whilst there may, perhaps, 
 be some measure of impropriety in enumerating the 
 mistaken inferences of scientists, there is nothing unbe- 
 coming in acknowledging that theologians have been 
 indiscreet in hastily — often dogmatically — opposing the 
 conclusions reached by scientific investigation. Unnec- 
 essary antagonism has been produced. In some instances 
 it has become but too plainly evident that they who have 
 undertaken a defence of Scripture are but poorly qualified 
 for the task, seriously weakening a cause which they 
 hoped to strengthen. Ardor is well: argument is better. 
 Religious faith is grand: logical force must conquer the 
 field ere faith can erect her majestic spire. Reasoning 
 steeped in prejudice has no weight with the unbiased. 
 It is a misfortune when, as has frequently happened, 
 defenders of Scripture are compelled to accept conclu- 
 sions which they once pronounced glaringly atheistic. 
 It proves but too conclusively that they were under the 
 guidance of strong prejudice. Such was the case with 
 those theologians who regarded the doctrine of the 
 earth's revolution upon its axis as inconsistent with the 
 declarations of Scripture, and certainly heretical; with 
 those who viewed the theory of gravitation as decidedly 
 atheistic in its tendencies, and Newton as giving comfort 
 to the enemies of Scripture; with those who, ere a new 
 interpretation of the first chapter of Genesis was forced 
 upon the church, persisted in pronouncing the teachings 
 of geology antagonistic to the Bible. 
 
 Mr. Spencer has well said, "Just as though unaware 
 that its central position was impregnable, religion has 
 obstinately held every outpost long after it was obviously 
 indefensible." " Obliged to abandon one by one the su- 
 perstitions it once tenaciously held, and daily finding its 
 
SCIENCE AND THE BIBLE; NO CONFLICT. 435 
 
 cherished beliefs more and more shaken, religion shows 
 a secret fear that all things may some day be explained; 
 and thus itself betrays a lurking doubt whether that 
 Incomprehensible Cause of which it is conscious, is really 
 incomprehensible." * 
 
 There is reason to fear that this folly may repeat 
 itself. Some there are, who seem to imagine that unless 
 the antiquity of man can be compressed within the limits 
 of Archbishop Usher's chronology, supernatural revel- 
 ation is seriously imperiled; though, to prove that there 
 is a scientific chronology in Scripture prior to the found- 
 ing of Solomon's temple would require more learning 
 than this age can command, and to retain faith in the 
 unity of the human family while refusing to lengthen the 
 period of human history is daily becoming more difficult 
 — in the opinion of many is now an impossibility, more 
 time being imperatively demanded for the production of 
 differences which exist between the several races of men. 
 Nor is it politic to ignore the fact, that though some are 
 violently opposed to the doctrine of the transmutation of 
 species — deeming it absolutely impossible that all organ- 
 isms should have developed from a few parental forms, 
 possibly from a single primordial germ, — it is illogical to 
 characterize the theory as atheistic, since it is impossible 
 to see why it should be regarded as a less noble con- 
 ception of God to believe that he may have created one 
 or two germs capable of evolving all living existences, 
 than to believe that he created each species indepen- 
 dently. If he chose to produce all plant-forms and all 
 animal organisms by evolution from one primordial germ, 
 assuredly no one is at liberty to consider His exis- 
 tence less real, His personality less marked, His will less 
 powerful, His wisdom less perfect, His self-sufficiency 
 
 * First Principles ; p. 101. 
 
436 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 less complete, His nature less unconditioned. It is pos- 
 sible that theistic evolution may be regarded by the 
 great mass of thinkers, in subsequent generations, as a 
 nobler conception of God than that which prevails in the 
 present day. If it succeeds, as it may, in commending 
 itself to the unbiased human intellect, theology will be 
 in no way hampered. If religion has merited the censure 
 passed upon it by Mr. Spencer, of having ignored her 
 immense debt to science, it is to be hoped that in future 
 she may frankly acknowledge the extent of her indebted- 
 ness; on the other hand, if, as some theologians are 
 disposed to assert, science has somewhat irreverently 
 handled the sacred ark of the eternal covenant, it is to 
 be hoped that she will henceforth walk softly as she 
 approaches the presence-chamber of the Unfathomable. 
 Whilst expressing the fervent desire that the latter may 
 be delivered from the impenetrable darkness which must 
 result from the belief that man can know absolutely 
 nothing in reference to the nature of the Ultimate 
 Reality, it is honorable also to desire, with equal fer- 
 vency, that the former may manifest becoming humility, 
 as the attempt is made to determine the incommunica- 
 ble attributes of that Infinite Personality whose power 
 is manifested in every form of existence, from the grain 
 of sand to the most intellectual of earth's honored sons. 
 
 Faith may be strengthened by examining the more 
 important harmonies which exist between science and 
 revelation, harmonies which no reasoning can effectually 
 destroy. 
 
 I. The Divine Will is the originating cause 
 
 OF ALL THINGS. 
 
 This is unquestionably the Biblical conception of God. 
 He is infinite. He is omnipotent. He is omniscient. 
 He is benevolent. These attributes have their unity in 
 
SCIENCE AND THE BIBLE; NO CONFLICT. 4157 
 
 His Unconditioned Personality. Man cannot understand 
 the Unconditioned. He is forced to content himself 
 with regarding the Divine Will as a law to itself. Back 
 of everything there is, must be, an Infinite Personality. 
 Infinity and personality are indeed to us irreconcilable 
 terms. We are compelled by reason to regard God 
 as Infinite. We are under the necessity of viewing Him 
 as a person. As our natures are finite, we cannot expect 
 to circumscribe the Illimitable, to measure the Immeas- 
 urable, to comprehend the Incomprehensible. 
 
 With such conceptions of the Creator, the reader is 
 prepared to accept the Scriptural statement: "In the 
 beginning God created the heavens and the earth " — 
 everything objective to Himself. " God said, let there be 
 light " — by an act of will He called it into being. These 
 volitions were not determined by outward conditions, nor 
 by inherent necessity. Matter, space, time, number, 
 were not pre-existing entities, independent of God and 
 capable of determining the nature of the creative volition. 
 "All things were made by Him." "By Him were all things 
 created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible 
 and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or 
 principalities, or powers; all things were created by Him 
 and for Him; and He is before all things, and by Him all 
 things consist." * 
 
 Is science prepared to accept this ? 
 
 The weight of scientific testimony favors the theory 
 that matter owes its existence to the Unconditioned Will 
 of God. Science claims to have proved that matter can- 
 not be self-created. It cannot be the really efficient 
 agent in the production of any change, either in itself or 
 in anything external to itself. It is a condition of the 
 action of force, the recipient of impulse. Force is not one 
 
 * Col. i. 1 6. 
 
43S THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 of its properties. This is proved by the fact of inertia. 
 To affirm that force is an attribute of matter, and in the 
 same breath to declare that matter is inert, is self-con- 
 tradictory. It implies that passivity and activity can be 
 properties of the same substance. Moreover, that force 
 is not entitled to be regarded as an attribute of matter 
 appears from the fact that it cannot be recognized as a 
 direct effect of matter, as other properties can. The be- 
 lief that it may be, is a deduction of reason. Certainly, 
 it is not a property of matter in the sense in which hard- 
 ness, extension, impenetrability, are. Nor, so far as we 
 can see, can it originate motion by virtue of its being an 
 attribute. 
 
 Motion, an exponent of force, is a change in position; 
 and matter cannot even tend to its origination. It consists 
 merely of ultimate molecules capable of being influenced 
 by force. In the various forms of motion, force is inter- 
 cepted by matter and its presence thereby manifested. 
 Material movement can be efficient in originating nothing 
 but material movement. If force is an attribute of mat- 
 ter, then sensation, it would seem, might also be an attri- 
 bute of matter; but sensation is essentially different from 
 molecular vibrations, from anything which matter can 
 generate. The effect is totally unlike the cause; and the 
 cause is seemingly no cause whatever. The vibrations 
 come to a stop, and something different takes their place. 
 To assume that consciousness is a phenomenon of agi- 
 tated molecules in the brain involves a world of absurdity. 
 It requires us to regard consciousness as an affection of 
 matter, and thought as a material entity or as one of the 
 essential attributes of matter. It supposes that the move- 
 ment of molecules — or of an atom, if consciousness is to 
 be regarded as concentrated in a single atom — may be the 
 efficient agent in producing the sense of personal klen- 
 
SCIENCE AND THE BIBLE; NO CONFLICT. 439 
 
 tity, though no molecules and no atoms tarry in the hu- 
 man system more than a few years at longest, probably 
 not longer than one year. It assumes that memory is 
 an atom, or a combination of atoms, stored away in the 
 cranium, and that atoms which are successors to de- 
 parted atoms are capable of reproducing facts treasured 
 from the past, and even of informing us that ideas have 
 been lost, though incapable, meanwhile, of reproducing 
 the lost treasures or testifying clearly to their nature. 
 
 Matter, it is conceded, is not self-created; nor is force 
 one of its attributes. 
 
 Nor is it possible to regard matter as a property of 
 self-existent force. There are. physicists, it is true, who 
 insist that the universe is explicable on the hypothesis 
 of ultimate centers of energy. They do not regard mat- 
 ter as a substantive entity, but as a phenomenon of force. 
 Substances, they believe, are known by their essential at- 
 tributes, and can be known in no other way. They deny 
 that matter possesses any essential attributes. Even ex- 
 tension, resistance, inertia, and impenetrability, they 
 designate phenomena of force. Light, heat, electricity, 
 magnetism, and chemical affinity — which they denomi- 
 nate modes of motion — are in their judgment no more 
 certainly transformations of one ubiquitous force than are 
 the various forms of matter. All finite existences may 
 be reduced to modes of motion. These various modes of 
 motion are only phenomenal manifestations of an eternal 
 underlying reality. Matter, in its ultimate essence, is 
 spiritual, and needed no creator. Every grain of sand is 
 but the pulsation of an eternal life; hence the mysterious 
 influence which nature has over us. 
 
 According to this theory, matter is only a function of 
 force, and can be described only in terms of force. The 
 entire universe is but the visible manifestation of an 
 
440 TLEISM ANn EVOLUTION. 
 
 invisible force. It is phenomenal. In the opinion of J. 
 Allinson Picton.this is the theory into which the christian 
 system of doctrine is to be merged ere long. Christian 
 pantheism is to take the place of theism. 
 
 At present, however, the majority of scientists regard 
 matter as an entity, not as a mere phenomenon; as a 
 reality, not as an aggregation of physical forces; as a 
 substance, not as a simple property of some underlying 
 reality; as demanding a creator, not as the mere shadow 
 of some unseen entity. It is apparently safe to regard 
 this as the testimony of scientists inasmuch as the war- 
 fare still continues between those who regard force as an 
 attribute of matter and those who regard matter as an 
 attribute of force. The materialists may be allowed to 
 refute the spiritualists, and the spiritualists to refute the 
 materialists. The truth, as often happens, may be on 
 neither side. Certainly, it has not been clearly proved 
 that force is simply an affection of matter: nor that the 
 latter is an attribute of the former. Each may be a reality. 
 Consequently, while one class is asserting that there is 
 no mental force distinct from the brain, and another 
 that the brain itself is in its essence spiritual, the theist 
 is strongly tempted to conclude that each has succeeded 
 in refuting, his antagonist, and that matter and force are 
 alike in each possessing an actual existence independent 
 of the other and in demanding an adequate cause. 
 
 As has been said by Mr. Spencer, " The indestruc- 
 tibility of matter is now held by many to be a truth of 
 which the negation is inconceivable." This belief, as it 
 would seem, ought to carry with it the conviction that 
 matter is not merely " a localized manifestation of force," 
 a phenomenon. It seems somewhat unphilosophical to 
 say that phenomena are indestructible. If, then, matter is 
 indestructible, ought it not to be regarded as a reality and 
 
SCIENCE AND THE BIBLE; NO CONFLICT. 441 
 
 not as phenomenal ? Those who are unwilling to view it 
 in this light ought, it would seem, to cease talking about 
 the indestructibility of matter, or ought frankly to con- 
 cede that they simply mean the indestructibility of force. 
 This, manifestly, is all they can mean. They do not 
 design to assert that a " localized manifestation " is in- 
 destructible. Evidently, only the force is indestructible. 
 But what are we to understand by the term force, as 
 employed by these writers ? Why, evidently we are 
 to understand the only underlying reality, the Ulti- 
 mate of all ultimates. It would seem, therefore, that 
 though we have heard so much in these recent years 
 about the indestructibility of matter, the continuity of 
 motion, and the persistence of force, the only indestruc- 
 tible, continuous, and persistent reality, after all, is the 
 Unknowable. 
 
 Science lays claim to having proved that matter can- 
 not have existed from eternity. It teaches that material 
 things must have had a beginning, inasmuch as every- 
 thing material has the characteristics of a manufactured 
 article, forcing the conviction that it must have had a 
 beginning. " No theory of evolution can be formed to 
 account for the similarity of molecules, for evolution 
 necessarily implies continuous change, and the molecule 
 is incapable of growth or decay, of generation or de- 
 struction. None of the processes of nature, since the 
 time when nature began, have produced the slightest 
 difference in the properties of any molecule. We are 
 therefore unable to ascribe either the existence of the 
 molecules or the identity of their properties to the opera- 
 tion of any of the causes which we call natural." * 
 
 2. As science is indisposed to undertake the task of 
 showing that matter is the Ultimate Reality, does it con- 
 
 * Prof. J. Clerk Maxwell, F. R. S., Nature, vol. viii. p. 441. 
 
442 THEISM A A 7 /) EVOLUTION. 
 
 sider itself competent to prove that physical force is the 
 originating cause of all things? No: it teaches that 
 force cannot generate itself. It is not self-existent, an 
 eternal, independent entity. The results of scientific in- 
 vestigation make it clear that the processes of nature 
 must have had a beginning; and as well also the forces 
 operative in those processes. The complicated machine 
 which is constructed for the transmission and distribu- 
 tion of energy could not have existed from eternity; nor 
 could the forces which are transmitted. They exist in 
 correlation with material existences, under conditions 
 and in dependence. The convertibility of the several 
 forces is an established fact, it is true; and it is probable 
 that they may yet be successfully reduced to one force, 
 as some claim has been done already. Dr. Cohn, of 
 the University of Breslau, affirms: "Electricity and mag- 
 netism, heat and light, muscular energy and chemical 
 action, motion and mechanical work are only different 
 forms of one and the same power." * If this be true, what 
 follows ? Evidently not that the force operative in the 
 world is an eternal, independent entity, self-existent. 
 Even Mr. Hebert Spencer concedes that force is to be 
 regarded as an expression of will. Modern research is 
 apparently forcing upon us the conviction that all force, 
 in the ultimate analysis, is an outflow of an Infinite 
 Will. Dr. Carpenter says, " The deep-seated instincts 
 of humanity and the profoundest researches of philoso- 
 phy alike point to mind as the only source of power." 
 Again: "Believing that all force which does not 
 emanate from the will of created sentient beings, 
 directly and immediately proceeds from the Will of 
 the Omnipotent and Omnipresent Creator, ... I do 
 not feel the validity of the objections urged against 
 
 * Prof. J. Clerk Maxwell, F. R. S., Nature, vol. vii. p. 137. 
 
SCIENCE AND THE BIBLE; NO CONFLICT. 443 
 
 the idea of the absolute metamorphosis and conversion 
 of forces."* 
 
 Mr. Spencer says, " Force, as we know it, can be 
 regarded only as a certain conditioned effect of the 
 Unconditioned Cause — as the relative reality indicating 
 to us an Absolute Reality by which it is immediately 
 produced." t 
 
 Force, then, in its origin and in its continuance, is de- 
 pendent upon the will in which it originates. The power 
 it wields is delegated. Will-force is the only force in 
 existence. The will of God is the only self-existent force 
 in the universe: motion, a result, must have its origin in ■ 
 volition. No force — and no motion — possesses the power 
 of self-origination. Neither can be eternal, except in the 
 sense in which a volition may be regarded as eternal be- 
 cause its source is. Every force may be transmitted and 
 transmuted, but its origin is the will of the creature, or 
 is the will of the Creator — all force being traceable 
 backwards to the Unconditioned Will of God. These 
 are the conclusions towards which modern science points 
 with unmistakable clearness. 
 
 The physical forces are to be regarded, then, as an ex- 
 pression of the Divine Will. They are streams of potency 
 issuing from the self-existent source of all power. 
 
 3. In like manner, life also must have had its origin in 
 the Will of God. The famous maxim, " omne vivum ex 
 vivo," is accepted with as much confidence as the law of 
 gravitation. Science repudiates the assumption that life 
 may have originated in spontaneous generation. No 
 combination of material elements, or of physical forces, 
 could have given birth to life. Until it has been proved 
 that living organisms have existed, or at least may have 
 
 * Mutual Relation of the Vital and Physical Forces, p. 730. 
 f First Principles, p. 170. 
 
444 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 existed from eternity, it will be regarded as in harmony 
 with science to affirm that every animate existence owes 
 its origin to a Divine volition. That life on earth has 
 not been eternal is conceded. There was a time when 
 the conditions of life did not prevail on this planet. That 
 a living organism, or living organisms, were transported 
 from some other sphere is a mere conjecture, and improb- 
 able. The weight of scientific evidence is decidedly in 
 r avor of the Biblical doctrine, — Life a Divine creation. 
 
 With a strong presumption in favor of the Mosaic ac- 
 count, it becomes easier to understand the word " bara," 
 which is used with discrimination in the first chapter of 
 Genesis, as meaning absolute creation in connection with 
 the origination of matter, of plant-life, of animal organ- 
 isms and of man. 
 
 The will of God, then, may be regarded as the orig- 
 inating cause of all things, — of matter, of force, of life, 
 of mentality. The word cause is not to be understood, 
 in this connection, as a synonym for antecedent, but 
 as that which has efficiency in producing effects. In 
 strictness of speech, there are no secondary causes, each 
 secondary cause being an effect of an antecedent cause, 
 which in turn is an effect — the chain running backwards 
 to the primal cause of all so-called causes, the Uncon- 
 ditioned Will of God. A mere antecedent is no cause 
 whatever; and what are know T n as secondary causes, 
 having only a delegated efficiency, and being effects, are 
 not causes in the sense of having originating power. To 
 prove with scientific accuracy that this extended series 
 o( effects, — each of which has no more than a delegated 
 efficiency, — flows from the Divine efficiency, is the problem 
 awaiting a clearer solution — one upon which science is 
 laboring unceasingly. 
 
 The theory here outlined is not open to the charge of 
 
SCIENCE AND THE BIBLE; NO CONFLICT. 445 
 
 being a subtle form of pantheism. To say that God is 
 immanent in nature is not to identify Him with nature. 
 Divine immanency is not inconsistent with Divine tran- 
 scendency. God is above nature as well as in nature. 
 To view God as no more than the life of the universe is 
 hylozoism. To regard all existences, the material and 
 the immaterial, as only visible manifestations of an eter- 
 nal, self-existent substance, which has no existence in- 
 dependent of, over and above nature, and by consequence 
 is not cognizant of its own existence, being without per- 
 sonality, is panthesim. To combine two conceptions, 
 the immanency and the transcendency, regarding God as 
 voluntarily immanent in nature and at the same time in- 
 finitely superior to nature, having intelligence, will and 
 separate subsistence — is what we understand as chris- 
 tian theism. 
 
 Consequently, as is now generally conceded, science 
 finds no serious difficulty in accepting the Mosaic account 
 of creation, — not man's mistaken expositions thereof, but 
 the account as self-interpreted. What obstacle prevents 
 the scientist from accepting the first verse of Genesis, which 
 announces that matter owes its origin to the Divine Will ? 
 In crediting this, he is perhaps not precluded from believ- 
 ing that God fashioned matter from his own eternal sub- 
 stance, provided he does not insist on regarding it as an 
 unwilled evolution. So long as the scientific expositor 
 has permission to interpret the language as seems to him 
 least repugnant to reason, has he any right to complain 
 if some divines prefer to interpret the verse as ascribing 
 absolute creation to God ? Because he insists that the 
 creation of something from nothing is to him inconceiv- 
 able, has he a right to affirm that to the theologian it 
 must also be inconceivable that a universe should have 
 its origin in an omnipotent Will ? 
 
446 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 Is he able to measure Omnipotence ? In either case 
 — whether matter was formed from God's own eternal 
 substance, or was called into being from nothingness by 
 the almighty fiat of an Infinite Will, thereby increasing 
 the sum of existence in the universe — its origin may be 
 the result of a Divine volition. In this statement, both 
 the scientist and the theologian may concur; and such 
 concurrence is general. 
 
 Is there any insuperable difficulty in believing that 
 " The Lord God made every plant of the field before 
 it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it 
 grew"? The scientist cannot tell us how plant-life orig- 
 inated. He cannot account for its origin by any known 
 secondary causes. Until he can give a more satisfactory 
 answer, why should he object to this, which character- 
 izes plant-life as a principle distinct from matter ? 
 
 Is there any valid reason why the student of nature 
 should object to the statement that " God created every 
 living creature after its kind " ? It has not been proved 
 that animal organisms evolved, or can evolve, from either 
 plants or inorganic matter. It has not been rendered 
 probable that abiogenesis has occurred even once, or pos- 
 sibly might occur. Until a more rational hypothesis is 
 presented, why object to accepting the Scriptural asser- 
 tion ? Until a more satisfactory solution of the intricate 
 problem is furnished, it is unwise to ridicule the solution 
 which is accepted by a large number of eminent thinkers. 
 
 Are there insurmountable barriers to our believing 
 that " God created man in his own image " ? Even ad- 
 mitting that evolution has been proved to have occurred 
 in each great system — in matter, in plant-life, in animal 
 organisms, in the human race, — admitting that fixity of 
 species is an exploded theory, still, scientists have not 
 proved that one of these four great systems has passed 
 
SCIENCE AND THE BIBLE; NO CONFLICT. 447 
 
 into another by insensible gradations. They have not 
 proved that man evolved from the lower animals, that irra- 
 tionality can originate rationality. Until this is proved, 
 nothing is proved as against the Scriptural assertion that 
 " God created man"; and even when it shall have been 
 proved that man was evolved from the monkey-tribe, it 
 will be incumbent on those who desire to eliminate God 
 from the universe to prove, not merely that " bara " means 
 forms and that evolution is not God's method of work- 
 ing, but that the non-sentient can give birth to the 
 sentient. 
 
 The Mosaic cosmogony makes mention of four orig- 
 inations: — 
 
 i. That of matter. Gen. i. I. 
 
 2. That of plant-life. Gen. ii. 4-5. 
 
 3. That of animal life. Gen. i. 21. 
 
 4. That of man. Gen. i. 27. 
 
 Evolution has these four extended territories in which 
 to display its powers; and before laying claim to a wider 
 field, it ought to present evidence of having cultivated 
 its possessions up to these seemingly impassible border- 
 lines; then, title in hand, it will appear less presumptuous 
 in claiming the prerogatives of a Creator. 
 
 II. There has been development. 
 
 This affirmation is accepted alike by the scientist and 
 by the theologian. Neither has the right to regard him- 
 self as the sole champion of the theory. Certainly the 
 expounders of the Scriptures are indisposed to lay claim 
 to this honor, though they are prepared to defend the 
 doctrine,— mot, however, the atheistic forms which it 
 too frequently assumes. They do not believe that mole- 
 cules of matter, and atoms of force, and germs of plant- 
 life, and parental forms of animal organisms, and ances- 
 tral types of the human family, were developed from 
 
448 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 pre-existing lower forms. They are indisposed to accept 
 the doctrine of the transmutation of species; and conse- 
 quently, when it comes to the question of regarding all 
 existences as an ascending series of individuals, — even 
 genera being obliterated, — they are disposed to enter 
 their protest; and when they are asked to regard the 
 above four kingdoms as issuing by insensible gradations 
 from pre-existing "star-dust," their reason cries, " Halt !" 
 
 To deny, however, that there has been a purpose, and 
 that this purpose has been gradually unfolded, producing 
 a connected series of events; that the consecutive links 
 in this series indicate improvement; that there is unity in 
 all the stages of this complicated system of related 
 changes, — would be even more unreasonable than to as- 
 sert that the universe came into being by a single fiat of 
 the Almighty. Creation has had a history. There has 
 been a plan which was gradually unfolded. There has 
 been progress. God is, not merely was for one brief in- 
 stant. Believing that there have been changes in the 
 past, — creative eras, — one readily comes to believe that 
 there will be changes in the future. That the condition 
 of things in the present is different from what it was " in 
 the beginning" is no more certain than that the 'present 
 condition of things will not continue forever. Organiza- 
 tions exist now which were not in existence during 
 paleontoiogical periods — on earth at least. Those in ex- 
 istence now, should God so choose, may be succeeded by 
 others, or everything may be annihilated, or, may be so 
 changed as to be a new order of things. God's purpose 
 will no doubt be consummated. Hence it may be safely 
 conceded: — 
 
 I. That theie is a single purpose running through the 
 history of the earth. Teleology is the highest law in the 
 universe. 
 
SCIENCE AND THE BIBLE; NO CONELICT. 149 
 
 2. That God, in the manifestation of His purpose, has 
 seen fit to furnish His rational intelligences with a gradual 
 manifestation of His omnipotent power. He might have 
 willed otherwise. He has chosen to unfold His plans in 
 successive stages, perhaps because this course is most 
 conducive to the good of His creatures, enabling them 
 to comprehend more clearly His nature, His manifesta- 
 tions, and His benevolent designs. 
 
 3. That the successive stages in the manifestation of 
 this one purpose are closely related. Except at certain 
 great breaks, there is continuity; and even the breaks 
 succeed each other in an ascending series, pointing to a 
 predetermined end, — an improved condition. Origina- 
 tions are a progressive disclosure of an established order, 
 being from the less complex to the more complex — 
 matter, plant-life, animal life, rational life. Each new 
 development, and each new display of creative energy, 
 is a revelation of laws in an ever-ascending series. 
 
 4. That, consequently, improvement characterizes the 
 succession of changes. Retrogression occurs, it is true; 
 but this is confined within comparatively narrow limits. 
 In the aggregate, the changes indicate advance. There 
 is an order of thought. Progress is the law of the 
 universe. 
 
 5. That, by virtue of this unity in design, there is unity 
 in the result. Notwithstanding the numberless stages of 
 development, and variety in the related parts, there is 
 harmony. The universe is a cosmos. 
 
 6. That organisms exist now which were unknown on 
 the earth in primeval eras. For all that can be proved 
 to the contrary, physical forces, i. e., differentiated modes 
 of motion, may be in operation now which were not in 
 operation when God alone was. New organisms may be 
 created. New forces may be set in motion. The world 
 
450 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 may perish through age, or may pass through changes 
 rendering it as much unlike its present self, as its present 
 stale is unlike its pre-existing state. 
 
 It would seem that science may accept the Mosaic 
 cosmogony. That ancient document asserts: — 
 
 1. That in its primitive condition matter was void, 
 empty, deep, dark — a vast, inert, gaseous mass, brooded 
 over by the power of the Infinite (Gen. i. 1-2). Prof. A. 
 Guyot, in his work entitled Creation, has given valid 
 reasons, it is believed, why the word translated in our 
 version " earth " should be regarded as equivalent to 
 matter in general. In like manner, the term " water," 
 employed in verse second, may be taken as designating 
 the state of the cosmic elements. The Hebrew word 
 denotes a tumultuous, undulatory movement. Hence, 
 without conceding that the word is a subterfuge forced 
 upon theologians by the progress of science, we con- 
 clude that the matter, which verse 1 affirms that God 
 created, was gaseoi-s; "void," because homogeneous; 
 "dark," because inactive; "deep," because expanded 
 through a great extent of space; brooded over by the 
 Spirit of God, because He alone could impart to it the 
 forces subsequently associated with it. Certainly force 
 has not been proved 1o be an essential attribute of mat- 
 ter. Why, then, may not the theologian. and the scientist 
 agree in regarding this " formless, homogeneous, struc- 
 tureless" original element as the substance from which 
 worlds were formed ? 
 
 2. That this Spirit, brooding over the face of the abyss, 
 was the efficient cause of activity, resulting in the pro- 
 duction of light, i. e. % of all the physical forces, each of 
 which is capable of conversion into light. Hence, as 
 might be expected, the creation of light antedated the 
 creation of the sun. The theologian may find the Bible 
 
SCIENCE AND THE BIBLE; NO CONFLICT. 45x 
 
 fitted to aid him in accepting the results of scientific in- 
 vestigation. The scientist may discover, in the undu- 
 latory theory of light and in the correlation of the forces, 
 an argument in support of revelation. Neither can 
 detect any serious want of harmony between nature 
 and the Bible. The natural and the supernatural must 
 harmonize. 
 
 Of course, no theologian now interprets the term " day v 
 (yom), as employed in the account of creation, as mean- 
 ing a period of twenty-four hours. We have the author- 
 ity of Scripture for regarding the word as frequently 
 equivalent to a period of indefinite length. " Your 
 father Abraham desired to see my day." " The day of 
 the Son of Man." " I must work the work of Him that 
 sent me while it is day." " If thou hadst known, even 
 thou, at least in this thy day." " The day of salvation." 
 " The day of judgment." 
 
 3. That there were divisions in the nebulous matter 
 which, under the influence of centrifugal and centripetal 
 forces, broke into numerous gaseous masses; and that 
 these differentiated into systems; these, into worlds. 
 " God divided the light from the darkness," i. e., the active 
 nebulae from the inactive matter that pervaded space. 
 " And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of 
 the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters." 
 An expanse, void space, was made to intervene between 
 the nebulous masses, each of which was concentrating, 
 forming worlds. Planetary systems are separated. The 
 heavens are organized. Motion is producing division; 
 and in each great division, bodies of various 'sizes are 
 forming. The nebular hypothesis, if established by scien- 
 tific argument, meets no serious difficulty in the Mosaic 
 cosmogony. 
 
 4. That a portion of matter condensed into a solid 
 
452 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 globe, the earth; that its waters, which primarily con- 
 stituted a shoreless ocean, were subsequently " gathered 
 together unto one place," causing the dry land to appear. 
 In verse 9, Moses gives the result, not the lengthy pro- 
 cess. If science can make good the following state- 
 ments: — this condensation was a result of the loss of heat 
 by radiation; the waters, originally warm, must also have 
 been acidulated, inasmuch as the material deposited in 
 rocks was once in gaseous state; by chemical action the 
 earth was transmuted into a vast galvanic battery, con- 
 stantly throwing off streams of electricity which at the 
 limits of the enveloping atmosphere became luminous, 
 rendering the earth a brilliant star; the earth lost its 
 luminosity by cooling, and became at length a dark speck 
 on the ocean of immensity; in the process of cooling, it 
 shrank to such an extent as to cause depressions and up- 
 heavals, resulting in the separation of land and water; — 
 the Bible offers no objection. Neither the theologian nor 
 the physicist needs to grow nervous. Each may address 
 himself to the task of ascertaining the facts. 
 
 5. That the earth brought forth vegetation. Verse II, 
 of chapter i., can scarcely be understood as intimating 
 that a combination of physical forces, or of material ele- 
 ments, produced plant-life; for, in chapter ii., verses 4-5, 
 we read, " These are the generations of the heavens and 
 of the earth ... in the day that the Lord God made 
 . . . every plant of the field before it was in the earth, 
 and every herb of the field before it grew." 
 
 6. That the sun and the moon became the source of 
 light and heat to the earth. Not that these were then 
 first created. They may have existed before, being then 
 simply made to assume new and more important relations 
 to the terrestrial globe. The earth being no longer self- 
 luminous, and having lost much of its heat by radia- 
 
SCIENCE AND THE BIBLE; NO CONFLICT. 453 
 
 tion, received its light, and with light, heat, from the 
 sun. 
 
 7. That the waters teemed with living beings, and the 
 air became the home of birds. If science can prove that 
 there was an established order in the introduction of the 
 various species of animals, — protozoans, invertebrates, 
 fishes, reptiles, mammals, — the Bible student has no cause* 
 for alarm. His text-book merely affirms that God cre- 
 ated animals; and this has not been disproved. Spon- 
 taneous generation has very few adherents. Creation of 
 the various animal organisms may have been a series of 
 creative acts: it may have been a creation by derivation. 
 
 8. That man was the final act of creation. 
 Certainly, then, according to the Biblical account, 
 
 there has been progress. Evolution within each of the 
 four great classes, — matter, plant-life, animal life, rational 
 life, — science is at liberty to prove, without incurring cen- 
 sure from interpreters of Scripture. Has it succeeded in 
 proving that all forms, within these four classes, are evo- 
 lutions from as many primordial germs ? Quite doubtful. 
 Still, theism has no objection to the continuance of the 
 effort; no cause for apprehension if success shall reward 
 the labors. God is not eliminated. The Bible state- 
 ments are not disproved. These great orders, if not the 
 species included under them, are declared in Scriptures 
 to have been created by Him whom theists denominate 
 the First Cause of all things; and until it is proved that 
 they were successively evolved from pre-existing forms, 
 the chain being run backwards to some one eternally 
 existent substance, science and the Bible cannot be 
 said to be in antagonism. There is no valid reason 
 why it may not be asserted that nature's great volume 
 and the Mosaic account of creation are in perfect 
 harmony. 
 
454 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 III. There have been breaks in the ordin- 
 arily CONTINUOUS FLOW OF EVENTS. 
 
 Having attempted to establish this proposition in a 
 preceding chapter, we will not burden the reader with 
 further arguments under this head. 
 
CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 SCIENCE AND THE BIBLE: NO CONFLICT {CONTINUED). 
 
 HAVING seen that science and the Bible are in har- 
 mony, in regarding the Unconditioned Will of God as 
 the originating cause of all things, in conceding- that 
 there has been development, in being ready to admit 
 that there have been breaks in the ordinarily continuous 
 flow of events, the reader is invited to consider a fourth 
 harmony. 
 
 IV. The present arrangements of nature, in 
 
 WHICH THERE IS AN ORDERLY SUCCESSION OF EVENTS, 
 MUST HAVE HAD A BEGINNING. 
 
 It is impossible to believe that there should be an 
 order evincing design, without an antecedent cause to 
 produce it. Phenomena must have an underlying reality. 
 Law presupposes a lawgiver. Order is not an eternal 
 verity which imposes conditions upon all modes of 
 existence. Like time, space, and number, it may be 
 regarded as a necessary result of God's own eternal 
 Personality; but it cannot be regarded as self-existent. 
 That would be to violate the law of unity in the origin 
 of existences. Reason affirms that there can be but 
 one eternal reality, and that, consequently, a predeter- 
 mined order must be a result of the existence of an 
 eternal Intelligent Will. 
 
 More than one infinite — and the First Cause must be 
 infinite — is inconceivable; for two or more infinites, by 
 
456 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 limiting each other, would each become finite. In like 
 manner, more than one absolute is unthinkable. To sup- 
 pose that an order existed independent of the First Cause 
 is to suppose that there could be two first causes, which is 
 manifestly inconceivable, inasmuch as that which neces- 
 sitates more than one first cause would be " the First 
 Cause." Consequently, to conjecture that order existed 
 antecedent to, or independent of, the First Cause, is to 
 designate it as the First Cause; and as order implies 
 intelligence, will, and separate subsistence, this first 
 cause must have been a Personality. We are under the 
 necessity of regarding the Ultimate of all ultimates 
 as unconditioned. 
 
 If it is said that this law of uniformity is a result of the 
 essential properties of matter, and that in consequence of 
 these essential properties the universe has evolved itself 
 in an unbroken continuity, we answer: Until it is proved, 
 as it has not been, that matter may be eternal, it can 
 scarcely be said to be illogical to affirm that the order of 
 nature must have had a beginning. If matter had a be- 
 ginning, and with it the law of uniformity, then He who 
 created the former must have imparted to it the latter. 
 
 The principle of uniformity is not an intuitive belief, 
 but is an induction from experience. Belief in causation 
 is intuitive; but though reason necessitates the belief 
 that under the existing arrangement like causes pro- 
 duce like effects, it does not compel the concession that 
 the causes which are now in operation have always been 
 in operation. Possibly a different arrangement might 
 have been substituted for the present arrangement. Cer- 
 tainly the stability of the present order of things is not a 
 primary belief. This is clearly asserted by John Stuart 
 Mill. He affirms: "The uniformity in the succession of 
 events . . . must be received, not as the law of the uni- 
 
SCIENCE AND THE BIBLE; NO CONFLICT. 457 
 
 verse, but of that portion only which is within the range 
 of our means of observation, with a reasonable extension 
 to adjacent cases."* What is the earth compared with 
 the universe ! What is human experience compared 
 with the experiences of all intelligent beings ! What is 
 time compared with the stretches of infinite duration ! 
 Because the law of uniformity prevails here and now, are 
 we justified in affirming that it prevails everywhere and 
 through eternal ages ? Assuredly not. 
 
 An effect is seen, it may be, to follow for one hundred 
 times from a definite combination of causes. The infer- 
 ence is drawn that it will always do so, provided the same 
 causes, in the same relations and with the same potency, 
 are in unhindered operation. This is evidently an induc- 
 tion. We are not warranted, however, in inferring a univer- 
 sal law from a limited number of instances. An induction 
 of this nature can render a belief eminently probable: it 
 cannot render it absolutely certain. An examination of 
 a large number of cases may render it highly probable 
 that nature's laws are immutable, at least within limits. 
 No examination, however, which man institutes, can 
 force the belief that in every conceivable case, under the 
 existing arrangement even, these laws must remain in 
 such undisputed ascendency that a supernatural revelation 
 is an impossibility; and, manifestly, no induction is suffi- 
 ciently extensive to impel belief in the absolute univer- 
 sality and infinite duration of this seeming immutability. 
 If there is such a law as the eternal changelessness of 
 nature's law, rendering miracles an impossibility and the 
 beginning of the present order of things inconceivable, 
 reason ought to be able to recognize it as an intuition. 
 Instead, reason testifies that law presupposes a law- 
 giver, who must have instituted it, and may abrogate it. 
 
 * Logic, vol. ii. p. I! 7. 
 
458 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 Accordingly, it is the conviction of the human family 
 that the present apparent immutability must have had 
 a beginning and will have an end. This opinion merits 
 respect. Even Herbert Spencer concedes, " We must 
 presume that beliefs which have long existed and have 
 been widely diffused . . . have some foundation and some 
 amount of verity." Consequently, this wide-spread and 
 permanent conviction must have a basis in truth. 
 
 To argue, then, that inasmuch as nature has probably 
 been uniform in its operations during the period cov- 
 ered by human observation, therefore the present econ- 
 omy stretches from eternity, is quite evidently illogical. 
 The conclusion is broader than the premises, and'in the 
 judgment of many is unwarranted. Experience justifies 
 no such inference; and yet the law of uniformity can dis- 
 cover no other basis, except experience, upon which to 
 rest. Still, experience does not warrant the conclusion 
 that nature's laws are immutable under the existing econ- 
 omy; much less, that this economy is universal and eter- 
 nal. Because gravitation is a law which prevails over a 
 widely extended domain, it does not follow that it is uni- 
 versal and eternal. Herschel directly says: " It fails be- 
 yond the region of the double stars." Be this as it may, 
 no justification is furnished of the affirmation that it op- 
 erates, precisely as it does on earth, through the meas- 
 ureless fields of immensity. Scientists assert that ether 
 is not affected by the force of gravitation; and that the 
 force of repulsion is as universal as the force of attrac- 
 tion, and seemingly has equal potency. If it is conceded 
 that all the phenomena which present themselves under 
 the existing economy are effects of natural causes, it does 
 not follow that all phenomena in the buried past were 
 effects of natural causes; much less, that they were 
 effects of the same physical causes which are now in oper- 
 
SCIENCE AND THE BIBLE; NO CONFLICT. 459 
 
 ation. After proving that nature's laws have been unvary- 
 ing during the period covered by time, it will still remain 
 to prove that the same laws existed and were uniform 
 ere time began. Until it has been proved that nature's 
 laws have been immutable during the flow of time, it 
 cannot be proved that they were unvarying in eternity. 
 In such a proposition, logical proof is an impossibility. 
 
 If, then, belief in the unvarying operation of nature's 
 laws is not a priori conviction, but rests on experience, 
 are we justified in concluding that the present order of 
 things — under which the same cause invariably produces 
 the same effect — is eternal in duration and universal in 
 sway ? May it not have had a beginning, — this existing 
 economy ? May it not have an end ? The combination 
 of secondary causes, which, to appearance, keeps the 
 world in continued being, — may it not have had an origin ? 
 May it not have an end ? Prof. Tyndall claims that he 
 "can clearly show that the present state of things may 
 be derivative." 
 
 He might have said, Must have had an origin ab ex- 
 tra. " Modern scientific research tends towards the es- 
 tablishment of this opinion. It enables us distinctly to 
 say that the present order of things has not been evolved 
 through infinite past time by the agency of laws now at 
 work, but must have had a distinctive beginning, a state 
 beyond which we are totally unable to penetrate — a state 
 which must have been produced by other than the now 
 acting causes." * 
 
 This orderly succession of events, which must have 
 had a beginning, must have had that beginning in the 
 designs of an Unalterable Will. Change implies change- 
 lessness. Succession implies volition. Order implies 
 intelligence. The finite implies the infinite. A law of 
 
 * Prof. P. G. Tait, 11 A., Nature, vol. iv. p. 271. 
 
460 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 uniformity implies a Lawgiver who enacted the law, who 
 maintains its integrity, who may hold it in check by a 
 higher law if He chooses, and who may repeal it when 
 through it He has accomplished His predetermined pur- 
 poses. " The law of design is the highest generalization 
 of the great uniformities of nature."* 
 
 Is it then impossible for the scientist and the theolo- 
 gian to join hands ? The latter believes that "the things 
 which are seen are temporal; the things which are not seen 
 are eternal." Forth from eternity, by the fiat of the First 
 Cause, came matter, a material world, plant-life, animal- 
 life, sentient beings, and the order in which these manifest 
 themselves. The physicist believes substantially the 
 same doctrine. He admits, and even repeatedly asserts, 
 that the earth, in its present form, must have begun to 
 be; and consequently the present arrangement, so far as 
 the earth forms a part of it — and for us it is the most im- 
 portant part — must have had a beginning, as also all the 
 laws that prevail now and here. There was a time, it is 
 believed, when the earth was an indistinguishable part of 
 of a nebula which stretched to the outermost limits of the 
 present solar system. Subsequently, it became a self- 
 luminous globe, a heaving ocean of melted matter en- 
 veloped in vapors and gases. Losing heat by radiation, 
 it became a mass of igneous rock, around which circled 
 the waves of a shoreless sea of agitated waters. As the 
 process of cooling advanced, the consequent shrinkage 
 produced ocean-beds, into which the waters were gathered, 
 causing the dry land to appear. The deep was tenantless 
 and the land verdureless. Sir Wm. Thomson, basing his 
 argument on seemingly established data, concludes that 
 the consolidation of the earth's crust could not have be- 
 gun earlier than ninety-eight million years ago. Then the 
 
 * Mind and Brain, vol. i. p. 107. 
 
SCIENCE AND THE BIBLE; NO CONFLICT. 461 
 
 present terrestrial economy, so far as plant-life and ani- 
 mal organisms are concerned, must have had a beginning. 
 Accordingly, Adolph Fiche says, M We are coming to this 
 alternative: either in our highest, most general, most fun- 
 damental abstraction, some point has been overlooked, 
 or the universe will have an end, and must have had a be- 
 ginning; it could not have existed from eternity, but 
 must at some date, not infinitely distant, have arisen 
 from, something not forming a part of the natural chain 
 of causes, that is, It must have been created'' 
 
 V. The present economy will have an end. 
 
 This the Bible student firmly believes. " The things 
 which are seen are temporal " — they had a beginning 
 and they will have an end. "There shall be time no 
 more." " Earth and the things which are therein shall 
 pass away as a scroll when it is rolled together." "The 
 heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the ele- 
 ments shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and 
 the works that are therein shall be burned up." — Heb. 
 xii. 27; Isa. xxxiv. 4; Rev. x. 6, vi. 14; II Pet. iii. 10. 
 
 Does modern science conflict with these statements ? 
 It teaches that worlds, suns, and systems, like animate 
 organisms, pass successively through the stages of birth, 
 adolescence, maturity, decrepitude, and decay. Worlds 
 may now be in process of formation. The earth is prob- 
 ably now in its full maturity. The moon is seemingly an 
 extinct world. 
 
 In weighing arguments which bear upon the question 
 of the continuance of the present order of things, it is well 
 to keep in memory the fact that the theory of the dissi- 
 pation of energy is now considered well established. 
 (Energy is defined as the power of doing work, or as that 
 kind of force which produces change.) Modern science 
 accepts the doctrine of the correlation and conservation of 
 
4G2 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 the physical forces, — light, heat, electricity, magnetism, 
 and chemical affinity. Each force, it is believed, may as- 
 sume either of these several forms. Force, however, can 
 be neither augmented, nor diminished; neither created 
 nor annihilated. Consequently, the force in the solar sys- 
 tem, aside from what it may receive from without, or may 
 lose in interstellar space, is a constant quantity, though 
 it may be incessantly undergoing degradation, thereby 
 passing into a form no longer available for work. That 
 such degradation is going on is conceded by scientists. 
 Though there is such a law as the transformation of 
 forces, — each being capable of conversion, — force cannot 
 be exactly re-transformed, because a portion is converted 
 into heat, a part of which is dissipated. This diffused 
 heat represents wasted energy, being incapable of further 
 conversion. As the force in the universe is constantly 
 undergoing conversion into radiant heat, that is, into 
 an unavailable form of energy, the time must come, how- 
 ever remote, when the present economy will terminate. 
 Such is the opinion of Prof. Helmholtz. 
 He affirms: — 
 
 " Nature as a whole possesses a store of force which cannot in any way be 
 either increased or diminished. The quantity of force in nature is just as 
 eternal and unalterable as the quantity of matter. . . . From the fact that no 
 portion of force can be absolutely lost, it does not follow that a portion may not 
 be inapplicable to human purposes. ... If all the bodies in nature had the 
 same temperature it would be impossible to convert any portion of their heat 
 into mechanical work. . . . We can divide the whole force-store of the 
 universe into two parts, one of which is heat and must continue to be such; 
 the other ... is capable of the most varied changes of form, and constitutes 
 the whole wealth of change which takes place in nature. ... At each motion 
 of a terrestrial body a portion of mechanical force passes by friction or collision 
 into heat, of which only a part can be converted back again into mechanical 
 force. . . . From this it follows that the first portion of the store of force, the 
 unchangeable heat, is augmented by every natural process, while the second 
 portion, mechanical, electrical, and chemical force, must be diminished; so 
 that if the universe be delivered over to the undisturbed action of its physical 
 
SCIENCE AND THE BIBLE; NO CONFLICT. 46B 
 
 processes, all force will finally pass into the form of heat and all heat come to a 
 state of equilibrium* Then all possibility of a further change would he at an 
 end, and the complete cessation of all natural processes must set in. The life of 
 men, animals, and plants, could not of course continue if the sun had lost its 
 high temperature, and with it its light,— if all the components of the earth's 
 surface had closed those combinations which their affinities demand. In short, 
 the universe from that time forward would be condemned to a state of eternal 
 rest." 
 
 " Thus the inexorable laws of mechanics indicate that the store of force in our 
 planetary system, which can only suffer loss and not gain, must be finally 
 exhausted." * 
 
 Sir Wm. Thomson affirms: — 
 
 " A material system can never be brought through any returning cycle of 
 motions without spending more work against the mutual forces of its parts than 
 it gained from these parts, because no relative motion can take place without 
 meeting with frictional or other forms of resistance." Again: "There can 
 be but one ultimate result for such a system as that of the sun and planets, if 
 continuing long enough under existing laws, and not disturbed by meeting with 
 other moving masses in space. That result is the falling together of all into 
 one mass, which, although rotating for a time, must- in the end come to rest 
 relatively to the surrounding medium." f 
 
 Mr. Herbert Spencer asserts: — 
 
 " The tacit assumption hitherto current, that the sun can continue to give off 
 an undiminished amount of light and heat through all future time, is fast being 
 abandoned. ' ' 
 
 " Infinitely remote as may be the state when all the motions of masses shall be 
 transformed into molecular motion, and all the molecular motion equilibrated; 
 yet such a state of complete integration and complete equilibration is that 
 towards which the changes now going on throughout the solar system inevi- 
 tably tend." 
 
 " If the solar system is slowly dissipating its forces — if the sun is losing its 
 heat at a rate which will tell in millions of years— if with diminution of the 
 sun's radiations there must go on a diminution in. the activity of geologic and 
 meteorologic processes as well as in the quantity of vegetal and animal existence 
 — if man and society are similarly dependent on this supply of force that is 
 gradually coming to an end; are we not manifestly progressing towards omni- 
 present death ? That such a state must be the outcome of the processes every- 
 where going on, seems beyond doubt. Whether any ulterior processes may 
 
 * Correlation and Conserz'ation of Forces, pp. 227, 228, 229, 245. 
 f Natural Philosophy, vol. i. pp. 190, 191, 194. 
 
404 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 reverse these changes, and initiate a new liie, is a question to be considered 
 hereafter. For the present it must suffice that the proximate end of all the 
 transformations we have traced, is a state of quiescence." * 
 
 Scientists are inclined to concede that the moon, 
 which has passed through a protracted series of changes, 
 is destined to ultimate extinction. For some cause, 
 most probably the resistance it meets from the ether, the 
 centrifugal force is gradually diminishing,and consequently 
 the centripetal force is shortening the orbit. Hence, 
 if this state of things continues, the period must arrive 
 when it will fall upon the earth. 
 
 Prof. J. R. Mayer says: — 
 
 " The movement of celestial bodies in an absolute vacuum would be as uniform 
 as those of a mathematical pendulum, whereas a resisting medium pervading all 
 space would cause the planets to move in shorter and shorter orbits, and at 
 last to fall into the sun." f 
 
 Astronomers also assure us that the earth, which ge- 
 ologists acknowledge has passed through innumerable 
 changes, is destined to still further permutations. It has 
 passed through vast geological epochs; through great 
 ice-ages; through inter-glacial periods, when a tropical 
 climate prevailed, and coral and chambered shells were 
 deposited, and coal beds were formed; through a period 
 of submergence, when sand and gravel were deposited 
 above the coal; through another glacial period, when 
 masses of ice floating on an arctic sea conveyed boulders 
 from distant mountain summits. 
 
 Nor are we left without shrewd conjectures as to the 
 causes which produced these climatic changes. Some 
 regard them as due to changes in the inclination of the 
 earth's axis to the plane of its orbit. Some imagine that 
 the solar system, in its journeyings through space, passes 
 
 * First Principles, pp. 493, 495, 514. 
 
 \ Correlation and Conservation 0/ Forces, p. 265. 
 
SCIENCE AND THE BIBLE; NO CONFLICT. 465 
 
 through regions of different temperature. Some attribute 
 the differences to changes in the distribution of land and 
 water. Some seek a solution of the difficult problem by 
 assuming a change in the position of the earth's axis, 
 caused, perhaps, by lofty mountains between the poles 
 and the equator. Some argue that the succession of 
 glacial and tropical periods is the result of a variation in 
 the amount of heat received from the sun, which is pro- 
 nounced a variable star. Some maintain that these 
 wide differences of temperature are due to a change in 
 the elipticity of the earth's orbit, which, when nearest 
 circular, produces a tropical period, when most eliptical, 
 causes an ice-age. Some — conspicuously Mr. James 
 Croll, in his work, Climate and Time in their Geological 
 Relations — find a solution of the bewildering problem in 
 the united influence of a precession of the equinoxes and 
 a change in the obliquity of the ecliptic. These causes, 
 it is said, have produced three great ice-ages in the last 
 three million years, separated by irregular intervals, and 
 lasting, respectively, one hundred and fifty thousand, 
 two hundred and sixty thousand, and one hundred and 
 seventy thousand years. The last period, it is conjec- 
 tured began two hundred and forty thousand years ago, 
 and terminated seventy thousand years ago; for the last 
 ten thousand years we have been approaching a tropical 
 period, which will reach its maximum in about twenty- 
 four thousand years. 
 
 Whatever opinions one may be disposed to entertain 
 in reference to these and similar abstruse calculations, 
 he can scarcely fail to concede that the surfaces of the 
 continents have undergone great changes. Under the 
 action of frost and rain, the rocks of the loftiest moun- 
 tains are gradually transported to ocean-beds. Indeed, 
 these influences are so potent that but little difficulty is 
 
466 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 experienced in accepting the assertion that ocean and 
 continent have exchanged position at least once, and 
 probably several times. 
 
 That the earth, which has been the theatre of many 
 and great changes, is destined to further change, and to 
 ultimate extinction, can scarcely be denied. Like the 
 moon, it encounters resistance in its journeyings through 
 space, and must consequently be moving in a shorter orbit, 
 and must at last fall into the sun. Prof. J. R. Mayer asserts 
 that, assuming a resisting medium * (which astronomers 
 are unanimous in doing), all the masses of matter within 
 the limits of the solar system must some day find a grave 
 in the sun. The moon's mass would keep the sun's fires 
 burning from one to two years; the earth's mass, from 
 sixty to one hundred and twenty years. 
 
 Another evidence that the earth, which had a begin- 
 ning, must have an end, — at least as a habitation for such 
 organisms as now exist upon it, — is found in the fact that 
 it is ceaselessly parting with its interior heat by radiation. 
 It was once a liquid mass, as is proved by its form, be- 
 ing flattened at the poles. The liquid condition was not 
 that of water, but of dense matter melted by a high 
 temperature. The earth must have been a molten sea. 
 The increase of temperature discoverable in boring arte- 
 sian wells, and the numerous thermal springs and volcanic 
 eruptions, prove that a high temperature still prevails in 
 the interior of the earth. Experiment has shown that 
 the earth's crust increases in temperature at the rate of 
 one degree for thirty meters of descent towards its center. 
 Consequently, at the depth of a few miles, every known sub- 
 stance would be fused — leaving a heaving mass of melted 
 matter encased in a hardened crust. The interior heat 
 
 * That interstellar spaces are rilled with a luminiferous ether is the opinion 
 of all eminent scientists, including J. Clerk Maxwell. Helmholtz. Faraday, etc. 
 
SCIENCE AND THE BIBLE; NO CONFLICT. 407 
 
 of the earth is generally regarded as a result of the 
 mechanical union of two or more cosmical masses which 
 are supposed to have entered into its original composi- 
 tion, or as a result of the condensation of matter which 
 once pervaded the space of the solar system between its 
 nearest neighboring systems. During its incandescent 
 state, it must have parted with heat much more rapidly 
 than it does at present, or has done for many ages. The 
 cooling process must have gradually become less and 
 less pronounced, the hardened crust continuously dimin- 
 ishing the amount of heat lost by radiation. During 
 this protracted period, the convulsions of its surface 
 must have been great and widely extended. Mountain- 
 chains, the back-bones of continents, must have been 
 formed by upheavals, or by the shrinkage which caused 
 ocean-beds, or by these two causes acting in conjunction. 
 
 It is estimated that the amount of heat now lost by 
 the earth in the space of a hundred years is equal to the 
 amount needed to melt a layer of ice three miles in 
 thickness and covering the entire surface of the globe. 
 
 This immense loss must result in the gradual contrac- 
 tion of the earth's crust, which contraction is going on, 
 as is evidenced by earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. 
 Notwithstanding this decrease in the length of the 
 earth's radius, the day has remained the same length for 
 at least two thousand years. This seeming anomaly is re- 
 garded as sufficiently accounted for by assuming that the 
 tidal wave has tended to diminish the velocity of the earth's 
 rotation, to the exact extent that the shortening of the 
 radius has tended to its increase; that, consequently, 
 during the present era the length of the day has remained 
 unchanged. In the earlier existence of the earth, how- 
 ever, the great rapidity of the cooling process may have 
 caused, probably did cause, a continual increase in the 
 
4(58 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 velocity of rotatkm, the day growing shorter and shorter 
 until it reached *its present uniform length. It is also 
 assumed that the time may come, when the retarding 
 influence of the tidal wave may cause a sufficient decrease 
 in the velocity of rotation to produce a sensible elonga- 
 tion of the day. The earth, which is now in its full 
 maturity, is regarded as having had its youth, and as 
 destined to pass into the decrepitude of old age. 
 
 This continued cooling of the earth's crust must of 
 course have a sensible effect on temperature, and may 
 ultimately render it uninhabitable, causing all organic 
 life to perish, leaving the planet one vast sepulchre. 
 Certainly this loss of heat cannot continue forever with- 
 out terminating the present economy. The earth, in 
 this respect at least, does not present evidence that it is 
 destined to continue in its present state throughout 
 unending ages; indeed, it evidently cannot. 
 
 Nor is it less certain that the sun, the center of energy 
 to the solar system, is undergoing a rapid succession of 
 changes which apparently must result, sooner or later, 
 in the death of the planetary system. The temperature 
 of every luminous body necessarily decreases in propor- 
 tion as it radiates heat; and unless the loss it thereby 
 sustains is made good from some source, it must of neces- 
 sity become cold and lightless. Every candle, however 
 lengthy, ultimately goes out in darkness. Every fire, 
 however vast the amount of fuel thrown thereon, unless 
 the amount is infinite, must die out for want of material 
 to be consumed. The sun is a fire; and accordingly 
 must be extinguished some day, unless its storehouse of 
 fuel is absolutely inexhaustible. The heat it radiates 
 each minute is so vast in amount — 12, 600,000, coo cubic 
 miles of heat — that if it were a solid globe of anthracite 
 coal it would burn to ashes in about sixty-four centuries. 
 
SCIENCE AND THE BIBLE; NO CONFLICT. 469 
 
 Consequently, unless its fires are kept up by the addition 
 of new fuel, the solar system must ultimately be shrouded 
 in darkness and bound in the fetters of death. If it re- 
 ceives fuel from without it must receive it, apparently, 
 from the space circumscribed by the orbit of the most 
 remote planet of the system. This entire space is filled, 
 it is true, with a vast number of ponderable objects, 
 asteroids or shooting stars. These, having a tendency 
 to move towards the center of gravity, finally fall into 
 the sun, finding a grave, and aiding to continue the pul- 
 sations of life in the remainder of the system; indeed 
 all cosmical masses — the number of which must be al- 
 most infinite — circle around the sun in an ever diminish- 
 ing orbit with a velocity determined by their size. Con- 
 sequently, all are destined, sooner or later, to extinction 
 in the sun, into which an uninterrupted stream of fuel is 
 incessantly pouring. Its fires are thus kept burning with 
 undiminished intensity, satellites, comets, and cosmical 
 atoms, or asteroids as they have been called, furnishing 
 fuel. 
 
 Numerous, however, as these cosmical masses are — 
 thousands of millions of shooting stars most probably 
 coming near the earth in a single year — the time must 
 come when the last will have found a sepulchre in the 
 sun; nay, the time must come when asteroids, comets, 
 and satellites being exhausted, the planets themselves, 
 which are revolving around the sun in ever diminishing 
 orbits, must fall into the same grave. Such, at least, is 
 the opinion of Sir William Thomson: "As the weights 
 of a clock run down to the lowest position, from which 
 they can never rise again unless fresh energy is commun- 
 icated to them from some source not yet exhausted, so 
 surely must every planet creep in, age after age, toward 
 the sun." 
 
470 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 Some one, perhaps, may be disposed to say: Possibly 
 the sun, if a vast fire, obtains its fuel from beyond the 
 limits of the solar system, or from the trackless fields 
 of space through which it moves accompanied by its 
 system of worlds. But evidently, it could not obtain 
 its fuel from beyond the limits of its own attractive 
 power; and such limits must exist, for it is not the 
 center of gravity of the universe. Consequently, if not 
 confined strictly to the space enclosed within the orbit 
 of its most remote planet for its supply of fuel, it must 
 at least be confined to the circle of its own attractive 
 energy, that is, it has not an infinite store-house from 
 which to draw. Nor could it obtain an infinite supply 
 from the fields of space through which it journeys, for its 
 pathway, in conformity with law, must return into itself, 
 and consequently is not infinite. It cannot obtain an 
 infinite supply from a limited portion of space, which is 
 all that can come under the range of its attraction. An 
 infinite number of cosmical masses would not only render 
 this limited space a plenum, but would render infinite 
 space a plenum. Consequently, neither from beyond the 
 limits of the system, nor from the fields of space through 
 which the system passes, could the sun obtain an infinite 
 supply of fuel ; but an infinite supply is needed if the sun's 
 fires are to keep burning forever. 
 
 It may, perhaps, be said that some eminent astrono- 
 mers do not accept this fuel-hypothesis in reference to 
 the sun's heat. This is true, but the counter theories are 
 either less tenable, or are such as concede that the solar 
 system is dissipative, not conservative. If it is dissipa- 
 tivc, it cannot be everlasting. If it is conservative, it is 
 an example of perpetual motion, work done without any 
 loss of energy. If the generation and the diffusion of en- 
 ergy are results of the rotation of the sun upon its axis, 
 
SCIENCE AND THE BTBLE; NO CONFLICT. 471 
 
 then it is necessary to assume, contrary to experience, 
 that mere motion, independent of friction, can produce 
 heat, or that the sun meets with sufficient friction from 
 the enveloping ether to generate the heat it possesses. 
 But simple motion, it is conceded, cannot produce heat. 
 Nor can the sun's heat be produced by friction with 
 ether, for a point on the sun's equator travels only about 
 four times as rapidly as a point on the earth's equator, 
 and only about one-sixth as rapidly as a point on the 
 equator of Jupiter; — still, no heat is generated by the ro- 
 tation of Jupiter upon its axis. It is not a sun but a 
 planet. 
 
 Some assume that the fall of cosmical masses into the 
 sun produces heat by mere percussion. If this be true, 
 the fuel-theory is indeed disproved; but it does not fol- 
 low that the sun can continue to generate heat forever. 
 The heat produced by percussion must be exhausted 
 when the last mass has fallen into the sun. The present 
 discussion, consequently, does not require the refutation 
 of this theory. 
 
 It has been supposed that possibly solar heat is the 
 energy of gravitation transformed by condensation of the 
 sun's mass; and that this molecular motion is transmuted 
 into radiant heat and sent outward through space in 
 every direction. It is safe to affirm that condensation 
 of the sun's mass could not possibly continue forever. On 
 this theory also the system is not conservative, and con- 
 sequently must terminate. 
 
 It is argued by others that the sun's rays, which are 
 assumed to be cold, simply cause a " substance," heat, to 
 pass from a state of rest to a state of motion. This 
 assumes that the sun is not a heated body, though it 
 can generate heat; that " cold " is not a relative term; 
 that heat is a substance, not a mode of motion, and a 
 
472 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 substance now cold, now hot, now at rest, now in 
 motion. Such notions are regarded in the present day 
 as eminently preposterous. Besides, it is an undeniable 
 fact that the sun radiates not cold light, but heated 
 rays. 
 
 The only remaining hypothesis meriting attention is 
 that which assumes that the sun is continually receiving 
 from the system as much heat as it diffuses, the system 
 being consequently a mechanism capable of running on 
 forever without any waste whatever, an example of per- 
 petual motion, a conservative system, not a dissipative. 
 Without entering upon the discussion of this question 
 we content ourselves with reminding the reader that 
 the most eminent scientists, Sir John Herschel, Balfour 
 Stewart, Prof. J. C. Maxwell, Sir William Thomson, Prof. 
 Helmholtz, Prof. Tyndall, and others, agree in regarding 
 the planetary system as dissipative, not conservative. 
 It is not supposed that the system has any such effi- 
 ciency as to be capable of pursuing a fixed course of self- 
 development extending throughout endless duration, 
 independent of any external influence; nor is it imagined 
 that force, communicated to matter at its creation, is 
 equal to the task of keeping the machinery running for- 
 ever, no additional force and no control of existing forces 
 being necessary. An inexhaustible supply of energy 
 from mechanical processes, or from natural forces, be they 
 thermal, electric, or chemical, is an impossibility. The 
 effort to ascertain the origin of force leads directly into 
 the presence-chamber of the Infinite Personality who 
 sustains all existences; upon whose unconditioned will 
 the continuance of the present order of things must 
 depend. 
 
 This introduces to a consideration of one further 
 proposition: — 
 
SCIENCE AND THE BIBLE; NO CONFLICT. 473 
 
 VI. The continued existence of the universe 
 
 IS DUE TO THE WILL OF GOD. 
 
 That the universe finds its causality in God has been 
 proved. Matter, force, life, spirit, owe their existence to 
 His efficiency. In this opinion there is general concur- 
 rence, though theists differ when they come to answer 
 the questions, Are these existences simply effects of 
 Divine volition, being called into being ex niJiilo ? or 
 are they a formation from God's own self-existent 
 substance ? 
 
 Having been led to believe that the fundamental rela- 
 tion of God to the universe is that of Originator, it is 
 proper to inquire whether He is not also its Sustainer. 
 Did His connection with the existing order of things ter- 
 minate immediately after He inaugurated it, or does He 
 still sustain it in being ? Now that the complicated ma- 
 chine is in operation, does it possess real efficiency ? or is 
 it to be understood that God is immanent in nature, con- 
 tinuing matter in being, giving potency to physical forces, 
 and sustaining all forms of life, — plant-life, animal organ- 
 isms, and spiritual existences ? Is man to believe that 
 God, after creating a universe, left it to tell off its fated 
 periods uninfluenced by His will ? or is He to be re- 
 garded as the Conservator of all things, as well as the 
 Creator ? In scientific discussion this is the fundamental 
 question: What sustains the universe in being ? By the 
 answers given, reasoners are classed as atheists, deists, 
 pantheists, or theists. 
 
 Satisfactory evidence having been furnished that the 
 present order of things must have had a beginning in 
 the unconditioned will of God, and will have an end, 
 it would be legitimate to limit the discussion to a 
 consideration of those theories of conservation which 
 find acceptance with believers in the existence of God. 
 
474 THEISAf AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 Nevertheless, it may be well to enumerate the four 
 principal theories: — 
 
 1. Matter, of which force is but a phenomenon, is the 
 Conservator of the universe. 
 
 2. Force, of which matter is but a phenomenon, is the 
 Conservator of the universe. 
 
 3. An underlying reality, an infinite life, of which 
 matter and force are equally phenomena, is the Con- 
 servator of the universe. 
 
 4. A Personal God, who created matter and whose 
 will is the only self-existent force, is the Conservator of 
 the universe. 
 
 The first theory is that entertained by thorough-going 
 materialism. The pure materialist affirms: Matter is all 
 I need; with its atoms I can explain the universe. Matter 
 is eternal. I am perplexed by no questions in reference 
 to the origin of things. Atoms are indestructible, and 
 force is one of their essential attributes; consequently, the 
 indestructibility of matter and the persistence of force sus- 
 tain all things in being — no other conservation is needed. 
 
 Of the two existences, matter and force, each of 
 which has been so long struggling in scientific discussion 
 for the honor of being the Ultimate of all ultimates, he 
 persists in regarding the former as the only reality. 
 Even mind he regards as an attribute of matter; and so 
 regards plants and animal-life. " The atomists," says 
 Lange, "attributed to matter only the simplest of the 
 various properties of things — those, namely, which are 
 indispensable for the presentation of a something in 
 space and time; and their aim was to evolve from these 
 alone the whole assemblage of phenomena. They it was 
 who gave us the first perfectly clear notion of what 
 we are to understand by matter as the basis of all 
 phenomena." 
 
SCIENCE AND THE BIBLE; NO CONFLICT. 475 
 
 As to appearance there are activities everywhere — 
 gravitation operating through interstellar space, — the ma- 
 terialistic theory, to be logical, ought to carry with it a 
 belief in the continuity of matter. 
 
 If the universe is a material plenum, how is it possible 
 for matter to be expanded by heat or contracted by cold ? 
 An iron rod, when heated, is not expanded by the gen- 
 eration of new iron, and if it were, how could it expand 
 in a plenum ? If it is said: Being more dense than the 
 enveloping atmosphere, it compresses the surrounding air; 
 the reply is: Then the space surrounding it was not full. 
 Particles in actual contact can be brought no nearer 
 together. The most subtile fluid, if continuous, occu- 
 pies all space. If matter is not continuous, then there 
 are spaces where there is no force in operation, or force 
 may be dissevered from matter. But if the universe is a 
 material plenum, reason would seem to affirm: then there 
 can be no difference in the density of its several parts; 
 but if there is a difference in density, how can heat — which 
 is a mode of motion, and not a substance — cause expan- 
 sion, and that too without creating a void? If it is said 
 that a subtile fluid, in the interstices of the iron, is 
 expanded, then some fluid more subtile must occupy the 
 interstices in the first fluid, and a fluid more subtile still 
 must occupy the interstices in the second fluid, and so 
 on ad infinitum. Accordingly, there must be a difference 
 in the size of the ultimate particles of matter, — the fine, 
 the finer, the finest; indeed, there must be an infinite grada- 
 tion in the minuteness of atoms. Besides, particles imply 
 division, and division implies discontinuity. Again, in 
 a plenum the only motion possible, apparently, is a 
 vortical motion. But this reduces matter to a mere 
 abstraction: it is no longer a material entity. Insurmount- 
 able difficulties environ us, if we attempt to regard 
 
470 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 matter as continuous, and by consequence as a satisfac- 
 tory explanation of the universe. 
 
 Accordingly, as James Martineau affirms, many ad- 
 vocates of materialism prefer to believe that " the universe 
 consists of atoms and empty space." They regard mat- 
 ter as discontinuous. But materialism asserts, as there 
 is no matter without force, so likewise there is no force 
 without matter; an assertion which apparently should be 
 understood as affirming that force cannot exist in empty 
 space, millions upon millions of miles from any heavenly 
 body; for if there is any empty space, the interstellar 
 regions should be regarded as such. It is difficult, to 
 say the least, to believe that matter can produce effects 
 across an almost limitless void. Science regards this 
 conception as so exceedingly difficult, that it accepts the 
 theory of an all-pervading luminiferous ether. 
 
 But this hypothesis does not aid the materialist in 
 the slightest degree; for if it is impossible to conceive 
 that the sun's attractive force can be exerted upon the earth 
 through an intervening void, it is equally impossible to 
 suppose that the attractive force resident in an atom of 
 ether can be communicated to the nearest ether-atom 
 through a vacuum, the void between the two atoms of 
 ether, if the ether is discontinuous, being no doubt as 
 great — if not greater — in proportion to the size of the 
 atoms, as is the distance from the earth to the sun 
 in proportion to their masses. 
 
 If atoms can exert an effect through a vacuum, let us 
 suppose two atoms sufficiently remote from each other to 
 remain relatively at rest. This supposition will answer 
 the purpose, since there can be no essential difference in 
 the case, whatever may be the extent of the interval be- 
 tween the atoms. Is it supposable that each of these two 
 atoms attracts the other through a void, two forces being 
 
SCIENCE AND THE BIBLE; NO CONFLICT. All 
 
 communicated without any medium of communication ? 
 Force has then, apparently, an actual existence dissevered 
 from matter, though the materialist asserts there can be no 
 force without matter. Whether there can be or not, the 
 materialist is compelled to concede that matter is either 
 not discontinuous or it can act where it is not. If only 
 these two forces of attraction were in operation through 
 this intervening vacuum, the two atoms must be brought 
 into actual contact. They are not: two repelling forces 
 are in operation. Consequently, at some imaginary point 
 between the two atoms, attraction must be in deadly 
 struggle with repulsion. Forces, which are not matter, 
 meet in a vacuum and neutralize each other, and yet 
 they have no independent existence. Nay, forces operat- 
 ing through almost interminable intervals, though mere 
 attributes of far-distant matter, discover each other and 
 destroy each other in their deadly encounter. It is dif- 
 ficult to believe that force is a mere attribute of matter, 
 and neither has, nor can have, an independent existence. 
 As long as it remains so difficult to conceive that force, 
 if a mere phenomenon of matter, could act in a vacuum, 
 it will be difficult for materialists to convince the world 
 that spirit is an attribute of discontinuous matter. If force 
 can operate where no matter is, why may it not be an 
 independent entity ? And if force may possibly have an 
 existence independent of matter, why may not spirit ? 
 And if the human spirit may be active without depend- 
 ence on molecular vibrations, may we not believe in the 
 existence of an extra-mundane God ? If God exists, it is 
 more reasonable to regard Him as the Conservator of the 
 universe than to regard discontinuous atoms as the sus- 
 taining power of the universe. 
 
 The second theory regards force as the Conservator of 
 the universe and matter as merely phenomenal. The 
 
478 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 properties of matter, it is asserted, are effects of an 
 underlying reality. If matter is simply local force, which 
 in the ultimate analysis merges into dynamic points, 
 centers of attraction and repulsion; then mathematical 
 points attract and repel each other. Can there be attrac- 
 tion with nothing to attract ? Can there be repulsion with 
 nothing to repel ? After resolving solidity into force, 
 and extension into a mathematical point, nothing remains 
 except position. Consequently, even the possibility of 
 motion is eliminated. How can there be motion with 
 nothing to be moved ? It is manifest that matter is in- 
 disposed to submit quietly to this process of elimination. 
 It refuses to be politely bowed out of existence. 
 
 This theory, that matter is a phenomenon of force, 
 leads naturally to some form of idealism; though not 
 necessarily to the form commonly attributed to Berkeley, 
 who possibly has been misunderstood. To know that 
 anything exists outside of one's self he regarded as impos- 
 sible. Perhaps he did not consider the external world a 
 dream, but was discussing the philosophical question: 
 What is the underlying reality ? Color, smoothness, 
 hardness, all the properties of matter, he resolved into 
 perceptions. Accepting the unity of the universe as an 
 established fact, and being unable to satisfy himself that 
 matter, in the ultimate analysis, was anything more than 
 a phenomenon, he was in search of the underlying sub- 
 stance, in which what is known as the material, and what 
 is known as the dynamic, may inhere. Matter and mind 
 are both existences. Which is the real substance? He 
 answered: Not both, but mind. He persisted in viewing 
 matter as something not essentially different from mind; 
 as in fact the creation of mind, an aspect of the one eter- 
 nal substance. The present discussion does not call for 
 a refutation of idealism. 
 
SCIENCE AND THE BIBLE; NO CONFLICT. 479 
 
 Those who accept the dynamic theory as a satisfac- 
 tory explanation of the origin of matter, of life, and even 
 of consciousness, are under the necessity of regarding 
 force as the conservator of all things. A moment's 
 reflection, however, will suffice to discern some serious 
 difficulties in the way of considering this the world's con- 
 servator. The forces of nature, as far as known, are 
 capable of transmutation. How can these transmutable 
 forces arrange themselves into an order in time and in 
 space ? Their order is a phenomenon which implies an 
 intelligent power back of them; it is evidently not a 
 function of the forces themselves. They run back to one 
 force, which, if it is to maintain the present order of 
 things, and is to evolve in an orderly succession another 
 state of things, must be something more than blind energy 
 groping for agencies by which to preserve the existing 
 economy, or ignorantly searching for channels through 
 which to introduce a series of changes, each of which is 
 a graduated step in a fore-determined plan. Plurality of 
 forces thus disappears; but the one force which remains 
 refuses to do the work imposed upon it without being 
 invested with the attributes of God. It is an intelligent 
 force, indeed must be. Continuance without causality is 
 just as inconceivable as is origination without causality. 
 There cannot be an existing order of things without 
 the possibility of a different order. If the existing order 
 persists in continuing, there must be some adequate cause 
 to effect the continuance; and that cause cannot be 
 resident in the order itself. It cannot be the forces of 
 nature, for science pronounces these simply phenomenal 
 manifestations of one force. It cannot be this one force 
 regarded as mere physical energy, nor indeed as energy 
 of any kind, for its manifestations maintain an order in 
 time, in space, and in potency, and even evince a purpose. 
 
480 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 If, then, force is to be regarded as the conservator of 
 the universe, it must be considered as the exact equiv- 
 alent of power, that is, as will. In short, it must be 
 exalted to the throne of universal dominion, and may as 
 well bear the name God, as to be recognized under a new 
 designation. To the final cause, the theist irresistibly 
 attributes personality. Nor is he driven from this by be- 
 ing charged with anthropomorphism. Though he may 
 be told by some that force has no real existence, and 
 by others that matter has none, he is indisposed to be- 
 lieve that will is merely phenomenal. He believes him- 
 self capable of exercising will-power. Consequently, in 
 his judgment, the existence of a universal will has a more 
 satisfactory basis upon which to rest than the reality 
 of either matter or physical force; for the difficulty in 
 regarding the human will as a mere phenomenon has 
 prompted most reasoners to pronounce it an independent 
 reality. Consequently, if the universe continues as a 
 result of mechanical or dynamic necessity, this, far from 
 proving the absence of purpose, proves persistence of 
 purpose on the part of an eternal will. Than will, no 
 other cause is known to exist. Some cause must produce 
 this continuance. The cause is not in nature herself, for 
 nature has no will. Therefore, the cause must be super- 
 natural, an unconditioned will. Absolute causation in 
 nature is a thing which science has not yet proved. 
 Is the human intellect capable of proving that the pres- 
 ent order is not the result of will ? May not an omnis- 
 cient mind have so constructed the cosmos as to make 
 it contain within itself the evidence of an inherent neces- 
 sity? Everything runs backwards irresistibly to. Uncon- 
 ditioned Personality. Origination and conservation alike 
 find their explanation in free causality. 
 
 Mr. Herbert Spencer asserts: — 
 
SCIENCE AND THE BIBLE; NO CONFLICT. 481 
 
 "Matter and motion are both regarded by me as modes of manifestation of 
 force, and force, as we are conscious of it when by our own efforts we produce 
 changes, is the correlative of that universal power which transcends conscious- 
 ness." "The existence of this inscrutable power is the most certain of all 
 truths." * 
 
 The third theory regards matter and spirit as equally 
 phenomena of an underlying reality. This is the pan- 
 theistic explanation of the conservation of the world. It 
 assumes that neither force nor matter furnishes an 
 explanation of the origin of things or of their persistence 
 in continuance. In common with theism, it maintains 
 that nature is not explicable on mechanical principles. It 
 asserts that back of both matter and force is a fundamen- 
 tal mystery which mechanism cannot explain, and which 
 therefore may not be considered mechanical. This under- 
 lying reality is an infinite life. Consciousness is back of 
 physical phenomena. Back of consciousness is that from 
 which consciousness springs, self. Even self is a vanish- 
 ing mirage. Back of self is an infinite ocean of being 
 that rolls itself, wave after wave, into a little cove which 
 I denominate self. I am fleeting impressions', but I am 
 more: I am a bundle of memories; but I am more: I am 
 a substratum of conscious susceptibility; but I am more — 
 I am part of the Infinite. The sense of personal identity, 
 which is lost at death, is almost certainly lost forever. 
 
 On this theory, God's relation to the world is that of 
 an ever-abiding life, the soul of creation, hylozoism; or 
 that of an unconscious intelligence operative everywhere, 
 pantheism; or that of an Infinite Personality (though 
 infinity and personality appear irreconcilable) underlying 
 nature and not certainly known to have an existence 
 independent of nature. 
 
 The fourth theory considers matter and spirit two 
 distinct substances. This is the theistic conception. It 
 
 * First Principles, pp. 579. 581. 
 
£82 THEISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 assumes that God, an eternal Spirit, created the universe, 
 and sustains it in being". Origination and conservation 
 are effects of His own unconditioned Will. Matter owes 
 its existence to His volition, its continuance to His sus- 
 taining power. It may be an effluence of His own self- 
 existent substance, but is not independent of His will. 
 Force is His immanence in nature. Life is His creation, 
 not necessarily ex niliilo, but possibly a drop of His own 
 eternal Personality, assuming the various forms it mani- 
 fests as a result of His direct volition. Consciousness is 
 His creative work, though it may be but a self-willed 
 efflux from His own Infinite Personality. 
 
 This theory denies that the world is a self-adjusting ma- 
 chine, the total vis viva of which can be neither increased 
 nor diminished. It repudiates the doctrine that the 
 forces operative in nature are eternal, and that conse- 
 quently they suffice to sustain the universe. It refuses 
 to concede that active force, communicated to matter at 
 its creation, renders immediate Divine agency unneces- 
 sary to the conservation of the world. On the contrary, 
 it maintains that in tracing force back to its origin we 
 come into the presence-chamber of an Unconditioned 
 Will, of the Infinite Personality, who unceasingly exerts 
 sustaining power upon matter, plant-life, animal organ- 
 isms, and sentient beings. It repudiates hylozoism and 
 every form of pantheism, refusing to identify divine power 
 and divine intelligence with the agencies at work in the 
 world of matter and mind. 
 
 As the Divine Immanence in Nature has been pre- 
 viously discussed, nothing more is now demanded than 
 the presentation of selections from Scriptural assertions 
 bearing upon God's present relations to the world. " He 
 is before all things and by Him all things consist" (Col. i. 
 17). The existing order of things then is not eternal, 
 
SCIENCE AND THE BIBLE; NO CONFLICT. 483 
 
 but had a beginning in time. There was a period when 
 it was not, though God was. It was not a self-evolution, 
 for " God is before all things." Not even in their sub- 
 stantial existence are all things eternal; much less are 
 they so in the individual forms they assume. Matter, 
 coming into existence subsequently, has indeed assumed 
 new forms. Life, having an origin in the will of God, has 
 become manifest in more complex forms; but no living 
 organism is co-eternal with Him. Everything has had an 
 origin. The passage further affirms that nature does 
 not possess the power of self-preservation. Separate 
 forms of matter, — worlds and systems of worlds, — the 
 various modes of physical force and individual living or- 
 ganisms, do not have continued existence independent 
 of the Divine efficiency. " Of Him, and through Him, and 
 for Him, are all things" (Rom. ii. 36). " He giveth to all 
 life, and breath and all things " (Acts xvii. 25). " He up- 
 holds all things by the word of His power" (Heb. i. 3). 
 " There are diversities of operation, but it is the same 
 God who worketh all in all." " In Him we live, move, 
 and have our being." 
 
 FINIS. 
 

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