ATTl 
 
 'iyfS^ TOWARDS 
 
 MRWMSMA/fDEVOmOM 
 
 H-MUCKERMi 
 
 w 
 
 4 ^* !> i 
 
BL 263 .M82 1922 
 Muckermann, Hermann, 1877 
 
 1962. 
 Attitude of Catholics 
 
 towards Darwinism and 
 
Attitude of Catholics 
 
 TOWARDS 
 
 Darwinism and Evolution. 
 
 BY 
 
 H. MUCKERMANN, S. J. 
 
 WITH FOUR PI, ATE) S. 
 
 Third Edition 
 
 B. HERDER BOOK CO., 
 17 South Broadway, St. Louis, Mo. 
 
 and 
 68 Great Russell St., London, W. C. 
 1922 
 
NIHIL OBSTAT. 
 
 St. Louis, December 13, 1905. 
 
 F. G. Hoi^wECK, 
 
 Censor. 
 
 IMPRIMATUR. 
 St. Louis, December 14, 1905. 
 
 JOANNKS J. G1.ENNON, 
 
 Archiepiscopus Sti. Ludovici. 
 
 Becktold Printing and Book Mfgr. Co., St. Louis, Mo. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 Introduction ... .... 5 
 
 PART I. 
 
 Darwin^ s Theory of Natural Selection and our 
 Attitude towards it. 
 Chapter i. — Darwin's Theory of Natural Selec- 
 tion 8 
 
 Chapter 11. — Darwin's Theory of Natural Selec- 
 tion refuted . . . • 15 
 
 PART II. 
 
 The Generalization of Darwin'' s Theory and 
 
 our Attitude towards it. 
 
 Chapter in. — Haeckel's Monism ... 23 
 
 PART III. 
 
 The Application of Darwin'' s Theory to Man 
 
 and our Attitude toivards it. 
 
 Chapter iv. — "Man a Higher Beast" . . 32 
 
 Chapter v. — The Origin of Man's Soul . . 39 
 
 Chapter VI. — The "First Main Argument" for 
 
 the Animal Descent of Man's 
 
 Body 47 
 
 Chapter VII. — The "Second Main Argument" 
 for the Animal Descent of 
 Man's Body .... 59 
 
 PART IV. 
 
 The Theory of Evolution and our Attitude 
 
 towards it. 
 
 Chapter viii. — Evolution and Faith ... 74 
 
 Chapter ix. — Evolution and Reason . . 84 
 
 Chapter x. —Evolution and the Natural 
 
 Sciences ..... 94 
 Conclusion 109 
 
introduction: 
 
 A T every turn we are brought face to face with the 
 magic words of modern science, Darwinism and 
 Evolution. Nor is it difficult to see the destructive 
 influence which these captious phrases have hitherto 
 exercized, especially on the minds of the young. 
 
 Significant, indeed, is the remark which the zoolo- 
 gist Fleischmann makes in his lectures on the theory 
 of descent. "In fact," says he, ''the charm exerted 
 by the modern theory of descent upon every person 
 open to impressions has proved to be remarkably 
 efficient. No other scientific hypothesis is equally 
 capable of entangling and at the same time holding us 
 fast within the intricate meshes of its suggestions. 
 The problem involving the history of man's earliest 
 days long since buried in oblivion ; the question of 
 man's first appearance on this earth, and the inquisi- 
 tive search into the first small beginnings from which 
 he reached the lofty pinnacle of modern culture and 
 civilization ; such and kindred questions must inevit- 
 ably, at one time or other, suggest themselves to every 
 thoughtful man and imperatively call for an answer. ' ' ^) 
 
 Thus it sometimes happens that also in Catholic 
 circles men of prominence rise up in defense of Dar- 
 winism. Others, on the contrary, filled with a timid 
 and exaggerated apprehension of falling victims to the 
 seductive charms of this hypothesis and with an 
 1) Die Descendenztheorie, Leipzig, 1901, p. 1. 
 (5) 
 
6 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 instinctive horror for all that savors of the theory of 
 evolution, prefer to shelve the question. For, in their 
 minds, the admission of any evolutionary principle is 
 tantamount to a denial of God's existence, and neces- 
 sarily implies that the loathsome and degenerate ape 
 was man's progenitor. 
 
 We propose to offer to the educated Catholic public 
 and especially to Catholic students a clear and brief 
 exposition of the true nature of "Darwinism and 
 Evolution, ' ' adding at the same time such observ- ations 
 as are necessary to define the attitude of Catholics 
 towards them. 
 
 In all questions of grave moment bearing on the 
 subject, we have carefully consulted Father Wasmann's 
 latest publication "Modern Biology and the theory of 
 Evolution," ^) which has met with universal satisfac- 
 tion and applause. From this work, too, we have 
 adopted the distinction between the fourfold meaning 
 of "Darwinism," which we have made the basis of 
 our inquiry. Besides, we have not neglected to call 
 to our assistance the best works of many recent and 
 reliable non-Catholic scientists. 
 
 We open our treatise with a short enumeration of 
 the principal meanings of the terms "Darwinism and 
 Evolution." 
 
 The word "Darwinism" is taken in a four- fold 
 sense, one of which, however, may easily be abused. 
 
 In its first meaning the word designates the theory 
 of natural selection, which was established by Charles 
 Darwin in the j^ear 1859. 
 
 1) Krich Wasmann, S. J., "Die Moderne Eiologie und 
 Entwicklungstheorie.'' 2. Aufl., Herder, 1904, pp. XII, 323, 
 40 Abbildungen und 4 Tafeln. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 7 
 
 The second meaning of the word is contained in 
 Darwin's doctrine ampliJBed and generalized to a new 
 philosophical system, to a new world-view. Darwinism 
 in this meaning is sometimes spoken of as ''Haeckel- 
 ism,'^ in memory of its founder, Ernest Haeckel. 
 
 In its third acceptation Darwinism applies the prin- 
 ciples of Darwin's theory of natural selection to the 
 human species and signifies the theory of manh animal 
 descent. 
 
 The fourth and last meaning of Darwinism is (as 
 we shall point out in the course of the present essay) 
 nothing hut the misuse of a term, and in reality identical 
 with the general theory of organic evolution in as far as 
 this is opposed to the theory of constancy. The latter 
 theory maintains that the systematic species of plants 
 and animals have been originally created in the form 
 in which they exist at present. 
 
 Accordingly we must from the very outset, clearly 
 distinguish between the four interpretations of "Dar- 
 winism and Evolution," just assigned. Thus are we 
 enabled to separate the chaff from the grain and to 
 draw the line of demarcation between shadow and 
 light, error and truth ; then, and only then, can there 
 be question of forming a sound judgment about Dar- 
 winism and the theory of evolution. 
 
PART I. 
 
 DARWIN'S THEORY OF NATURAL SELECTION 
 
 AND OUR ATTITUDE TOWARDS IT. 
 
 Chapter I. 
 Darwin's Theory of Natural Selection. 
 
 npHERK are, beyond doubt, myriads of animals and 
 plants living on this little planet of ours. Suffice 
 it to say that in the various collections of insects alone 
 there are to be numbered, to say the least, some 
 250,000 different species, each of vi^hich in turn bears 
 invariable characteristics (called also specific marks) 
 peculiarly its own. 
 
 Whence these numerous animals and plants? 
 
 One might answer, the chicken from the egg, the 
 egg from the chicken ; and the first egg or chicken 
 came directly from the hand of God. In other words, 
 it might be held that all the different species of ani- 
 mals and plants were originally produced by God, 
 such as we see them today. But besides this answer 
 another explanation might be given. For, one could 
 say that in the beginning God created but a few 
 species of animals and plants, which in the course of 
 ages were transformed into a countless multitude of 
 others, until they finally reached their present stage 
 of development. Neither of these theories, as we shall 
 point out in a subsequent chapter, runs counter to the 
 
 (8) 
 
DARWIN S THEORY OF NATURAI. SELKCTION. 9 
 
 postulates of our religion. For, the latter only main- 
 tains, but with unqualified determination, that no 
 species of animal or plant exists which is not indebted 
 for its existence to the Creator of all things. As tc 
 the rest, faith is silent, leaving us completely in the 
 dark concerning the manner in which the animals and 
 plants of today came into being, by directly or indirectly 
 coming from the creative hand of God. 
 
 But, be this as it may be, Darwin defended the 
 latter hypothesis and held that the present species of 
 plants and animals have not always been the same, 
 but turned out to be "the lineal descendants of some 
 few beings which lived long before the first bed of the 
 Cambrian system was deposited." ^) In his "Origin 
 of Species" Darwin, moreover, admitted that the first 
 species were originally produced by a Creator, an 
 opinion, which, it is true, he rejected in later years.^) 
 
 1 "Origin of Species," New York, (Science edition, 1902), 
 p. 314. 
 
 2) In his Autobiography Darwin writes as follows: "When 
 thus reflecting I feel compelled to look to a first cause having 
 an intelligent mind in some degree analogous to that of man, 
 and I deserve to be called a Theist. This conclusion was 
 strong in my mind, as far as I can remember, when I wrote 
 the Origin of Species, and it is since that time that it has 
 very gradvially, with many fluctuations, become weaker. But 
 then arises the doubt, can the mind of man, which has, as I 
 fully believe, been developed from a mind as low as that pos- 
 sessed by the lowest animals, be trusted when it draws such 
 grand conclusions? I cannot pretend to throw the least light 
 on such abstruse problems. The mystery of the beginning of 
 all things is insoluble by us; and I, for one, must be content 
 to remain an Agnostic." (The Life and Letters of Charles 
 Darwin, edited by his son Francis Darwin, vol. I, p. 282). 
 
 In his "Origin of Species" Darwin wrote: "To my mind 
 it accords better with what we know of the laws impressed on 
 
lO DARWINISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 Now, in order to explain this gradual change of 
 species, Darwin advanced his so-called theory of 
 natural selection. 
 
 What do we understand by this theory? 
 
 It is a well-known fact that the various breeds of 
 horses and of dogs have not always been as they are at 
 present. They have been changed by man making 
 them subservient to his wants and to his fancy. Those 
 animals, whose conditions have been ameliorated by 
 the change, were selected by the breeders as sub-breeds, 
 and thus by degrees the various domestic races sprang 
 into existence. ' 'The accumulative action of selection, 
 whether applied methodically and quickly, or uncon- 
 sciously and slowly, but more efficiently," is the 
 "predominant power," to which the domestic races 
 owe their origin. ^) 
 
 Darwin imagined that a similar process is repeated 
 in nature independently of man's influence. He at- 
 tempts to show that there is an innate tendency in all 
 plants and animals to vary in every direction and to 
 
 matter by the Creator, that the production and extinction of 
 the past and present inhabitants of the world should have 
 been due to secondary causes, like those determining the 
 birth and death of the individual. When I view all things 
 not as special creations, but as the lineal descendants of 
 some few beings which lived long before the first bed of 
 the Cambrian system was deposited, they seem to me to 
 become ennobled" . . . "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 ; and that, while 
 this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law 
 of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most 
 beautiful and most wonderful have been and are being 
 evolved." (p. 314 and 316). 
 1) "Origin of Species," p. 73. 
 
DARWIN'S THEORY OF NATURAI. SBI^ECTION. 1 1 
 
 accommodate themselves in structure and habits to 
 the external conditions and environments on which 
 they so vitally depend, such as climate, food, locality 
 and so forth. In fact, all differences ^^blend into each 
 other by an insensible series.'^ ^) Now, it is absolutely 
 impossible that all animals appearing in this world 
 can reach the state of maturity and propagate their 
 kind. One single codfish, for instance, is able to 
 produce 9,000,000 eggs in a season. Whence the food 
 for so many individuals? An entire ocean would not 
 be large enough to harbor all the fish that within a 
 few years would be brought to life by one such prolific 
 codfish and its numerous offspring. Even in case of 
 the elephant, which "is reckoned the slowest breeder 
 of all known animals", we should have, according to 
 Darwin, "after a period of from 740 to 750 years .... 
 nearly nineteen million elephants alive, descended 
 from the first pair." 2) Consequently, most of the 
 young are doomed to destruction before they have 
 reached the stage of complete development, and thus 
 "a struggle for existence inevitably follows from the high 
 rate at which all organic beings tend to increase." ^) 
 In this struggle for existence those individuals "hav- 
 ing any advantage, however slight, over others," will 
 survive, whilst any variations "in the least degree 
 injurious" will be "rigidly destroyed." ^'This pre- 
 servation of favorable individual differences and variations 
 and the destruction of those which are injurious ^^ ^ ^) is 
 the definition Darwin himself gives of natural selection, 
 
 ^) "Origin of Species," p. 87. 
 
 2) "Origin of Species," p. 103. 
 
 3) "Origin of Species," p. 101. 
 *) "Origin of Species," p. 121. 
 
12 DARWINISM AND EVOIvUTlON. 
 
 which, in fact, he considers "not the exclusive" but 
 "the most important means of modification." ^) The 
 selected variations are transmitted and accumulated 
 through "the strong principle of inheritance,'^^ ^) 
 
 Hence, as Geikie interprets Darwin, "varieties at 
 first arising from accidental circumstances may become 
 permanent, while the original form from which they 
 sprang, being less well adapted to hold its own, per- 
 ishes. Varieties become species, and specific differ- 
 ences pass in a similar way into generic. The most 
 successful forms are by a process of natural selection 
 made to overcome and survive those that are less for- 
 tunate, 'the survival of the fittest' being the general 
 law of nature. ' ' ^) 
 
 To mention only one example, by way of illustration, 
 the giraffe is said to have developed in the following 
 manner : 
 
 "By its lofty stature, much elongated neck, fore- 
 legs, head and tongue, the giraffe has its whole frame 
 beautifully adapted for browsing on the higher branch- 
 es of trees. It can thus obtain food beyond the reach 
 of the other Ungulata or hoofed animals inhabiting 
 the same country; and this must be of great advantage 
 to it during dearth." ^) Hence the individuals of the 
 nascent giraffe "which were the highest browsers and 
 were able during dearths to reach even an inch or two 
 above the others, will often have been preserved ; for 
 they will have roamed over the whole country in search 
 of food. . . . These will have intercrossed and left off- 
 
 1) "Origin of Species," p. 30. 
 
 2) "Origin of Species," p. 185. 
 
 3) "Text-Book of Geology," London, 1893, 3d ed., p. 666. 
 
 4) "Origin of Species," p. 302. 
 
DARWIN'S THKORY OF NATURAI. SEIvECTION. 1 3 
 
 Spring, either inheriting the same bodily peculiarities, 
 or with a tendency to vary again in the same manner ; 
 while the individuals less favored in the same species, 
 will have been the most liable to perish. . . . Natural 
 selection will preserve and thus separate all the supe- 
 rior individuals, allowing them heely to intercross, 
 and will destroy all the inferior individuals. By this 
 process long-continued, which exactly corresponds 
 with what I have called unconscious selection by man, 
 combined, no doubt, in a most important manner with 
 the inherited effects of the increased use of parts, it 
 seems to me almost certain that an ordinary hoofed 
 quadruped might be converted into a giraffe." 
 
 From this amusing account of ludicrous details it 
 readily appears that there existed way back in the 
 misty ages of the past certain long-necked and long- 
 legged ruminants. By chance, of course, the neck 
 and legs of some were an inch longer than the neck 
 and legs of others. Now, who can fail to see the in- 
 calculable advantages which in times of dearth result 
 from the structure of a frame singularly adapted for 
 browsing on high trees? Hence, those ruminants 
 which could reach highest luckily survived and trans- 
 mitted the coveted quality of their peculiar elasticity 
 to their offspring, while the rest perished miserably. 
 Thus, with not a little predilection, has Mother Nature 
 chosen and cherished the giraffe of today. 
 
 The theory of natural selection, then, comprises the 
 following propositions : "All organisms have offspring. 
 These offspring have an innate and universal tendency 
 to variation from the parent form. These variations 
 are indeterminate — taking place in all directions. 
 1) "Origin of Species," p. 303-304. 
 
14 DARV/INIvSM AND KVOIyUTlON. 
 
 Among the offspring thus varying, and between them 
 and other contemporary organisms, there is a perpetual 
 competition and struggle for existence. The variations 
 which happen to be advantageous in this struggle — 
 from some accidental better fitting into surrounding 
 conditions — will have the benefit of that advantage 
 in the struggle. They will conquer and prevail ; 
 whilst other variations less advantageous, will be 
 shouldered out — will die and disappear. Thus, step 
 by step, Darwin imagined, more and more advantage- 
 ous varieties would be accidentally but continually 
 produced, and would be perpetuated by hereditary 
 transmission. By this process, prolonged through 
 ages of unknown duration, he thought it was possible 
 to account for the millions of different specific forms 
 which now constitute the organic world. ' ' ^) 
 
 1) Duke of Argyll, Organic Evolution, London, 1898, p. 79-80. 
 
Chapter II. 
 
 Darwin's Theory of Natural Selection Refuted. 
 
 VWE have seen what Charles Darwin understands 
 by his theory of natural selection. The question 
 next confronts us what are we to think of this theory? Is 
 natural selection or the survival of the fittest in reality 
 the mainspring of specific evolution, and is such a 
 theory in consonance with reason and experience ? 
 
 To many, it is true, Darwin's theory may at first 
 sight appear quite innocent and harmless, the more so 
 as Darwin does not fail to make occasional but meagre 
 mention of a Creator. Still, our reply to the question 
 put above is and must remain a decidedly negative one. 
 
 We would remark, first of all, that Darwin's ex- 
 planation of the origin of species appears 7iaivej not 
 to say mythical. Fleischmann has given expression to 
 this thought in the following words : 
 
 "There is in this world a subordinate deity, called 
 Variability. It is her blessed mood to produce every- 
 where minute changes, but why and wherefore she 
 cannot tell. An examination is introduced. Natural 
 Selection holds the chair of chief examiner. Only by 
 trial, which consists in the struggle for existence, 
 Natural Selection is able to pass judgment. Animals 
 with bad notes are doomed to destruction, those of 
 better ones are allowed to live. Darwin tells us that 
 we have not been present at the examination, much 
 less in the private council of Natural Selection : but 
 we may rest assured that Natural Selection will select 
 
 (15) 
 
1 6 DARWINISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 the very best, supported, as she is, by the prudence 
 gleaned from the experience of a thousand j^ears. She 
 examines, criticizes, praises, perfects, degenerates 
 organs, removes entire species from the arena of this 
 world, preserves the more perfect species and adapts 
 animals to new conditions of life. ..." In short, 
 "wherever no reason can be detected for the origin of 
 new species and new plans of organization, the deity 
 of Natural Selection is quickly summoned to the 
 rescue. She draws out herbs to trees, grinds the eye 
 from three transparent laj^ers, stretches and lifts the 
 neck of the giraffe, and paints the butterfly 'Kallima' 
 like a dry leaf, just as the gods and godesses of the 
 naive members of the human race. " ^) 
 
 Indeed, besides bearing the stamp of puerile 
 naivete, Darwin's theory is altogether insufficient in 
 itself and in open contradiction to reality. 
 
 For (i) when called upon to offer explanation for 
 the origin and increase of useful characteristics and of 
 new organs more perfectly developed, the theory of 
 natural selection is desperately helpless. Nor can it 
 be otherwise. For, by virtue of selection nothing new 
 can be produced. Selection with all the world of 
 meaning which the champions of evolution may force 
 into the term, can merely choose between already ex- 
 isting conditions, nothing else. It may destroy, hut it 
 cannot create. Hence the origin of new species with 
 new characteristics and organs, and all the beauty and 
 variety of forms which constitutes the present world 
 of living beings a world of veritable wonders, is the 
 work of chance, of blind and impotent fortuity. 
 
 Such is the logical conclusion at which radical 
 4 "Die Darwinsche Theorie," Leipzig, 1903, p. 399. 
 
THEORY OF NATURAL SELECTION REFUTED. I 7 
 
 Darwinism must necessarily arrive. But it is a con- 
 clusion which, as reasonable men, we cannot but 
 uncompromisingly condemn. How, we ask, could all 
 the highly complex organs of animal and plant life, 
 endowed with all their marvelous order and fitness 
 that puzzles and defies the puny intelligence of man, 
 be the issue of a game of hazard? If so, we might on 
 equal grounds assert that all the beautiful churches 
 and magnificent cathedrals which the thought and 
 genius of Christian art erected, happened to take their 
 stand on this earth of ours by sheer casuality. By 
 accident, of course, the blocks of stone and grains of 
 sand were heaped together by the sportive winds, and 
 lo, with the desired effect ! By chance the stately 
 arches wound their graceful turns; by chance the 
 towering steeple with its rising bulk crowned the 
 noble edifice. All that could be suitably employed 
 for the structure, its embellishment and style, survived 
 the great struggle between the single stones and sands, 
 whilst all the rest was lost. 
 
 ''Year after year," says the Duke of Argyll, "and 
 decade after decade have passed away, and as the 
 reign of terror which is always established for a time 
 to protect opinions which have become a fashion, has 
 gradually abated, it has become more and more clear 
 that mere accidental variations and the mere accidental 
 fitting of these into external conditions, can never account 
 for the definite progress of correlated adjustments and of 
 elaborate adaptatioris along certain lines, which are the 
 most prominent of all the characteristics of organic 
 development. It would be as rational to account for 
 the poem of the Iliad, or of Hamlet, by supposing that 
 the words and letters were adjusted to the conceptions 
 2 
 
1 8 DARWINISM AND E^VOLUTION. 
 
 by some process of natural selection, as to account by 
 the same formula for the intricate and glorious harmo- 
 nies between structure and function of organic life. ' ' ^) 
 Moreover, small accidental changes y as Darwin sup- 
 poses, are much too insignificant to be of any real advan- 
 tage to animals and plants in their struggle for existence. 
 What is the value and use of an unfinished organ? Of 
 what advantage will it be to the giraffe if, after some 
 
 1) 1. c. p. 84. It is true that Darwin, at least in his Origin 
 of Species, did not admit these implications. He even says 
 (p. 190): "I have hitherto sometimes spoken as if the varia- 
 tions were due to chance. This, of course, is a wholly incor- 
 rect expression, but it serves to acknowledge plainly our 
 ignorance of the cause of each particular variation." This 
 admission, however, does not change the theory itself. Very 
 significant in this connection, is what Darwin says in his 
 autobiography, written in 1876 .... "The old argument from 
 design in Nature . . . fails now, that the law of natural selec- 
 tion has been discovered . . . We can no longer argue that for 
 instance the beautiful hinge of a bivalve shell must have 
 been made by an intelligent being, like the hinge of a door 
 by man. There seems to be no more design in the variability 
 of organic beings and in the action of natural selection, than 
 in the course which the wind blows." (The Life and Letters of 
 Charles Darwin, edited by his son Francis Darwin, vol. I. p.279;. 
 In connection with this quotation, F. Darwin adds: "My 
 father asks whether we are to believe that the forms are 
 preordained of the broken fragments of rock tumbled from a 
 precipice which are fitted together by man to build his houses. 
 If not, why should we believe that the variations of domestic 
 animals or plants are preordained for the sake of the breeder? 
 But if we give up the principle in one case ... no shadow of 
 reason can be assigned for the belief that variations, alike in 
 nature and the result of the same general laws, which have 
 been the ground-work through natural selection of the for- 
 mation of the most perfectly adapted animals of the world, 
 man included, were intentionally and specially guided." 
 (The Variation of Animals and Plants, 1. ed. vol. II. p. 431). 
 
THEORY OF NATURAL SI5I.ECTION REFUTED. 1 9 
 
 thousand years, its neck will be an inch longer or 
 shorter? What is the use of a wing which, consisting 
 at first of a little stump, will only after a million years 
 be turned into an organ adapted for flying? Again, 
 the one-sided development of a single organ would be 
 totally useless, even harmful, unless at the same time 
 the entire organism would he subjected to a corresjponding 
 change. But how could so stupid, blind and powerless 
 an agent as natural selection accomplish such a mighty 
 task, especially if we take into consideration that most 
 of the specific characteristics of animals are biologically 
 indifferent and of no advantage to either individual or 
 species in their struggle for existence ? 
 
 (2) The theory of natural selection is opposed to the 
 most evident facts. For, to begin with the main point, 
 it supposes an infinite number of minute variations 
 and knows of no well-defined species. But the natural 
 sciences teach us the very contrary. Paleontology, as 
 well as our best books relating to the classification of 
 the present fauna and flora, prove conclusively that 
 there is no chaos of variations in nature, but a well- 
 defined system of classes, families, genera and species. 
 
 There were none, perhaps, so well acquainted with 
 the structural characteristics of plants and animals as 
 the two greatest naturalists of the modern world, 
 Cuvier and Linne. Cuvier was principally concerned 
 with the extinct forms of life, while Linne studied the 
 living forms as they exist now. But both considered 
 the stability of species as the fundamental principle 
 of their entire work. Similarily Prof. Heer, the in- 
 genious author of "Primaeval Switzerland," maintains 
 "that in nature there is exhibited much less of a 
 tendency towards the fusion of species than of a force 
 
20 DARWINISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 manifested to preserve specific characteristics." "Al- 
 though a species may deviate into various forms, it nev- 
 ertheless moves within a definitely appointed circle, 
 and preserves its character with wonderful tenacity dur- 
 ing thousands of years and innumerable generations, 
 and under the most varied external conditions." ^) 
 
 Consequently Prof. Heer most decidedly contradicts 
 Darwin's supposition of ''a perfectly gradual and im- 
 perceptible transformation of species, always going on 
 without cessation. ' ' ^) Here is a striking illustration 
 of Prof. Heer's contention! "The Swiss alpine spe- 
 cies," he says, "may be surrounded by species widely 
 different from those of the original mountain-abode of 
 the plants. They may be living under different physical 
 conditions ; yet they preserve their specific character- 
 istics for thousands of years and during a succession 
 of innumerable generations ; and it is impossible to 
 distinguish the descendants of the Alpine drift-flora 
 now living in the Swiss Alps from plants of the drift- 
 flora in Iceland and Greenland." ^) 
 
 Even the numerous new species which, as a matter 
 of fact, made their appearance in the course of the 
 long geological periods were as stable and invariable 
 as we find them today. "In the Jurassic rocks," says 
 the Duke of Argyll, "we have a continuous and un- 
 disturbed series of long and tranquil deposits — con- 
 taining a complete record of all the new forms of life 
 which were introduced during these ages of oceanic 
 life. And those ages were, as a fact, long enough to 
 see not only a thick (1300 feet) mass of deposit, but 
 
 1) "The Primaeval World of Switzerland." London 1876. 
 vol. II., p. 284. 
 
 2) 1. c, p. 282. 
 
 3) 1. c. p. 283. 
 
THEORY OF NATURAI. SELECTION REFUTED. 21 
 
 the first appearance of hundreds of new species. These 
 are all as definite and distinct from each other as 
 existing species. No less than 1850 new species have 
 been counted — all of them suddenly born — all of them 
 lasting only for a time, and all of them in their turn 
 superseded by still newer forms. There is no sign of 
 mixture, or of confusion or of infinitesimal or of inde- 
 terminate variations." ^) 
 
 These testimonies could be multiplied without end. 
 Indeed, we are unable to comprehend how men like 
 Prof. Plate can deny the existence of sharply defined 
 species and can call "variability" a fundamental 
 phenomenon in the world of organisms. The very 
 contrary is true. 
 
 Nor is natural selection, as a matter of fact, in 
 any way able to produce new specific properties. This 
 has been clearly demonstrated by the great botanist 
 Hugo de Vries. His principle reasons '^) may be sum- 
 marized as follows : 
 
 a) Statistics bear witness to the fact that in con- 
 sequence of variability, the properties of plants do not 
 change except in two directions, namely as to "plus 
 and minus. ' ' Existing characteristics may be increased 
 or reduced, but not changed into something new. 
 
 b) The progressive development of the single 
 specific marks is not at all unlimited. If conditions 
 are favorable, 2 — -3, if ordinary, 3 — 5 generations are 
 quite sufiicient for the change. Further selection, if 
 constantly applied, at best results in preserving the 
 changes brought about, but never increases them. 
 
 1) 1. c. p. 147. 
 
 2) Hugo de Vries, "Die Mutationstheorie," Leipzig, 1901, 
 voL I. p. 83 ff. 
 
22 DARWINISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 c) Bach selection is succeeded by a corresponding 
 regression, which is the more marked, the greater the 
 change produced by selection. Moreover, the regres- 
 sion itself invariably tends toward the original specific 
 characteristics. As soon as the influence of a constantly 
 applied selection ceases, the race or variety produced 
 by that selection loses its stability and invariably re- 
 turns to the specific form from which it was derived. 
 The retrogressive change is accomplished within the 
 same time, as was needed for the opposite process, 
 that is, within a few generations. 
 
 Consequently, in the face of such reasons and facts 
 we are forced to reject Darwinism, in as far as it assigns 
 natural selection as the prime cause of specific evolution. 
 For this theory, besides being at variance with facts, 
 is totally insufficient in itself; because in its futile 
 attempt to furnish an explanation of the origin of 
 useful characteristics and of the order and harmony so 
 dominant in the world of living beings it must have 
 recourse to chance. 
 
PART II. 
 
 THE GENERALIZATION OF DARWIN'S THEORY 
 AND OUR ATTITUDE TOWARDS IT. 
 
 Chaptkr III. 
 HaeckePs Monism. 
 
 TN the preceding chapters we drew the chief outlines 
 of the first and foremost meaning of Darwinism, 
 and arrived at the conclusion that the proposals of a 
 theory presumptuous enough to set up natural selec- 
 tion as the principal agency in the development of 
 species cannot possibly be accepted. ''Natural selec- 
 tion, or Darwinism," says Conn, "is almost every- 
 where acknowledged as insufficient to meet the facts 
 of nature, since many features of life cannot be ex- 
 plained by it." ^) Even the renowned zoologist. Prof. 
 August Weismann of Freiburg, who once upheld the 
 ^'omnipotence of natural selection" with the enthusiasm 
 of a zealous advocate, is slowly beating a retreat and 
 has been practically led to acknowledge the ' 'impotence 
 of natural selection". The well-known botanist, 
 Strassburger, too, but a short time ago a staunch de- 
 fender of natural selection, has assumed a decidedly 
 aggressive attitude. Dr. Hans Driesch even ventures 
 so far as to write in the Biologisches Centralhlatt: "Dar- 
 1) "Evolution of To-day", New York and London, 1887, 
 page 203. 
 
 (23) 
 
24 DARWINISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 winism, like that other curiosity of our century, the 
 philosophy of Hegel, is a thing of the past; both are 
 variations of the same theme, 'how an entire genera- 
 tion can be hoodwinked'; and neither of them exactly 
 tends to give succeeding ages a very high opinion of 
 our passing centur\'. "i) And in another article he 
 adds: ''For a longtime has so-called Darwinism reaped 
 unmerited applause ; though from the very outset men 
 of judgment (Wiegand) declared and in the course of 
 events frequently repeated that this theory was posi- 
 tively insufficient and in point of logic shrouded in 
 obscurity. However, not only earnest inquirers are 
 fascinated by these inadequate attempts, but also 
 others who are influenced not so much by a scientific 
 impulse as by an indefinite, incomprehensible liberal- 
 ism — a vague craze for revelation, if we be allowed to 
 use the term. And what was the result of this fasci- 
 nation ? That Darwinism was treated rather as a sort 
 of new religion than as a subject of scientific import. 
 It was followed by results usually consequent upon 
 such an innovation and created champions who would 
 have done honor to Mohammed — luckily the only 
 weapons at their disposal being paper and ink. In 
 the opinion of the intelligent, however, Darwinism 
 has long since run its course, and the eulogies sound- 
 ing its merits have proved to be its funeral dirges, in 
 accordance with the adage, ^De mortuis nihil nisi bene^ 
 (Say nothing but good of the dead), containing at the 
 same time an implicit confession that all pleas in its 
 defense are but abortive attempts. ' ' ^) 
 
 1) Vol. XVI, p. 355. 
 
 2) Vol. XXII, p. 182. 
 
HAECKEL S MONISM. 25 
 
 Thus, in the opinion of competent judges,^) Dar- 
 win'' s theory of natural selection^ because of its total 
 insuificienc}^ is, or ought to be, repudiated by every rea- 
 sonable man. That it will be relegated to oblivion, 
 with little or no chance of revival, seems to be only a 
 matter of time. In the interim, leaving it to moulder 
 in its grave, and bidding farewell to the devotees who 
 mourn its premature demise, we turn our attention to 
 the second meaning of Darwinism, derived proximately 
 from the principle of natural selection as generalized es- 
 pecially by Ernest Haeckel to a philosophical system 
 and made to be the moving factor of a new world-view. 
 
 I . What is in Short the Gist of this Wori.d- 
 ViEW? ^^ Realistic monism''^ is the proud name with 
 which the "German Darwin" and his abettors have 
 christened this child of their fancy. Let us call it by 
 its right name from the very start. The word "mon- 
 ism" is derived from the Greek /i6ws, which means an 
 undivided whole. Hence, realistic monism means 
 that all things in existence constitute an undivided be- 
 cause identical whole. "Monism", says Haeckel, "is 
 neither extremely materialistic nor extremely spirit- 
 ualistic, but resembles rather a union and combination 
 of these opposed principles, in that it conceives all 
 nature as one whole, and nowhere recognizes any but 
 mechanical causes. Binary philosophy, on the other 
 hand, or dualism, regards nature and spirit, matter 
 and force, inorganic and organic nature, as distinct 
 and independent existences. ' ' ^) 
 
 1) Other testimonies as to the decadence of the Darwinian 
 theory are found in Dennert's book "At the Deathbed of Dar- 
 winism" (translated by E. V. O'Hara and John H. Peschges), 
 German Literary Board, Burlington, la., 1904. 
 
 2) "Evolution of Man", vol. II, p. 461. 
 
26 DARWINISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 Originally Darwin had merely lowered the barriers 
 separating the various species of plants and animals. 
 Haeckel decrees that all difference between God and the 
 world, betiveen matter and life, between body and soid, 
 must henceforth and forever cease. "With unlimited 
 freedom the universe extends itself through all the 
 domains of time and space. It is matter in its con- 
 tinuous motion, which by separation and mixture rises 
 to higher forms and functions, and by evolution and 
 dissolution describes a circle without beginning and 
 without end" (Strauss). From chaos and confusion, 
 from an infinite world of atoms spinning about without 
 order and purpose, the entire universe has steadily 
 evolved itself under the guidance of eternal and un- 
 changeable laws. The earth teeming with the life, 
 luxuriance and wealth of its three kingdoms, and sub- 
 jected to the sway of man, its noble and powerful lord, 
 is nothing else than an issue of material forces. 
 Thought and volition, learning and virtue, culture and 
 civilization, all the final outcome of an eternal struggle 
 for existence, of a perpetual survival of the fittest. 
 
 Haeckel himself has characterized his monism in 
 a lecture delivered at Altenburg in 1893.^) The real 
 creator of this organic world is in all probability an 
 atom of carbon, a tetrahedron composed of four primi- 
 tive atoms. The human soul is but the sum of those 
 physiological functions whose elementary organs are 
 represented by the microscopic ganglion cells of our 
 brain. In this respect the human soul is identical 
 with the lowest infusoria. Consciousness is but the 
 
 1) According to a resume given by the "liberal" Protes- 
 tant writer Mr. Stead (confer "Stimmen aus Maria-Laach", 
 vol. 48, p. 575). 
 
haeckel's monism. 27 
 
 meclianical action of the ganglion cells and as such is 
 to be reduced to the physical and chemical processes 
 in its plasma. It follows from these dogmas 
 
 (i) that the belief in the immortality of the soul, 
 which during life inhabits the body and leaves it at 
 the moment of death, is a superstition fondly cherished 
 by the credulous, but owing to the rapid strides of 
 monistic philosophy out of favor with all friends of 
 science ; 
 
 (2) that there is no such thing as personal immor- 
 tality; for the only soul which man possesses is noth- 
 ing else than an intricate mechanism of nervous 
 activity. With the decomposition of the nervous sub- 
 stance, the soul, too, disappears. But this is not all. 
 Not only has man no soul, the monist proudly vaunts, 
 but the universe has no God — and Christianity is only 
 an aggregate of antiquated dogmas, drawn from a store- 
 house of impossible and silly myths. Mysticism means 
 the ruin of reason, and rather than let this come to 
 pass, may all mythological fables, miracles, revela- 
 tions, religious extravagances and beliefs be flung to 
 the wind without further ado! The very idea of a 
 personal God has been rendered untenable by the pro- 
 gress of the monistic knowledge of nature, and the 
 obsolete concept is doomed to lose its prestige in the 
 domain of truly scientific philosophy even before the 
 end of the nineteenth century. The God of Christi- 
 anity, so it appears, is a gaseous vertebrate, while, on 
 the other hand, the only God acknowledged by the 
 monist is the infinite sum of all atomic forces and 
 ether vibrations. 
 
 II. But few words, I believe, will be needed to 
 state our position regarding this hind of Darwinism, 
 
28 DARWINISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 It is true, in his preface to the history of man's devel- 
 opment (ed. 1874), Haeckel maintains: "In the tre- 
 mendous battle for civilization in which we have the 
 good fortune to fight, we cannot bring a more potent 
 ally to struggling truth than anthropogeny (science 
 of man's development). For this is the heavy artil- 
 lery in the battle for truth. Long lines of dualistic 
 sophisms fall powerless beneath the chain-shot of the 
 monistic artillery. The superb palace of the Roman 
 hierarchy, the powerful castle of infallible dogma col- 
 lapses like a house of cards. Whole libraries of ec- 
 clesiastical wisdom and sophistry dwindle into nothing- 
 ness when brought to light by the history of develop- 
 ment. ' ' But such senseless outbursts of the prophet 
 of Jena should make no impression on a sober mind. 
 To a Catholic the matter is plain. For 
 
 ( 1 ) Realistic monism denies the existence of a personal 
 Creator and the immortality of the human soul. Haeckel 
 himself declared that these two ideas, being antagonis- 
 tic to his world-view, can in no wise be adjusted to 
 the monistic system. 
 
 (2) Realistic monism maintains that the development 
 of the universe with all in it that is and lives, the human 
 mind not excluded, is due to a fortuitous concourse of 
 atoms, and that all hass prung and risen from the 
 unfathomable ab3^ss of chaos. 
 
 True scientists like Mr. James Hall, the famous 
 geologist, find even in the laws of inorganic nature 
 the evident footprints of a Creator's beneficence 
 and wisdom. Sa3^s Mr. Hall in his magnificent work: 
 ' 'The changes here enumerated are but a few among 
 the great series of changes which have brought the 
 surface of the earth into its present condition; which 
 have formed the mountain chains, excavated the deep 
 
HAKCKEIv'S MONISM. 29 
 
 valleys, or piled up among its successive strata mate- 
 rials fitted for our use and instruction. Every suc- 
 cessive change has left its monuments, upon which is 
 recorded the history of the past: that history shows 
 the operation of a uniform law, the influence of a 
 mighty design in the construction of the stupendous 
 fabric on which we exist. And though we are not 
 disposed to say, that the Creator has through all ages 
 been fashioning and preparing the earth for the abode 
 of man, or storing up its mineral treasures for his use 
 alone, we can yet see the operation of his divine law 
 and recognize in its harmonious adaptation the result of 
 eternal Beneficence and Wisdom.'^) 
 
 (3) Realistic monism uproots the most elementary 
 principles of the moral order. Human liberty no longer 
 exists. There is no conscience, no moral law, either 
 human or divine, no retribution, no avenger. The 
 social instincts of animals form the primary source of 
 morals for man. I^ike proud Prometheus of old, 
 monism boldly hurls defiance into the very face of 
 God, and says: 
 
 "Here seated I form beings 
 
 Like unto mine image, 
 
 To suffer, to weep, 
 
 To rejoice and be happy 
 
 And to contemn thee 
 
 As I do." —Goethe, 
 
 Haeckelism is therefore the main.stay of anarchy 
 and social democracy. 
 
 **.... Cross destroyers 
 Shatter also royal crowns, 
 And the smoke of charred temples 
 Circles up from burning thrones.^' 
 
 — Weber's Dreizehnlinden. 
 
 1) "Geology of New York", vol. IV., 1843, p. 525. 
 
3C DARWINISM AND KVOI.UTION. 
 
 How much more splendid, uniform and majestic is 
 the Christian world-view, recognizing in God the be- 
 ginning and end of all ! With consolation and blessing 
 it hovers like an angel of peace over this valley of 
 tears, gently pressing into the hands of each weary 
 pilgrim the triple key of faith, hope and love, which 
 alone unlock the portals of the great land of promise. 
 We know, therefore, what we are to think of Dar- 
 winism in its second acceptation. A doctrine which 
 applies the Darwinian theory of natural selection to the 
 universe is directly and in every respect opposed to the 
 Christian ivorld-view, and ^s, therefore, to be rejected. 
 
 It is sad to acknowledge that the atheist of Jena 
 has almost everywhere gained so powerful an influence. 
 Even of late this has become strikingly manifest on 
 the occasion of his 70th birthday, and in the Free- 
 thinkers' Congress at Rome. On the other hand, we 
 may rest assured that his reputation and influence will 
 not long survive him. In spite of a number of truly 
 valuable discoveries due to his researches, Haeckel's 
 name and fame have lost much of the regard they 
 once commanded in the world of leading scientists. 
 In fact, he is a scientific swindler and visionary, an 
 adroit manipulator and unscrupulous manufacturer of 
 facts, if such be needed for the support of his theories. 
 It is well known that in the first edition of his "Natural 
 History of Creation," Haeckel had three copies of the 
 same cliche printed side by side, designating the first 
 of the three perfectly similar figures as the embryo of 
 a dog, the second of a chick, and the third of a turtle. 
 Prof. W. His at Leipzig discovered the fraud and reso- 
 lutely declared "that the procedure of Prof. Haeckel 
 is and remains a frivolous play with facts, even more 
 
haeckbl's monism. 31 
 
 dangerous than his play with words The latter 
 
 is open to universal criticism, but the former can be 
 detected only by the specialist; and it is all the more 
 unpardonable, since Haeckel is conscious of the ex- 
 tensive influence he exercises. I^et others honor him 
 as their active and reckless party leader; in my 
 opinion he has, through his mode of procedure, 
 renounced all rights of being numbered as an equal 
 among earnest investigators."^) 
 
 We shall in the course of our essay draw attention 
 to other inventions of Haeckel 's fertile fancy. Suffice 
 it to recall the unhappy fate of HaeckeVs famous 
 Bathyhius, at the discovery of which, by Huxley, 
 Haeckel triumphantly exclaimed : ''Now we are en- 
 abled to reduce the phenomena of life to very simple 
 forms," (complex masses of slime brought up in sea 
 dredgings). As a matter of fact, Bathybius Haeckelii 
 proved to be no living being whatsoever, but only an 
 ordinary inorganic precipitate. Such things are not 
 easily forgotten. HaeckeVs monism itself has been felt 
 to be a defeat. Prof. Hensensays: "We can hardly 
 conceive of anything more barren and unfertile than 
 Haeckel' s monism. He might have spared us this 
 defeat." 
 
 "O their speech is only rustling, 
 
 As of winds or waters wild ; 
 Revelation came to mortals 
 
 Through the teaching of a child." 
 
 — Weber's D7-eizehnlinde?i. 
 
 1) Fleischmann, "Descendenztheorie," p. 10. 
 
PART III. 
 
 THE APPLICATION OF DARWIN»S THEORY TO 
 
 MAN AND OUR ATTITUDE TOWARDS IT, 
 
 OR THE TRUE ORIGIN OF MAN'S 
 
 SOUL AND BODY. 
 
 Chapter IV. 
 "Man a Higher Beast." 
 
 "TTHB question of questions for mankind — the 
 problem which underlies all others, and is more 
 deeply interesting than any other — is the ascertain- 
 ment of the place which man occupies in nature and 
 of his relations to the universe of things. Whence 
 our race has come, what are the limits of our power 
 over nature and of nature's power over us, to what 
 goal we are tending, are the problems which present 
 themselves anew and with undiminished interest to 
 every man born into the world, "i) Such are the 
 words with which Huxley puts before his readers the 
 question of man's relation to animals. 
 
 Huxley is right in emphasizing its importance. 
 For the question of man's origin is not only one of the 
 deepest interest to our intellect, but also of vital signifi- 
 cance for our moral life. It decides our end and destiny. 
 
 What is the origin of man according to Darwin's 
 principle of natural selection ? Darwin himself makes 
 
 i) Huxley, "Man's Place in Nature," Humboldt ed., p. 213. 
 (32) 
 
**MAN A HIGHER BEAST." 33 
 
 answer to this question in the following terms : "He 
 who is not content to look, like a savage, at the phe- 
 nomena of nature as disconnected, cannot any longer 
 believe that man is the work of a separate act of crea- 
 tion. He will be forced to admit that the close resem- 
 blance of the embryo of man to that, for instance, 
 of a dog — the construction of his skull, limbs and 
 whole frame on the same plan with that of other ( ! ) 
 mammals .... and a crowd of analogous facts — all 
 point in the plainest manner to the conclusion that 
 man is co-descendant with other mammals of a com- 
 mon progenitor." In fact, from Darwin's point of 
 view man originally derived his existence from a lower 
 animal — of course, at the judicious guidance of blind 
 and impotent natural selection. For, "man incessantly 
 presents individual differences in all parts of his bodj^ 
 and in his mental faculties." . . . He "tends to in- 
 crease at a greater rate than his means of subsistence ; 
 consequently he is occasionally subjected to a severe 
 struggle for existence, and natural selection will have 
 effected whatever lies within its scope." ^) Maii'^s in- 
 tellectual^ powers and moral faculties are also due to 
 natural selection. "The first foundation or origin of 
 the moral sense lies in the social instincts, including 
 sympathy, and these instincts no doubt were primarily 
 gained, as in the case of the lower animals, through 
 natural selection. ' ' ^) 
 
 Darwin even claims to recognize in ' 'the dim re- 
 cesses of time" a physical portrait (rather caricature) 
 of man's progenitors. * 'The early progenitors of man, ' ' 
 
 1) "The Descent of Man," New York, (Science edition) 
 1902, p. 781. 
 
 2) <*The Descent of Man," p. 788. 
 
 3 
 
34 DARWINISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 he says, "must have oeen once covered with hair, both 
 sexes having beards; their ears were probably pointed 
 and capable of movement ; and their bodies were pro- 
 vided with a tail, having the proper muscles . . . The 
 intestine gave forth a much larger caecum than that 
 now existing. The foot was then prehensile, judging 
 from the condition of the great toe in the foetus ; and 
 our progenitors, no doubt, were arboreal in their 
 habits, and frequented some warm, forest-clad land. 
 The males had great canine teeth, which served them 
 as formidable weapons. At a much earlier period . . . 
 the eye was protected by a third eyelid or nictitating 
 membrane. At a still earlier period the progenitors of 
 man must have been aquatic in their habits, for mor- 
 phology plainly tells us that our lungs consist of a modi- 
 fied swim-bladder, which once served as a float." ^) 
 
 Haeckel's description of man's progenitors is, of 
 course, still more accurate. He and his friends, as, 
 for instance, Wiedersheim, have carefully measured 
 the length of the alimentary canal of their ape-an- 
 cestors, and have come to the conclusion that it 
 was much more capacious than now and that they 
 subsisted exclusively upon vegetables. They testify, 
 moreover, to the fact that, not unlike Polyphemus of 
 old, their worthy sires, besides having two eyes look- 
 ing sideways (which Polyphemus did not have), could 
 boast of another presumably huge one in the middle 
 of their noble foreheads ! 
 
 Haeckel, too, is perfectly acquainted with the 
 twenty-one stages which, as he maintains, constitute 
 the history of the human species. But, as Conn re- 
 minds us, "it is needless here to enumerate these stages, 
 
 1) "The Descent of Man," p. 215. 
 
"man a higher beast." 35 
 
 for little by little has it become evident that most of 
 them were guesses, or at least founded on very insuffi- 
 cient data. Of these twenty-one stages more than half 
 have been 'proved to he wrong and in regard to some of 
 the others it is questionable. This attempt of Haeckel, 
 made with such boldness as almost to inspire belief, is 
 thus a failure.'' ^) 
 
 Huxley, who almost ten years before the publica- 
 tion of Darwin's ''Descent of Man" applied the prin- 
 ciple of natural selection to the human species, com- 
 pletes the description of man's progenitors by sketching 
 a vivid picture of their struggle for existence. They 
 were born into the world, multiplied without limita- 
 tions, and died at the side of the mammoth and the 
 buffalo, the hyena and the lion, whose life and habits 
 in no way differed from their own. The weakest and 
 most maladroit perished, while the tough and cunning 
 specimens survived. Life was only the felicitous out- 
 come of an incessant struggle with death, and outside 
 the narrow, but temporary, barriers of the family 
 fierce and unrelenting warfare, carried on between the 
 individual and the class, was the natural and normal 
 state of existence; while the species 'man' was drift- 
 ing and battling like the rest with the general current 
 of development, keeping his head above water as best 
 he could, heedless of the whence and the whither. 
 
 In the struggle for existence, therefore, it was the good 
 fortune of the human species to cope successfully tvith its 
 ''^co-animaW and through a constant survival of the 
 fittest, to develop step by step from mere sensation to 
 intelligence and reason, from blind instinct to morality 
 and virtue into a higher, a nobler — beast. 
 
 1) 1. c. p. 149. 
 
36 DARWINISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 "At the origin, monkey and man were but one, a 
 division takes place, the fissure has grown, has become 
 an abyss . . . like the canons of the Colorado . . . which 
 sooner or later will become impassable by the disap- 
 pearance, on the one hand, of the present anthropoids, 
 and on the other, of the lowest human races, and will 
 leave man isolated and majestic, proclaiming himself 
 with pride the king of creation. ' ' 
 
 "Ivet us not blush, then, for our ancestors; we have 
 been monkeys, as those formerly have been reptiles, 
 fish, nay worms or crustaceans. But it was a long 
 time ago, and we have grown; evolution, I say, has 
 been very prodigal of its favors in the struggle for 
 existence, she has given all the advantages to us. 
 Our rivals of yesterday are at our mercy, we let those 
 perish that displease us, we create new species (?) of 
 which we have need. We reign over the whole planet, 
 fashioning things to our will, piercing the isthmus, 
 exploiting the seas, searching the air, annulling dis- 
 tance, wringing from the earth her secular secrets. 
 Our aspirations, our thoughts, our actions, have no 
 bounds. Everything pivots around us. " 
 
 1) Topinard, "The Last Steps in the Genealogy of Man," 
 Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, 
 1890, p. 693. 
 
 In another passage of the same paper Topinard has the 
 following characteristic phrases: "We have descended, then, 
 from the monkeys, or at least everything appears as if we 
 have descended from them. From what monkey known or 
 unknown? I do not know: No one of the present anthropoids 
 has assuredly been our ancestor. From several monkeys or 
 a single one ? I do not know; and also do not know yet if I 
 am monogenistic or polygenistic." Poor fellow! Nor can we 
 tell you. Perhaps Dr. Friedenthal could. For he maintained 
 of late: "We do not only descend from apes, but we are apes 
 ourselves!" 
 
"man a higher beast." 37 
 
 This is the Darwinian solution of the problem 
 "which underlies all others," this the answer to "the 
 question of questions for mankind," this the far-famed 
 and frivolous elenchus of evolution, which legions of 
 more or less famous and infamous "ape-lads" have 
 trumpeted to the gullible masses, amid the noisy 
 uproar of their own conflicting phrases, as the grand 
 dogma ^) of modern science. 
 
 Now, it is clear as noonlight that a doctrine of this 
 description is not only very "distasteful" but ^'highly 
 irreligious'^ and detrimental to the highest interests of the 
 human race, involving, as it does, the total wreck and 
 ruin of religion. For, if man is nothing else than a 
 higher beast, it is plain that all moral ties are severed, 
 the foundations of family and state are undermined, 
 and society at large falls a ready victim to the demon 
 of anarchism and complete demoralization. So striking 
 and inevitable are these outrageous conclusions that 
 even Darwin^ Haeckel and their accomplices are not slow 
 to avoio them in the most frank and candid terms. 
 Yea, in their insolence they go so far as to fill entire 
 pages with low and trashy matter, such as no decent 
 man can read without a blush. 
 
 1) Haeckel considers this grand dogma as the most splen- 
 did result of his doctrine of development: "I am entirely 
 convinced," he says in one of his lectures, "that the science 
 of the twentieth century will not only accept our doctrine of 
 development, but will celebrate it as the most significant in- 
 tellectual achievement of our time, for the illuminating beams 
 of this sun have scattered the heavy clouds of ignorance and 
 superstition which hitherto shrouded in impenetrable dark- 
 ness the most important of all scientific problems, that of the 
 origin of man, of his true essence, and of his place in nature." 
 (Smithsonian Institution, Washington, 1899, p. 480). 
 
38 DARWINISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 It is, nevertheless, absolutely necessary to subject 
 the present question to a more careful examination. 
 For, it is in the first place an incontestable fact, that 
 the belief in man's animal descent counts numbers of 
 advocates in all classes of society. Besides, the cham- 
 pions of this doctrine — not a few of them professional 
 dissemblers — are shrewd enough to shroud themselves 
 in the cloak of ^ ^modern science,^'' and to inspire every 
 phrase they utter with a sincerity and love of truth that 
 almost appeals to the heart. It is, indeed, necessary 
 to tear the masks from their insolent faces, if we wish 
 to recognize their real and undisguised features. 
 
 Finally, the attempt has been frequently made to im- 
 pose upon the public and especially upon the Catholic 
 public by asserting that modern science has proved at 
 least one fact beyond the shadow of a doubt, namely, 
 that the body of man descended from, the ape. 
 
 Let us, accordingly, ask once more : What are we 
 to think of man^s animal descent ? 
 
 Man is composed of soul and body, and so the 
 question naturally falls into two heads, each of which 
 deserves careful attention and calls for a separate 
 discussion. 
 
 I. Are there any proofs for the animal descent of 
 manh soul f 
 
 II. Has science, as a matter of fact, established the 
 animal descent of man'^s body% 
 
Chapter V. 
 The Origin of Man's Soul. 
 
 pROF. Haeckel himself has obliged us in summariz- 
 ing the chief arguments in favor of the animal 
 descent of the human soul. This he has done in an 
 admirable discourse delivered at the fourth Internatio- 
 nal Congress of Zoologists at Cambridge, England, 
 August 26, 1898. The title of the lecture reads, ^^On 
 our ^present knowledge of the origin of man. ^^ The lec- 
 ture, originally printed at Bonn, has also been put 
 before the American public by the Smithsonian Insti- 
 tution, 1) in accordance (! ?) with its motto : "For the 
 increase and diffusion of knowledge among men." 
 
 At present, only that part of Haeckel' s discourse is 
 of interest to us in which he adduces his "impregnable" 
 arguments in support of the theory that man's soul 
 sprang from the soul of the ape. 
 
 "The wonderful 'soul of man,' " Haeckel begins, 
 "was thought to be a peculiar being, and today it 
 seems to many impossible that it should have been 
 historically developed from the 'soul of the ape!' But, 
 in the first place, the wonderful discoveries of compara- 
 tive anatomy {anatomy of the soulf] during the last ten 
 years informs us for the first time that the minute as 
 well as the gross structure of the brain of man is the 
 same as {ought to be: is quite different from"] that of the 
 anthropoid apes, the unimportant {ought to he: very 
 
 1) Annual Report, Washington, 1899, pp. 461-480. 
 (39) 
 
40 DARWINISM AND EVOI.UTION. 
 
 important'] difference in shape and size of single parts 
 that exist between the two being less \_ought to be: much 
 greater] than the corresponding difference between the 
 anthropoid and the lowest apes of the old world. . . . 
 
 ^^ Secondly y comparative ontogeny [development of the 
 individual] teaches us that the very high complex 
 brain of man has developed from the same rudimentary- 
 form as that of all other (!) vertebrate animals. . . . 
 [ What has this to do with the soul f] 
 
 ^^ Thirdly J comparative physiology shows us by obser- 
 vation and experiment that the total functions of the 
 brain, even consciousness and the so-called higher 
 mental faculties \_the so-called higher mental faculties are 
 not functions of the brain] together with reflex acts, are 
 in man preceded by the same physical and chemical 
 phenomena as in all other (!) mammals. 
 
 ^'Fourthly, . . . we learn from comparative pathology 
 that all so-called 'mental diseases' \_ought to be: diseases 
 of the brai7i] in man are determined by material 
 changes in the material of the brain just as they are 
 in the nearest related mammals. ' ' 
 
 Having enumerated these clinching "arguments," 
 Prof. Haeckel throws op eri another gate of his ^ ^proof- 
 factory^ \-'' An unprejudiced and critical \_ought to be: 
 prejudiced and uncritical] comparison confirms here 
 also Huxley's law: the psychological differences between 
 man and the anthropoid apes are less \_ought to be: 
 infinitely greater] than the corresponding differences 
 between the anthropoid and the lowest apes. And 
 this physiological fact [ought to be: dream] corresponds 
 exactly \_ought to be: not at all] with the results of an 
 anatomical examination of the differences found in the 
 structure of the cortex of the brain, the most important 
 
THE ORIGIN OF MAN'S SOUL. 4I 
 
 organ (!) of the soul. The deep significance of this 
 information will be clearer to us when we consider the 
 extraordinary differences in mental capacity that exist 
 within the human species itself. There we see, high 
 above, a Goethe and a Shakespeare, a Darwin and a 
 lyamarck (^Haeckelf), a Spinoza and an Aristotle, and 
 then, far below, a Veddah and an Akkah, a Bushman 
 and a Patagonian. The enormous difference between 
 these highest and lowest representatives of the human 
 race is much greater \_ought to he: is only a difference of 
 degree, not of kind'], than between the latter and the 
 anthropoid apes." 
 
 Then the clumsy gates of HaeckeVs proof-factory close 
 for a moment. Arms akimbo and eyes cast down and 
 assuming an air of "wisdom supernal," the Prophet 
 of Jena sees before him in spirit a vast multitude of 
 men unfortunate enough to spurn the sweeping power 
 of his iron logic, and, stirred to its very depth, the noble 
 soul of Haeckel, whose only aim in life has ever been 
 the defense and spread of truth, is verily ''cleft in 
 twain" by sadness and holy indignation. "Since in 
 spite of this," he bitterly complains, "we find that the 
 soul of man is today regarded in the widest circles as 
 an especial being and as the most important witness 
 against the decried doctrine of the descent of man 
 from apes, we explain it on the one hand by the 
 wretched condition of so-called psychology, and on 
 the other by the widespread superstition concerning 
 the immortality of the soul." (Sic!) 
 
 But not yet has Herr Haeckel emptied the vials of 
 his wrath. With a look of sovereign contempt he 
 frowns upon the "psychology of today," which he 
 styles "a fantastic metaphysics," teeming with "spec- 
 
42 DARWINISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 ulative errors and religious dogmas." He, then, 
 stigmatizes most of the so-called psychologists of today 
 as a set of * 'stiff-necked" ignoramuses, "who know 
 nothing at all of the brain and organs of special sense," 
 "nothing at all of the actual localization (!) of the 
 separate (!) mental faculties." 
 
 Finally, with one last and desperate attempt the 
 arsenal of his "arguments" reopens, and fully confi- 
 dent of final victory, the enlightened votary of Modern 
 Science breaks forth into another gush of sentiment, 
 concluding his declamation with a reference to one of 
 "the most important discoveries of the 19th century": 
 Flechsig's famous "seats of thought" to be found in 
 the lobes of the cerebral hemispheres and established 
 by experimental science as "the onl}^ true apparatus 
 of our mental life. " (Sic!). 
 
 HaeckeVs grand argumentation is finished. And 
 what a cloak of specious cogency it wears! Indeed, is 
 there any one among my readers who does not tremble 
 before the formidable array of facts and arguments set 
 up by a man whose numerous volumes have appeared 
 in many translations and have reached impressions 
 numbering 100,000 copies each? Well, 
 
 "Let us see what the learned wag maintains 
 With such a prodigal waste of brains." 
 
 — Lofigfellow . 
 
 For also Ernest Haeckel is one of the oracular bigwigs 
 of whom Goethe sings: 
 
 "Put on a periwig of million locks, 
 Fix on thy foot a pair of giant socks : 
 Thou still remainest what thou art." 
 
 And what is Haeckel ? We have said it. Herr 
 Haeckel of Jena is a pretentious humbug, an adept in 
 
43 
 
 verbal jugglery, who has always learned his lessons 
 well by heart, being as blissfully ignorant of logic 
 and psychology as the whilom monkeys of his noble 
 lineage. To wreak his vengeance on the God of 
 Chri.stianity, this apostle of atheism invites the masses 
 to set at naught the Ten Commandments, and, if pos- 
 sible, to efface every vestige of religion, substituting 
 in their stead a new gospel of liberation — tJie moral 
 code of the lowest savage. 
 
 It is impossible to mention and to discuss the low 
 moral conclusions which Haeckel openly deduced from 
 the animal descent of the human soul. We must con- 
 fine ourselves to his argumentation quoted above. 
 
 I. To speak about the immortality of the human soul as 
 a superstition is meaningless twaddle. Such language 
 ill befits a man of more than 70 years, tottering on the 
 brink of the grave, who das done so much to under- 
 mine the principles of Christianity. The belief in a 
 never-dying soul is one of the most sacred and vener- 
 able heirlooms of the human race; it is a conviction 
 based on the spirituality of the soul and on the infallible 
 word of revelation. Such arguments, of course, are 
 passed off with a disdainful smile by men of Haeckel' s 
 calibre. 
 
 2. As has been already stated, most of the facts 
 alleged by Haeckel are no facts at all. In the third part 
 of this section we shall have chances enough to verify 
 this statement. Sufiice it here to recall Ranke's word 
 that the difference between the brain of man and that 
 of the highest ape is considerable and that the ape's brain 
 is by far inferior to the brain even of a new-born child. 
 Yes, the difference between the brains of man and ape 
 is still more marked than that between Ranke and 
 
44 DARWINISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 Haeckel as scientific investigators. Which certainly 
 means very much. 
 
 3. Even supposing Haeckel's four facts concerning 
 the brain to be genuine and no creations of his playful 
 fancy, they would at most indicate a certain similarity 
 betiveen the brain of man and that of the ape. But to 
 infer that the one owed its origin to the other or even 
 that the human soul descended from the soul of the 
 monkey would be illogical. To speak of the brain as 
 identical with the soul is egregious nonsense. The brain 
 is a composite of matter, pure and simple, an intricate 
 structure of thousands and millions of cells and fibres 
 and of innumerable, complex molecules, while the 
 soul is an inextended, simple, purely spiritual substance. 
 
 4. Next comes Flechsigh grand discovery — a huge 
 joke for a change. The following reflections will make 
 the matter plain. In 1894 the physiologist Flechsig 
 startled the scientific world by announcing that he 
 had discovered three distinct organs of thought, seated 
 in separate regions of the brain, one serving for con- 
 sciousness, another for the moral and aesthetic sense, 
 and a third for mental apprehension and ratiocination. 
 To justify this psychological monstrosity Flechsig 
 alleged the following fact : Two kinds of fibres must 
 be distinguished in the brain: fibres of p)rojection, which 
 connect the brain with the muscles and end-organs of 
 sense, and fibres of association joining different parts of 
 the brain. Now^ according to Flechsig, there are 
 three centres in the brain which contain only fibres of 
 association and no fibres of projection. These centres 
 are, therefore, not directly connected with the muscles and 
 end-organs of sense, and — so he concluded — Thby 
 
 A.RB THE ORGANS OF THOUGHT ! 
 
THE) ORIGIN OF man's SOUL- 45 
 
 Another "graceful bound" of vicious reasoning! 
 And, I venture to presume the reader has not failed to 
 notice that Flechsig's phenomenal stroke of logic can 
 only be due to a derangement of the brain. Otherwise, 
 he will probably be at a loss to understand how a 
 scientist of our enlightened age could so far forget 
 himself as to indulge in such fanciful conceptions. 
 
 The facts, first of all, which Flechsig alleges, are 
 dreams. The best anatomists of today declare that 
 there is no region in the cerebral cortex which does not 
 contain fibres of projection as well as fibres of associa- 
 tion. Granted, moreover, Flechsig's fictions happened 
 to agree with facts, the only conclusion he could draw 
 in that case, without committing himself, would be 
 that the different parts of the brain are anatomically 
 connected to effect, as Wundt has it, ^Hhe functional 
 unity of separate cortical areas.'''' '^) But there can evi- 
 dently he no question of splitting the soid into three parts 
 like a log of wood and then to identify it with those 
 parts of the brain which are not directly connected 
 with the end-organs of sensation and motion. In the 
 third place, Flechsig betrays a lamentable ignorance of 
 the most elementary psychological processes by materially 
 separating the power of ratiocination from the other facul- 
 ties of the soul. We suspect, indeed, that Flechsig's 
 and Haeckel's "cerebral lobes of ratiocination" have 
 attained as much proficiency in logical thought as 
 those of their cousins in Hagenbeck's menagery. 
 
 Such are some of the reasons that induce us to 
 reject HaecheVs arguments for the animal descent of the 
 human soid. The difference between the soul of man 
 and the soul of the animal is one of kind, not merely of 
 
 ^) * 'Principles of Physiological Psychology," 5th ed. p. 214. 
 
46 DARWINISM AND EVOI^UTION. 
 
 degree. Man's soul is an inextended, immaterial, 
 spiritual substance, while the soul of the animal is 
 extended and intrinsically dependent on the material 
 body. Man's soul survives the body, not so the animal 
 soul which ceases to exist with the body's dissolution. 
 
 "Only man can do the impossible 
 He winnows the truth, he chooses and judges." 
 
 — Goethe. 
 
 "Made to God's image and likeness," man's soul 
 is the only being, here on earth, endowed with intelli- 
 gence and free will; thus to ''let him have dominion 
 over the fishes of the sea and the fowls of the air. and 
 the beasts, and the whole earth." 
 
Chapter VI. 
 
 The <<First Main Argument" for the Animal Descent 
 of Man>s Body. 
 
 npHE soul of man does not owe its existence to an 
 evolutionary development from the animal soul, 
 but is the very breath of God, the sublime and imme- 
 diate work of his creative love. 
 
 This doctrine of paramount importance for the 
 higher destiny of man is inculcated by our holy Faith 
 in the most vigorous terms, confirmed by reason and 
 indelibly written in the heart of every human being. 
 Indeed, all that is noble and lofty in our nature shud- 
 ders at the thought that we should be no more than a 
 better sort of apes. And we must emphatically reject 
 the foolish idea of Huxley that this innermost convic- 
 tion of our divine origin is due to the "blinding influ- 
 ences of traditional prejudice." This Darwin himself 
 must have felt when, at the end of his lengthy work, he 
 strives to comfort and console his readers by feigning to 
 bring them over the ** highly distasteful" conclusions 
 which in the face of logical sequence he could no more 
 evade. ' ' For my own part, ' ' Darwin thinks, ' ' I would 
 as soon be descended from that heroic little monkey 
 who braved his dreaded enemy in order to save the 
 life of his keeper, or from that old baboon who, de- 
 scending from the mountains, carried away in triumph 
 his young comrade from a crowd of astonished dogs — 
 as from a savage who delights to torture his enemies, 
 
 (47) 
 
48 DARWINISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 offers up bloody sacrifices, practices infanticide without 
 remorse, treats his wives like slaves, knows no decen- 
 cy, and is haunted by the grossest superstitions." ^) 
 
 But such ridiculous phrases should not in the least 
 affect a sober-minded man. For, there exists this 
 immense difference between the heroic little monkey 
 and the cruel and superstitious savage that the latter, 
 endowed with intelligence and free will, is possessed 
 of an immortal spirit, while the former is a mere 
 sense-heiyig which will enjoy but a shortlived existence. 
 While congratulating the enthusiastic adherents of 
 Darwin on their prided ancestry, we, as reasonable 
 men, rather than claim descent from the brutal gorilla 
 and chimpanzee, can not help looking back with pride 
 upon Adam and Eve as the first progenitors of the 
 human race. 
 
 But, since the human substance is a composite of 
 soul and body, the question naturally presents itself 
 whether, perhaps, the Darwinian doctrine might not be 
 applied to the origin of the human body. This question, 
 it must be borne in mind, is totally different from the 
 preceding. Though it is entirely out of the question 
 that the human soul has developed from that of the 
 animal, still there is no absurdity in the idea that God 
 made use of merely natural causes to prepare, as time 
 went on, the body of man for the soul that was, at 
 some future date, to take up its abode there. But 
 this is a mere 'possibility which on account of the 
 intimate union of body and soul does not even seem 
 probable. At any rate, even if the assertion of the 
 animal descent of the human body would have no 
 difficulties to encounter in itself, still we would prefer 
 
 ^) "The Descent of Man," p. 796. 
 
THE FIRST MAIN ARGUMENT. 49 
 
 to see it corroborated by facts, and therfore we raise 
 the question: Has science proved that the human body 
 descended from a lower form ? 
 
 It would be useless and impossible to offer our 
 readers that medley of sophisticated arguments which 
 the enemies of Christianity have ingeniously composed 
 in support of their favorite theory. For our present 
 purpose we deem it sufficient to examine the two main 
 proofs which above all others are considered decisive.^) 
 
 The first proof is suggested by Darwin, when he 
 says that ^^man still bears in his bodily frame the indel- 
 ible stamp of his lowly origin.'''' ^) The resemblance 
 man bears to the ape and the similar development of 
 both is thought to furnish sufficient evidence of a 
 similar origin. We grant that many points of 
 striking similarity can be traced in the body of man 
 and ape. "As far as structure is concerned," says 
 Ranke, "the similarity between man and the anthropoid 
 apes is so great that in many points we may call it 
 typical. And what is true of the structure is still more 
 so, and often in a higher degree, of their organic 
 functions." ^) This is the reason why Linne consid- 
 ered man according to his body as the highest repre- 
 sentative of the class of mammals. Indeed, we may 
 compare all the principal organs of the human body 
 with those of the simian — as the heart, lungs, bones, 
 muscles, even brain and eye — and we shall invari- 
 ably discover that, in a general way, all are shaped and 
 moulded upon the same pattern, evincing everywhere a 
 marvelous harmonj^ in action and congruity of parts. 
 ^) Cf. our paper ou ''Zoology and the Origin of Man," The 
 Catholic Mind, (Messenger, New York), No. 19. 
 
 2) "TheDescentof Man," p. 797. 
 
 3) "Der Mensch," 2. ed., vol. I., p. 437. 
 
50 
 
 DARWINISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 Buty we ask, does this twofold similarity of structure 
 and function prove to evidence that man descends from an 
 ape or any other ape-like mammal? We answer: No! 
 and in support of our contention advance tivo weighty 
 reasons, before which the alleged argument of similar- 
 ity, whether real or fictitious, must necessarily fall. 
 
 (i) Side by side with the similarities, to which a 
 world of importance is accorded by the ''Apostles of 
 Descent, ' ' so many points of divergence betray themselves 
 at every turn that the attempt to prove a direct descent 
 of the one from the other looks much like weaving a 
 rope of sand. 
 
 The main points of difference are, shortly, these: 
 
 (a) The brain of man exhibits a development 
 incomparably superior to that of the highest ape. This 
 fact appears, first of all, from the dimensions of the 
 skull-cap which encloses the brain. 
 
 The capacity of the skull-cap of man and ape is 
 shown in the following table ^) taken from Ranke : 
 
 Skull's Origin. 
 
 
 
 /-^ 
 
 B '"^ 
 
 1^ 
 
 
 ih 
 
 
 v^ 
 
 
 C 3 
 
 D ^ 
 
 s SX 
 
 B^ 
 
 >a 
 
 iB 
 
 %m 
 
 < ^ 
 
 I GO 
 
 1503 
 
 1260 
 
 I GO 
 
 1535 
 
 IIGO 
 
 I6 
 
 498 
 
 461 
 
 3 
 
 458 
 
 383 
 
 7 
 
 409 
 
 371 
 
 3 
 
 392 
 
 376 
 
 3 
 
 426 
 
 42G 
 
 I 
 
 406 
 
 
 1^ 
 
 Bavarian (male).. 
 
 Bavarian (female) .. .. 
 
 Gorilla (male) 
 
 Gorilla (female) 
 
 Chimpanzee (male) .. 
 Chimpanzee (female) 
 
 Orang (male) 
 
 Orang (female) 
 
 1) 1. c. vol. I. p. 409. 
 
 1780 
 
 1683 
 
 605 
 
 563 
 
 460 
 
 413 
 
 464 
 
THK FIRST MAIN ARGUMENT. 5 1 
 
 Circumference of the skull ^ Caucasian 550 mm. 
 
 " " " Negro 510 mm. 
 
 '* " " Gorilla 340 mm. 
 
 " " '' Orang 320 mm. 
 
 Thus the skull-cap of man is about three times as 
 large as that of the ape, while the circumference of 
 the ape's entire .skull measures about twice as much 
 as that of man. Furthermore, the human brain is on 
 the average three times heavier than the brain of the 
 ape, and upon a close comparison of the weight of the 
 body, we find that in man it is the 37th part, while in 
 the ape it is only the looth part of the entire body- 
 weight. This difference appears still more striking if 
 the two most prominent parts of the brain are com- 
 pared. — In this case, the brain of man weighs 16 — 18 
 times more than than that of the ape ! Finally, the 
 number of convolutions which are observed in the 
 ape's brain, is much smaller than in man, so much, so, 
 that according to Wagner's measurements, the brain 
 surface in man is found to be four times larger. 2) 
 
 ' 'The face of man, ' ' says Ranke, * 'slides, as it were, 
 down from the forehead and appears as an appendix 
 to the front half of the skull. But the gorilla's face, 
 on the contrary, protrudes from the skull, which in 
 return slides almost entirely backwards from the face. 
 By a cross-cut one may sever the whole face from the 
 skull, except a very small part near the sockets, with- 
 out being forced to open up the interior of the skull. 
 It is only on account of its protruding, strongly de- 
 veloped lower parts that the small skull-cap of the 
 animal can mask as a kind of human face.'^^ ^) 
 
 1) 1. c. vol. II. p. 7. 
 
 2) cf. Wilhelm Wundt, "Physiologische Psychologie", 
 5. ed., 1902, vol. I., p. 289. 
 
 8) Ranke, 1. c, vol. I., p. 401. 
 
52 
 
 DARWINISM AND KVOLUTION. 
 
 In short : ^^The main differences between the brain 
 of man and that of apes lies in this that in man the 
 brain is much more and the teeth much less developed 
 than in apeSy which, on the contrary, possess but a 
 small brain and a powerful set of teeth. ^) 
 
 (b) Similarly remarkable is the difference in re- 
 gard to the limbs and the trunk of the ape. If we suppose 
 the length of the body to be too, we have according 
 to Ranke, the following proportions : ^) 
 
 Part of the body. 
 
 Trunk 
 
 Arm and hand. 
 
 Iveg 
 
 Hand 
 
 Foot 
 
 Gorilla. 
 
 Chimpan- 
 
 
 zee. 
 
 50-4 
 
 44.80 
 
 64.9 
 
 67.67 
 
 34-9 
 
 35- 20 
 
 17-4 
 
 23.00 
 
 20.4 
 
 20.5 
 
 Orang. 
 
 44-50 
 80.72 
 
 34-72 
 22.8 
 
 25-5 
 
 Negro. 
 
 36.27 
 45-43 
 48.93 
 II. 6 
 
 14-5 
 
 Especially the trunk of the ape is much more de- 
 veloped than the corresponding part in man. Then the 
 ape has much shorter legs and much longer arms than 
 man. The reason is evident, since both arms and legs 
 serve the ape as means of locomotion. It has been 
 asserted that the anthropoid apes while walking pre- 
 serve an erect posture, just as man does. This is not so. 
 Ranke assures us: "The ability of the anthropoid to 
 walk erectly is by no means superior to that of a danc- 
 ing bear . . . Brehm is perfectly right when he says . . . 
 that man alone . . . has an erect walk, no ape walks 
 upright." ^) Finally, the ape is blest with four hands. 
 
 1) Ranke, 1. c, vol. I., p. 404. 
 
 2) 1. c, vol. II., p. 7-8. 
 
 3) 1. c. vol. II., p. 32. 
 
THE FIRST MAIN ARGUMENT. 53 
 
 while man has two hands and two feet. May the 
 Darwinians ever so energetically shake their heads to 
 this statement, it is all in vain. For only in man the 
 hands are exclusively organs for grasping and the feet 
 exclusively organs of support. 
 
 The most striking differences between man and 
 anthropoid apes are summarized by Ranke as follows : 
 "The gorilla's head leaning forward, hangs down from 
 the spinal column, and his chinless snout, equipped 
 with powerful teeth, touches the breast-bone. Man's 
 head is round, and, resting on a free neck, balances 
 unrestrained upon the spinal column. The gorilla's 
 body, without a waist, swells out barrel-shaped, and 
 wheta straightened up finds no sufficient support on the 
 pelvis; the back-bone, tailless as in man, but almost 
 straight, loses itself without nape or neck formation 
 properly so-called in the rear part of the head and 
 without protuberance of the gluteal region in the flat 
 thighs. Man's body is slightly molded, like an hour- 
 glass, the chest and abdomen meeting to form the 
 waist where they are narrowest; the abdominal viscera 
 are perfectly supported in the pelvis as in a plate; and 
 elegance is decidedly gained by the double S-line, 
 which, curving alternately convex and concave, passes 
 from the crown through the neck and nape, down the 
 back to the spine and the gluteal region. The normal 
 position of the gorilla shows us a plump, bear-like 
 trunk, carried by short, crooked legs and by arms 
 which serve as crutches and touch the ground with 
 the knuckles of the turned- in fingers. The posture of 
 the body is perfectly straight in man, it rests on the 
 legs as on columns when he stands upright, and his 
 hands hano^ down on both sides always ready for use. 
 
54 DARWINISM AND EVOI.UTION. 
 
 The gorilla is thickly covered with hair, while man's 
 body on the whole is naked." ^) 
 
 Such facts evidently go to show that there exists 
 a considerable difference between the body of man and 
 that of the ape. On comparing the skeletons of man 
 and of the anthropoid ape (Plate i) Ranke even goes 
 so far as to say: "We may place side by side and 
 compare one bone after the other, and we shall find 
 that everywhere the same general form and arrange- 
 ment prevail. But in particular there is no bone, be 
 it ever so small, nay, not even the smallest particle of 
 bone, in which the general agreement in structure and 
 function would pass over into real identity. By its 
 characteristic form we are able to tell each single bone 
 of man from the respective bone of any anthropoid ape 
 or mammal. In the most general sense of the word, 
 it is true, each bone and organ of man could be styled 
 "ape-like," . . . but nowhere does this similarity go 
 so far that the form peculiar to man would pass over 
 into the form which is peculiar to the ape. '^2) In 
 point of fact, out of the one hundred and twenty-three 
 ape-like forms which Wiedersheim maintained to have 
 discovered in the human body, Ranke does not recog- 
 nize a single one as genuine ; and Virchow declared 
 at the Congress of Wiesbaden, that of all animal-like 
 forms in the human body hardly more than one de- 
 serves attention. But even this one is so minute and 
 insignificant that it is not worth our while to consider 
 it earnestly. Indeed, as Virchow says, ^Hhe differences 
 between man and monkey are so wide that almost any 
 fragment is sufficient to diagnose them.^^ ^) 
 
 1) 1. c, vol. II., p. 213. 2) 1, c., vol. I., p. 437. 
 
 3) Cf . Report of the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, 
 1889, p. 566. 
 
THE) FIRST MAIN ARGUMENT. 55 
 
 Consequently, if Darioinians maintain that the simi- 
 larity between m.an and the ape is a positive proof of their 
 common descent , we are perfectly justified in returning 
 the argument by asserting that the dissimilarity between 
 the two proves that they certainly do not descend from one 
 another. 
 
 (2) But we may go still further. Let us abstract 
 for a moment from the differences between the body of 
 man and that of the ape and freely grant that the 
 similarity between both is as striking as Darwinians 
 would have us believe. In ivhat case would such a simi- 
 larity prove descent? Only then, if no other reasonable 
 explanation, but descent, would be offered to account 
 for the striking traces of resemblance. For as long as 
 I have two equally probable explanations of a fact I 
 am on no condition entitled to set up either of them 
 as the only true one. Now, over and above the 
 solution attempted by Darwinians to explain the simi- 
 larity between man and ape, another may be added still 
 more probable than the one to which our adversaries 
 resort. We know that the whole universe has been 
 constructed by divine wisdom and omnipotence upon 
 a unique and uniform design and that it is destined to 
 lie subject at the feet of man, its noble sovereign, the 
 king of the visible world. Should we then be sur- 
 prised to find that man, the choicest jewel of the vis- 
 ible creation, unites within himself, and in a pre-emi- 
 nent degree all the splendor and perfections of the 
 inferior works of God ? Even Ranke did not fail to re- 
 alize at least in part this sublime truth of the Christian 
 world- view when he says : "We look upon man as the 
 representative of the entire animal khigdom, because all 
 org-ans and forms of structure distributed among 
 
56 DARWINISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 diverse animals are found focussed and centralized in 
 the microcosm of the human body." ^) 
 
 From all that has been said hitherto it would ap- 
 pear that the first main argument of Darwinians brought 
 in support of man's animal descent rests on rather 
 sandy foundations » For (i) the difference between man 
 and ape is so marked and apparent that there can be 
 no thought of a direct descent of the one from the other. 
 (2) The similarity which actually exists between 
 man and ape finds a better explanation in the fact that 
 the one self-same Creator drew up and executed the 
 plan of this world. Quite in harmony with this plan 
 is the phenomenon, that in their general structure the 
 body of man as well as that of the ape presents the 
 same fundamental idea of the Great Designer, yet so 
 that the human body surpasses all the rest of God's 
 visible works in beauty and perfection. Here the 
 same laws of proportion hold good that obtain in every 
 genuine work of art, in which the unity of the whole is 
 chastened and relieved by the symmetry of all its parts- 
 
 The conclusion reached in the present chapter is 
 corroborated by the fact that there are no ape-like forms 
 among existing men. The enumeration of a few data is 
 sufficient for our purpose:^) 
 
 ( I ) The differences in bodily proportions that have 
 been observed in various races of men, are individual 
 variations of development, and in no wise adapted to 
 establish a distinction between more and less ape-like 
 races. "All the hopes and efforts to discover a series 
 of bodily formations which would lead from the most 
 ape-like savages to the least ape- like Europeans, have 
 
 1) 1. c, vol. II., p. 6. 
 
 2) Cf. the Catholic Mind, 1, 
 
 c, p. 486—488. 
 
THK FIRST MAIN ARGUMENT. 57 
 
 till now resulted in utter failure. " Very striking is 
 the utterance of one of the highest authorities on this 
 question, A. Weisbach, who maintains that the ape- 
 like forms of organs actually found in some individ- 
 uals are not confined to a single race or nation, but 
 spread and distributed over all of them. Ranke him- 
 self has found that precisely the "lowest savages" 
 present in their bodily proportions the furthest ex- 
 treme from those of the ape. 
 
 (2) The so-called inborn deformities or abnormal 
 developments of certain individuals, as "haired and 
 tailed" men, and so forth, are very rare and mostly 
 due to irregularities in the development of the embryo. 
 Tailed ape-men, in the proper sense of the word, do 
 not exist. "In our own days observations have fur- 
 nished us with an invulnerable argument that no race 
 of men with tails exists on this earth. " ^) The whole 
 fable is principally due to the fact that certain tribes 
 have the custom of adorning themselves with the tails 
 of animals or similar appendages. "Certain forma- 
 tions, similar to tails in their proper sense, that have 
 sometimes been found at the end of man's backbone, 
 have been thoroughly studied and explained by M. 
 Bartels. The conclusions of this author make it evi- 
 dent that all such formations are genuine deformities, 
 abnormally developed remnants of the individual's 
 embryonic life. " ^) "Such deformities must be con- 
 sidered as inborn diseases." *) 
 
 Moreover, Linne's "homo ferus" has no existence 
 
 Ranke, 1. c, Vol. II, p. 79. 
 
 2) Ranke, Vol. I, p. 181. 
 
 3) Ranke, 1. c, Vol. I, p. 182. 
 ^) Ranke, 1. c, Vol. I, p. 187. 
 
'58 DARWINISM AND EVOIvUTION. 
 
 in reality. Ranke says that it is "foolish" i) to be- 
 lieve in this fiction. "It is humbug and fraud" to 
 designate such creatures as Krao^) as missing links. 
 Finally, the famous Cretins and Microcephali are 
 pathological symptoms and cannot be explained as 
 atavistic forms. For, as Virchow argues, "no one 
 can maintain that the human race was ever in a con- 
 dition analogous to the Microcephali, as it would have 
 perished before history commenced. No such 'small- 
 brained' being is able to procure independently the 
 
 necessary means of subsistence " ^) In short, 
 
 Ranke considers the following proposition as an es- 
 tablished fact: ^^ There are at the present day in the en- 
 tire human species neither races, nor nations, nor tribes, 
 nor families^ nor single individuals, which coidd be 
 designated zoologically as intermediate forms between the 
 ape and man.'''' ^) 
 
 1) Rauke, 1. c, Vol. II, p. 377. 
 
 2) Ranke, 1. c, Vol. II, p. 378. Krao was a young girl of 
 Siamese parentage. Her body was covered with hair, and she 
 was said to have a tail like an ape. Some ten years ago she 
 was led through England and Germany, and her appearance 
 in Berlin and London caused a considerable sensation. 
 
 3) Ranke, 1. c, Vol. II, p. 389. 
 ') Ranke, 1. c, Vol. II, p. 392. 
 
Chapter VII. 
 
 The *<Second Main Argument** for the Animal 
 Descent of Man*s Body. 
 
 'PHE second main argument, adduced by Darwinians 
 in support of the animal descent of man's body, 
 is drawn from paleontology. The osseous remains of 
 men and apes, that for untold ages have slumbered 
 away deep down in the bowels of the earth, in the 
 form of petrified masses, are held to prove that man 
 and ape are descended alike from some great-great- 
 grandfather as their common progenitor. * ' Certainly , ' ' 
 as even Haeckel admits, "the negative gaps which 
 we here, as elsewhere, find in paleontological know- 
 ledge, are very much to be regretted, and immediately 
 in the primate stem they are (since most of these 
 animals lived upon trees) greater than in any other 
 groups of animals." ^ But, in spite of these gaps, so 
 we are told, a close comparison between the skulls, 
 molars, bones of the extremities, etc., hitherto ex- 
 humed, precludes all possibility of doubt that the 
 petrifactions assume bolder proportions of resemblance 
 the deeper we delve into the primitive history of all 
 living beings, and the nearer we approach the first 
 type from which both man and ape descended. 
 Haeckel, of course, in his capacity of supreme judge 
 of all that pertains to this question, pronounces the 
 "proof of the bones" strong enough to settle the 
 question forever. 
 1) 1. c, p. 469. 
 
 (59) 
 
6o DARWINISM AND EVOI.UTION. 
 
 I^et us enter the charnel-house of modern paleontology y 
 bravel}^ repressing all the uncanny sensations of loathing 
 that may perforce creep upon us. At the entrance we 
 straightway espy the warden of skulls, Ernest Haeckel. 
 In a transport of delight he rivets his eyes on the 
 famous skull of the ape-man, Pithecanthropus erectuSj 
 which Haeckel' s friend, Eugene Dubois, some years 
 ago lugged over from Java. Casting an occasional 
 glance of loving complacency at the Neanderthal skull, 
 the curator of the bone-house goes into raptures at the 
 sight of the treasure before him, and in the deep seclu- 
 sion of his heart evidently admires the low forehead 
 of his granduncle, who, it is said, reached the ven- 
 erable age of two hundred and fifty thousand years ! 
 
 The skull, femur and molars of Pithecanthropus erec- 
 tus, and the Neanderthal skull-cap, are, indeed, accord- 
 ing to Haeckel's own testimony, the best monuments 
 to guarantee the animal descent of man's body. But 
 no one, of course, is better qualified to discover the 
 best monuments than Haeckel himself. 
 
 Let us ask, therefore, what is the evidence actually 
 furnished by these stray and scanty remnants ? — 
 (Plate 2.) 
 
 I. To judge from appearances, it is true, the 
 Java skull seems fo have belonged neither to a man 
 nor to an ape. This opinion is supported by the fact, 
 observed by Dubois (!), that the skull-cap in question 
 is somewhat smaller than the medium between the 
 normal human and simian skull. But, be it well re- 
 membered, this is the only circumstance which might 
 possibly wear the semblance of a proof. And this 
 circumstance is such that Dubois himself declares: 
 "A skull that in comparison with that of the normal 
 
THE SKCOND MAIN ARGUMENT. 6l 
 
 man is so small and so ape-like in its form, that it is 
 declared by not a few anatomists to be the skull of an 
 ape, cannot be human." i) At all events, opinions 
 widely differ on the character of the skull. Scientists 
 of the highest repute, with Virchow in the lead, ener- 
 getically assert that, in all probability, the skidl belonged 
 to a real ape. In no case, however, and on this all 
 are agreed (men like Haeckel and Dubois alone ex- 
 cepted), is the skull a connecting link between man 
 and ape, but at best one solitary member in the long 
 succession of the apes' lineal descendants. The femur, 
 it appears, is that of a man, but this proves little or 
 nothing at all, because it was found by Dubois not less 
 than fifty feet away from the skull. Consequently, it 
 is by no means evident that skull and femur formed 
 part of one and the same original skeleton. Finally, 
 what concerns the famous molar, to which a second 
 was discovered after some time, Virchow seriously 
 questions the affinity of the two teeth, adding that in 
 all likelihood neither of the two belongs to that skull. 
 Accordingly the third International Congress of Zoolo- 
 gists, at I^eyden, 1895, declined to accept Dubois' 
 Pithecanthropus as "the long-sought missing link in 
 the chain of the highest primates". A certain anato- 
 mist who had been engaged in the study of the Java 
 bone collection almost as actively as Dubois himself, 
 and, needless to mention, little inclined to look at 
 matters scientific from a Catholic point of view, in 
 reply to my question declared that, as a matter of 
 fact, the osseous remains were of no demonstrative 
 
 1) Eugene Dubois, ''Pithecanthropus erectus — A Form 
 from the Ancestral Stock of Mankind." Annual Report of 
 the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, 1899, p. 454. 
 
62 DARWINISM AND KVOI.UTION. 
 
 value whatever, and the whole story of the man-ape 
 nothing else than a farcical imposition, pure and simple. 
 In the light of all that has been said hitherto, the 
 truth of Wasmann's statement to the same effect is 
 sufficiently attested. He says: ''It is .... a criminal 
 sporting with the truth, out of remains so incomplete 
 and admitting so many explanations .... to construct 
 an 'evident proof for the animal descent of man, and 
 all this with the purpose of deceiving a wider 
 public."!) 
 
 2. We next turn to take a look at the far-famed 
 Neanderthal skull-cap, giving it for some moments our 
 undivided attention, which, in truth, it fully deserves. 
 For, besides having occasioned a whole library of 
 volumes and of treatises, this skull-cap has had the 
 good fortune of finding its way into museums, in the 
 shape of plaster-cast facsimiles, destined to impress 
 deeply on the mind of the wondering visitor the lesson 
 of his lowly origin. A cast of this description is pre- 
 served in the grand museum of the "Public lyibrary 
 of Milwaukee". The inscription added to the skull 
 by way of explanation is significant: "Chellean period 
 (paleolithic) 250,000 years. 'Under whatever aspect 
 we view this cranium, whether we regard its super- 
 ciliary ridges, its sloping occiput .... we meet with 
 ape-like characters, stamping it as the most pithecoid 
 of human crania yet (1863) discovered.' — Huxley." 2) 
 
 To produce a still more effective impression on the 
 mind of the admiring looker-on, an artist has in ad- 
 
 1) 1. c, p. 297. 
 
 2) Huxley says besides: "In no sense can the Neanderthal 
 bones be regarded as the remains of a human being interme- 
 diate between men and apes." ("Evidence as to Man's Place 
 in Nature." Humb. ed., p. 253.) This, of course, is left out! 
 
THK SECOND MAIN ARGUMENT. 63 
 
 ditioii appended a face, which the real skull, as it was 
 found, did not at ail possess. 
 
 What are we to think of the Neanderthal skull? 
 What is the truth of the case ? 
 
 Attend and be astounded ! 
 
 According to Schwalbe^) the following table ex- 
 hibits the main opinions that have been defended 
 concerning the skull: 
 
 I. The Neanderthal skull is not a typical one, 
 but a modified individual skull : ( i ) It has been 
 artificially deformed by early obliteration of the cranial 
 sutures: Bernard Davis, 1867. (2) It belongs to an 
 idiot: Blake, 1864; Charles Vogt, 1863 and 1867 
 (partly); Pruner-Bey, 1863 (partly); Hoelder (1892); 
 Charles Zittel (1893). (3) It shows such a number 
 of pathological deviations, that the skull cannot be 
 regarded as the type of a race: R. Virchow, 1872, and 
 J. Ranke up to this day. 
 
 II. The Neanderthal skull belongs to a race of 
 men still living. 
 
 ( 1 ) It is a very recent skull , one that belongs to 
 a Mongolian Cossack of the year 18 14: Meyer, 1864 
 and 1865. 
 
 (2) It belongs to an historic people, viz.: 
 
 (a) to an old Celt or German: Pruner-Bey, 
 1863; 
 
 (?)) to an ancient native of Holland (Batavus 
 genuinus): R. Wagner, 1864; 
 
 (c) to an inhabitant of old Friesland: R. Vir- 
 chow, 1876. 
 
 (3) It belongs to a primitive race, which is con- 
 
 3) Cf. "Stimmen aus Maria - I^aach", Vol. LXI (1901), 
 p. 107-108. 
 
64 DARWINISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 nected through intermediate forms with the lowest 
 race of men in existence: 
 
 It has a great similarity with the negroes 
 
 from Australia: Huxley, 1863 and 1865; 
 
 Lyell, 1863; Vogt, 1863 and 1867; de 
 
 Quarterfages and Hamy, 1882. 
 
 (4) (a) It belongs to a primitive wild race, in 
 
 many points different from the present 
 
 man: Schaaffhausen, 1865-1888. This is 
 
 the Neanderthal race: Fraipont and De 
 
 Lohest, 1887, and Fraipont, 1895-1896. 
 
 (6) This race differs from the present man 
 
 more than the negroes from the white: 
 
 De Mortillet, 1883. 
 
 III. The Neanderthal skull belongs to a form 
 
 that differs specifically or perhaps generically from the 
 
 present man : King, 1864; Cope, 1893; Schwalbe, 
 
 1901. 
 
 We have, therefore, no less than three main opin- 
 ions. The first branches off into three distinct side- 
 vieivs, professed by about nine investigators. The 
 second main opinion held on the subject graciously 
 allows of four secondary hiterpretations. According to 
 these four subdivisions, which in turn are again sub- 
 divided, the skull belongs (i) to a Cossack of 1814, 
 (2) to an old Celt or German, (3) to a prehistoric 
 Hollander, (4) to an inhabitant of Friesland, (5) to a 
 kind of negro, (6) to the Kanstatt race, (7) to a pre- 
 historic savage, (8) to the Neanderthal race, (9) to a 
 prehistoric negro. The third main view has no sub- 
 divisions, but has the privilege of rounding off the list 
 to a neat dozen of opinions. 
 
 From this list of conflicting statements it appears 
 
THE SECOND MAIN ARGUMENT. 65 
 
 at first sight that almost any and every story can be read 
 into the Neanderthal skidl, the final judgment evidently 
 depending on personal prejudice. We may add that 
 the famous skull could hardly have defeated the 
 fondly-cherished purposes of its admirers with more 
 signal success. For, what concerns the long-expected 
 and conclusive demonstration the Neanderthal skull 
 was destined to supply, all we have to say is that a 
 proof which may serve to prop up all possible contra- 
 dictory opinions, is no proof at all. It is, indeed, a 
 blessing of no mean account that the fate of the poor 
 skull at the end of the world will not rest on the ver- 
 dict of those sages. Otherwise we might expect to 
 see the many claimants coming to blows for the pos- 
 session of that skull of theirs, just as in the days of 
 old, when famous Jason sowed the dragon's teeth and 
 hurled Medea's stone into the midst of the giants that 
 arose from the monster's teeth. . . . 
 
 But the most interesting feature of the whole story 
 is that nothing at all is known for certain about the exact 
 spot where the famous skull originally lay. No one has 
 ever seen the actual geological conditions of the origi- 
 nal place of the skeleton. For the bones were, in fact, 
 not seen in a cave of the Neanderthal, but in a ravine 
 on the slope of the hill. Through the ravine water 
 had flown down and had washed away some material, 
 among which there were also the famous bones. 
 Hence, as a number of cautious scientists stated from 
 the very beginning, it is altogether unclear whether 
 the bones were washed down by the water (and then 
 they w^ould probably be of a very recent date), or 
 whether the bones have been originally at the place 
 where they were found. Thus, no one knows where 
 5 
 
66 DARWINISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 the single pieces have been before, and consequently 
 it is impossible to make any positive statement concerning 
 them, ''The whole significance of the skull lies in the 
 fact that already from the very beginning 'the halo of 
 fair renown' was made to celebrate its privilege of 
 having been imbedded in diluvial soil, the formation 
 of which dates back to the time of the old mammals. "0 
 And despite all this, an age of 250,000 years is ascribed 
 to the skull. This is what we call ^^amhignas in Thdgus 
 spargere voces^ ^ — in plain English, "rubbing dust into 
 people's eyes". 
 
 Moreover, supposing that the skull is actually a 
 paleolithic deposit, we ask: Who has ever proved that 
 the paleolithic period lies 250,000 years back? We 
 maintain that since that period less than 25,000 years 
 have elapsed. Who would be able to prove anything 
 to the contrary? Dana says correctly: "All that geol- 
 ogy can claim to do is to prove the general proposition, 
 that time is long .... but it affords no satisfactory 
 number.^ ^ And LeConte remarks very wisely: "The 
 amount of time which has elapsed since man first 
 appeared is still doubtful. Some estimate it at more 
 than a hundred thousand years — some at only ten thou- 
 sand!" Therefore, even supposing that the skull is 
 a paleolithic fossil, it is a merely gratuitous assertion to 
 attribute to it an age of 250,000 years. But is it really 
 true that the Neanderthal skull is a paleolithic fossil ? 
 Yes, if bold assertions could be substituted for proofs, 
 this question should undoubtedly be answered in the 
 afiirmative. But this cannot be done, not even in 
 order to impress upon the mind of the public much 
 cherished ideas. Where, then, are the proofs that 
 
 1) Ranke, 1. c, vol. II, p. 485. 
 
THK SECOND MAIN ARGUMENT. 67 
 
 give evidence of the paleolithic character of the fossil 
 in question? Well, everyone will agree that, in order 
 to determine the period to v^hich a fossil like the 
 Neanderthal cranium belongs, we must either find 
 together with it or in its neighborhood some bones of 
 extinct animals, or some implements, whose age is 
 known, or at least we should know the character and 
 age of the layer in which the relic was found. 
 
 Now, (i) we know positively that absolutely 
 nothing, neither bones of animals now extinct, nor 
 implements, have been discovered together with the 
 famous skeleton. 
 
 (2) As we have said already, no one knows the 
 actual geological conditions of the place where it was 
 originally deposited. 
 
 To all that has been said so far we would add that 
 R. Virchow has given us a description of a skull found 
 in East Friesland, agreeing with the Neanderthal 
 skull "as perfectly as possible". And even to-day, 
 he continues, people can be met, especially in the 
 vicinity of Brussels, going about with a Neanderthal 
 skull on their shoulders. 
 
 Where, then, we ask, is that succession of skulls and 
 bones which could furnish us trustworthy evidence for the 
 animal descent of man ? Where is that chain of lineal 
 descendants which unites the man of to-day with the 
 common ancestors of man and ape? If, according to 
 Haeckel's own judgment, the two alleged skulls are 
 the best monuments spared by the ravages of time, to 
 tell mankind the story of its humble origin, then we 
 ask again, what is the only scientific, the only reasonable 
 answer we can make to the question put above? The 
 answer is: No such 1.1NE of ancestry exists. Or 
 
68 DARWINISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 have, perhaps, all those skulls, which might have been 
 capable of furnishing us some proofs, crumbled to 
 decay? Vain subterfuge! No less than thirty different 
 kinds of extinct apes are known to us, and of the 
 ancestors of the human kind not a single trace is to be 
 found! These are truly remarkable facts, veritable 
 riddles, the solution of which would call for an exor- 
 bitant expenditure of mental activity from the man 
 who abuses the sovereign gift of his reason so far as 
 vainly to attempt forcing the reality into the set 
 scheme of his preconceived ideas. Dana says with 
 truth, .... "of that line which is supposed to 
 have reached upward to man, not the first link be- 
 tween the lowest level of existing man has yet been 
 found. This is the more extraordinary in view of the 
 fact that from the lowest limit in existing men there 
 are all possible gradations up to the highest, while 
 below that limit there is an abrupt fall to the ape level, 
 in which the cubic capacity of the brain is one-half 
 less. // the links ever existed^ their annihilation without 
 a relic is so extremely improbable that it may be pro- 
 nounced impossible. Until some are found, science 
 cannot assert that they ever existed." ^) 
 
 Similarly von Zittel: "Much zeal has been shown 
 in searching for the fossil-ancestors (of man), and the 
 fossil-ape has been studied with special attention. 
 At the present day about fifteen genuine, narrow- 
 nosed fossil-apes are known from the tertiary layers 
 of Europe and India, and some broad-nosed kinds 
 from the glacial strata of Brazil and Argentine. But 
 with one exception, the Doryopitliecus, all of them 
 are inferior to the three great man-like kinds, the 
 1) "Manual of Geology", 3. ed., p. 293. 
 
The second argument. 69 
 
 orang, chimpanzee and gorilla; and, as is proved by 
 a jaw-bone lately discovered, Doryopithecus stands 
 likewise relatively low among the so-called anthropo- 
 morphs. Hence the postulate of the doctrine of evolu- 
 tioUj the so-called proanthropos, the missing link between 
 man and ape, has not been found.'' ^ ^) 
 
 But it is time to break a lance with the enemy. 
 What paleontology really attests is that the men of the 
 first age known to us were as perfect as those of to-day. 
 The skulls were as large or even more perfectly devel- 
 oped than the skulls of historic times. 
 
 Ranke gives the following table of the average 
 capacity of historic and prehistoric skulls: 
 
 Parisian of the 12th century 1532 cbcm. 
 
 Modern Parisian 1558 cbcm. 
 
 Prehistoric cave - inhabitants of Cro- 
 Magnon 1590 cbcm. 
 
 Prehistoric skulls from the cave L'homme 
 
 mort 1606 cbcm. 
 
 Prehistoric northern "Dolmenbauer" 1586 cbcm. 
 
 (Broca.) 
 Nor can there be any question of ape-like men 
 who possessed features more simian than are charac- 
 teristic of any race now in existence, ''Though the 
 fertile imagination of many a theorist on creation may 
 represent the primitive man of Europe as a half-simian 
 climber, who built his nest on trees and possessed 
 over-long arms and short, yoketoed legs, he appears 
 to us in reality, in his many representatives, as a 
 member of the well-formed, peculiarly beautiful race 
 of Cro-Magnon." 2) 
 
 It is equally false that prehistoric man could not 
 
 Ranke, 1. c. vol. II, p. 504. 
 2) Ranke, vol. II, p. 482. 
 
70 DARWINISM AND EVOI.UTION. 
 
 walk perfectly erect. Collignon based his false asser- 
 tion on the retroversion of the knee-joint, which, as 
 he maintained, was peculiar to prehistoric man. "But 
 Manouvrier destroyed this dream of the animal-like 
 inferiority of primitive man. By very exact measure- 
 ments of a great many tibise, he has shown that the 
 retroversion of those tibiae of the glacial period is not 
 greater, but most decidedly smaller than in modern 
 skeletons. ' ' ^) 
 
 Finally, we may add that prehistoric man, the 
 man of the glacial period, was endowed with a spirit- 
 ual intellect in no way essentially inferior to ours. 
 This fact is shown by the human relics and imple- 
 ments still extant. Near the abbey of Schussenried 
 (not far from the Lake of Constance), for instance, a 
 stratum of evidently glacial character^) was uncovered 
 in 1866, "in which carved antlers of reindeer, bodkins 
 with e3^es, a smooth -scraped needle, fish-hooks, flints 
 in the shape of lancets and saw-blades, lumps of red 
 material for skin-painting, ashes, and remains of char- 
 
 1) Ranke, 1. c, vol. II, p. 483. 
 
 2) Ranke, 1. c, vol. II, p. 417.— There is no doubt that 
 man existed in the glacial period. **The glacial European", 
 says Ranke, "remains an undeniable fact of science" (1. c, 
 Tol. II, p. 502). Biit "no one has hitherto been able to trace 
 man beyond the glacial period" (Ranke, 1. c, vol. II, p. 480). 
 "In spite of the very great favor with which the existence of 
 tertiary man has been accepted, the asserted traces of relics 
 are not sufficiently guaranteed to establish a scientific proof 
 for the fact of his existence." "There is nothing, according 
 to Virchow, opposed to the view that man existed in the ter- 
 tiary period, but from the view to the proof there is a long 
 way. So far that proof has jiot been found" (Ranke, 1. c, 
 vol. II, p. 504). 
 
THK SECOND ARGUMENT. 7 1 
 
 coal were found intermingled."^) Similarly "the 
 ancient inhabitants of the Dordogne (cave-men of 
 France) already attempted to portray objects of the 
 outer world, such as fish, reindeer, or men in carvings 
 on horn and the ivory of mammoth's teeth with a 
 distinctness and animation which compels recognition. 
 Among the horn implements, mostly awls and arrow- 
 heads with or without barbs, our attention is attracted 
 by the occurrence of needles, with which, doubtless, 
 the inhabitants of the caves sowed together the hides 
 of animals." ^) 
 
 The very names — the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, 
 and the Iron Age, used by the archeologists of Den- 
 mark for the classification of the early traces of man, 
 point to the same fact. Indeed, if we pay due regard 
 to the circumstances in which primitive man lived — ■ 
 and do not forget that he it was who had to commence 
 the work of civilization — we must grant that there is 
 no reason for assuming his intellectual inferiority. In 
 this sense we understand and accept the statement of 
 Le Conte, when he says: "The earliest-known man, 
 the river-drift man, though in a low state of civiliza- 
 tion, was as thoroughly human as any of us." ^) 
 
 On this account, Branco, in his famous speech on 
 the descent of man, delivered in the fifth International 
 Zoological Congress held at Berlin, 1902, gives the 
 following answer*) to an inquiry about the primitive 
 ancestors of the human race: Man makes his appear- 
 ance in the history of our earth as a true homo novus, 
 
 1) Peschel, '*The Races of Man", New York, 1898, p. 39. 
 
 2) Peschel, 1. c, p. 37. 
 
 3) "A Compend of Geology", p. 300. 
 ^) Cf. Wasmann, 1. c, p. 303. 
 
^2 DARWINISM AND EVOI.UTION. 
 
 and not as a descendant of preceding generations. 
 Most of our present mammals are represented in the 
 tertiary period by a long series of fossil ancestors, but 
 man appears all of a sudden in the glacial period 
 without a single tertiary ancestor known to paleontol- 
 ogy. Tertiary relics of man are wanting, and the 
 traces of human activity that were believed to be of 
 tertiar}^ origin are of a ver}^ dubious nature. Glacial 
 fossils of man, on the other hand, are frequently met 
 with. But glacial man appears as a perfect homo 
 sapiens. Most of those verj^ ancient men possessed a 
 skull-cap of which any of us could be proud. Neither 
 arms nor teeth of glacial man were more ape-like or 
 longer than ours; no! glacial man ivas every inch a true 
 man. Hence, who was the ancestor of man ? Branco 
 answers: ""Paleontology has no answer to that question. 
 She knows of no ancestors to man.''^ 
 
 And the renowned Quatrefages declares: " . . . to 
 those vAio question me upon the problem of our 
 origin, I do not hesitate to answer in the name of 
 science: I DO NOT KNOW."i) And Virchow : 
 "In vain have its adherents (^. e., of Darwinism) 
 sought for connecting links which should connect 
 man with the monkey: not a single one has been found. 
 The so-called pro-anthropos which is supposed to rep- 
 resent this connecting link, has not as yet appeared. 
 No real scientist claims to have seen him; hence the 
 pro-anthropos is not at present an object of discussion 
 for an anthropologist. Some may be able to see him 
 in their dreams, but when awake they will not be able 
 to say that they have met him. Even the hope of a 
 
 1) "The Human Species" (The International Scientific 
 Series, vol. XXVIi;, p. 128. 
 
THK SECOND ARGUMENT. 73 
 
 future discovery of this pro-antliropos is highly im- 
 probable, for we are not living in a dream, or in an 
 ideal world, but in a real one." ^) 
 
 We conclude this section with an observation made 
 by Balmes in his "History of Philosophy": ^^What is 
 the origin of the world ? To solve this riddle, philoso- 
 phers have disputed without end and invented an 
 endless number of systems; and yet, despite their 
 endeavors, full many centuries before Plato and 
 Pythagoras were ushered into life, those grand and 
 simple words have been transmitted from age to age: 
 'In the beginning God created heaven and earth'; . . . 
 and further on an account of the world's creation 
 follows, quite to the amazement of modern geologists, 
 bewildered at finding such wisdom in a time-worn 
 book, written by an inhabitant of the desert, in a 
 lonely corner of the globe. What is the origin of man? 
 Put this question to philosophy, and she will answer 
 you with an air of gallantry; but in that self-same 
 book it is written: ^The Lord God formed man of the 
 slime of the earth; and breathed into his face the breath 
 of life, and man became a living souV ,''"' ^) 
 
 1) "Authropology in the Last Twenty Years", Report of 
 the vSmithsonian Institution, Washington, 1890, p. 563. 
 
 2) "Geschichte der Philosophie", p. 179. 
 
PART IV. 
 
 THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION AND OUR 
 ATTITUDE TOWARDS IT. 
 
 Chapter VIII. 
 
 Evolution and Faith. 
 
 r\ARWIN'S Theory of the origin of species cannot 
 be defended. For natural selection, which, ac- 
 cording to him, is the primary agent in the specific 
 development of plants and animals, is insufiicient 
 in itself and in open contradiction to most evident 
 facts of natural history. HaeckeVs generalization of 
 Darwin^s theory of natural selection is a philosophical 
 and social monstrosity, a conception diametrically op- 
 posed to the Christian world-view and to the religion 
 of God. Finally, the theory of manh animal descent, 
 in view of the ungrounded arguments alleged in its 
 defense, cannot be admitted. Both the body and soul 
 of man were directly created by God, and not the 
 shadoio of an argument has been traced in support of 
 the animal descent of the human body. 
 
 Hence we reject Darwinism in its first three ac- 
 ceptations. 
 
 It remains for us to go into the question whether 
 this verdict is to be extended to the theory of evolu- 
 tion, which, as was stated above, is sometimes in- 
 appropriately styled "Darwinism". 
 
 (74) 
 
EVOLUTION AND FAITH. 75 
 
 What do we mean by the theory of evolution? 
 The theory of evolution is opposed to the theory of con- 
 stancy. The latter maintains that the species of 
 animals and plants now in existence are essentially 
 unchangeable and have always been so from the very 
 beginning. They were originally created by God in 
 their present state of existence. The theory of evolu- 
 tion holds the very opposite to be true, declaring that 
 the species of plants and animals existing at present 
 were not always as they are to-day. They have de- 
 scended from other entirely different species, and these 
 in turn from still more primitive forms, until finally 
 we arrive at a more or less limited number of species 
 which were directly produced by God. 
 
 The theory of evolution is evidently not identical 
 with Darwin'' s theory of natural selection. For the 
 theory of natural selection says more than the theory 
 of evolution. It pretends to offer an explanation of 
 how and by what means the species of to-day have 
 developed from those that preceded. It would, con- 
 sequently, be an abuse of the term to brand the theory 
 of evolution with the repulsive epithet of ''Dar- 
 winism". 
 
 "The use of the word Darwinism in this sense", 
 says Wasmann, *'.... is based on a principle illogi- 
 cally mistaking a particular form of evolution for the 
 general theory itself. Forty years ago, when Darwin's 
 theory of descent was the only one generally known, 
 this error may have been pardonable. To-day it is 
 not. It is only for the sake of defending prejudices 
 that the two terms 'Darwinism and Evolution' are 
 used as synonyms. For the defenders of Darwinism 
 resort to it as a means of popularizing their waning 
 
76 DARWINISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 theory, while the antagonists of evolution, by con- 
 temptuously stigmatizing this doctrine as 'Darwinism', 
 leave no means untried of rendering the constancy of 
 systematic species dubious." ^) 
 
 We propose to our readers three questions which 
 will enable them to determine the attitude of Catholics 
 towards the theory of evolution: 
 
 1. What is the verdict of faith on this theory? 
 
 2. Is the theory opposed to reason ? 
 
 3. Do the natural sciences offer any facts in its 
 favor ? 
 
 A short answer to these three questions will decide 
 whether and how far we may accept the theory of 
 evolution. 
 
 1) Wasmann, 1. c, p. 171. — The following quotation from 
 the Inter-0cea7i (Chicago) of May 7 (Cable and Financial), 
 No. 44, 1905, is a striking verification of Wasmann's warning: 
 
 "Sees Conversion of the Church to Darwinian Theory." — 
 "German Savant says Work of Jesuit Writer indicates Recog- 
 nition is to come." 
 
 "Berlin, May 6. Prof. Ernst Haeckel has delivered a most 
 interesting lecture on the subject of evolution and the Church. 
 He had been induced, he said, to revoke his decision, made 
 some 3'ears ago, never to lecture in public again, by the ap- 
 pearance of a book which he claims marks an era in the 
 history of evolution. It is the work of Eric Wasmann, a 
 Jesuit father, residing at Luxemburg, who has made a special 
 study of ants. Wasmann acknowledges his conversion to 
 Darwinism (sic!), except as regards the genesis of man, 
 who, as he says, differs from the entire animal world in that 
 he possesses a soul or the spirit of God (!). In spite of this 
 reservation, Professor Haeckel sees in Wasmann's statements 
 an admission on the part of the Catholic Church (!), that the 
 Darwinian theory is correct, and he regards the present posi- 
 tion as a compromise (!) as important as that made by the 
 Church with Copernicus. The consequence will be, adds the 
 
KVOI.UTION AND FAITH. 77 
 
 lyCt US take a look at Holy Scripture ; in the first 
 chapter of the Book of Moses we meet the following 
 passage: "And God said: Let the earth bring forth 
 the green herb, and such as may seed, and the fruit- 
 tree yielding fruit after its kind which may have seed 
 itself upon the earth. And it was done." Again: 
 "And God created the great whales, and every living 
 and moving creature, which the waters brought forth, 
 according to their kinds, and every winged foul accord- 
 ing to its kind. . . . And God made the beasts of the 
 earth, according to their kinds j and cattle and every- 
 thing that creepeth on the earth after its kind.'''' 
 
 Such are the decisive words of Holy Writ. The 
 question is whether or not they condemn evolution. 
 At the very first glance one might be inclined to think 
 that Holy Scripture ascribes the origin of all animate 
 beings, according to their kind, to the creative word of 
 God, as its direct and immediate cause. In fact, the 
 greater number of the holy Fathers accepted the words 
 in this their most obvious and literal meaning. But, 
 is this perhaps a proof that the explanation offered by 
 those Fathers of the Church is the only possible, the 
 only correct one? Josue commanded the sun to stand 
 still (Josue X, 12-13). '^^^ majority interpreted these 
 words in their literal sense. Still this interpretation 
 is false, since the sun does not revolve about the earth, 
 but the earth about the sun. The matter is evident. 
 For, in some passages which in themselves admit of 
 several explanations the interpretation of Holy Scripture 
 depends upon the philosophical ideas and scientific 
 knowledge of the time. But the interpretation of a Scrip- 
 savant, that Church-teaching will now adapt itself to the 
 Darwinian theory (sic!)." 
 
78 DARWINISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 tural text and the article of faith it actually contains 
 are two different things which demand a clear distinc- 
 tion. Now, the fact that the Fathers of the Church 
 took the above quoted passage in its literal meaning is 
 not to be wondered at, since the philosophical and 
 scientific views of their times suggested no other ex- 
 planation. But this acceptation in no way affects the 
 doctrine of faith actually contained in those words. 
 
 What, then, is the real meaning of the text in 
 question f 
 
 Father Knabenbauer, S. J., answers the question 
 in the following manner:^) "Considered in connec- 
 tion with the entire account of creation the words of 
 Genesis, cited above, proximately maintain nothing 
 else than that the earth with all it contains and bears, 
 together with the plant and animal kingdoms, has not 
 produced itself or is the work of chance, but oives its 
 existence to the power of God. However, in what par- 
 ticular manner the plant and animal kingdoms received 
 their existence; whether all species were created 
 simultaneously or only a few which were destined to 
 give life to others; whether only one fruitful seed 
 was placed in mother earth, which under the influence 
 of natural causes developed into the first plants, and 
 another infused into the waters to give birth to the 
 first animals . ... all this the Book of Genesis leaves to 
 our own investigation and to the revelations of science, 
 if, indeed, science is able at all to give a final and un- 
 questionable decision. In other words : The article of 
 faith, contained in Genesis, remains firm and intact, even 
 if one explains the manner in which the different species 
 originated according to the principle of the theory of evolu- 
 1) "Stimmen aus Maria Ivaach", vol. XIII., p. 74. 
 
EVOLUTION AND FAITH. 79 
 
 tion.^'' Ill accounting for their origin, Father Knaben- 
 bauer evidently does not think it necessary to adhere 
 to the literal sense of the Scriptural text. The famous 
 exegete bases his view upon a number of striking pas- 
 sages found in the writings of the Holy Fathers. Here 
 we can only mention the idea of the world's creation 
 as conceived by St. Augustine , the greatest of ecclesi- 
 astical doctors. St. Augustine stood with those who 
 defended a divine and simultaneous creation of all 
 things, not, however, as though all individual beings 
 were perfectly developed and existed as separate in- 
 dividuals, but in the sense that God "created the fun- 
 damental material for all things, which, having been 
 fructified by God with latent germs and forces, gave 
 rise in the course of time and in preordained succes- 
 sion to individual beings." This assertion of St. 
 Augustine, confirmed, as it is, by many other pas- 
 sages in his works, is a dear and unmistakable proof 
 that the eminent doctor did not take those words of 
 Holy Scripture in their literal meaning. However, 
 not all the Fathers hold the opinion of St. Augustine. 
 But the fact that, far from condemning his interpre- 
 tation, they readily admit its reasonableness, not to 
 say possibility, evidently goes to show that such an 
 acceptation does not contradict the ivords of Scripture, 
 
 Moreover, even those who insist upon the literal 
 interpretation of the Biblical account of creation, admit y 
 at least implicitly, that the origin of new species is not 
 impossible. It was a universally prevalent idea that 
 insects and many small animals originated from 
 decayed woods and fruits, from the hides and carcasses 
 of animals and from the muddy material of swamps 
 and pools. Some even, as St. Isidore, gave instruc- 
 
8o DARWINISM AND KVOLUTION. 
 
 tions as to how certain animals might be produced. 
 "Many," he sa3^s, "have observed that bees are 
 generated from the carcasses of oxen. In order to 
 produce them, the flesh of slaughtered calves is 
 pounded, so that maggots are brought forth from the 
 putrefying blood, and they then develop into bees. 
 But properly bees are said to come from oxen, as hor- 
 nets from horses, drones from mules, and wasps from 
 asses." ^) 
 
 Now be this view ever so wrong, it implies a 
 distinct admission that the origin of new species is not 
 contradictory to the Scriptural accounts. Otherwise 
 the Fathers of the Church would never have held 
 such an opinion. 
 
 But should one inquire, ivhy Holy Scripture ex- 
 presses itself in such a manner, the answer is close at 
 hand. Moses, as is well known, addressed those 
 words in the first place to an uneducated people, and 
 his only object was to bring home to them in a clear 
 and forcible manner the fact that God is the Creator of 
 all things. But he could not have attained this end 
 more effectively than by speaking of the species of 
 plants and animals in a manner corresponding to the 
 actual experience of the people, telling them in plain 
 words that all things had their origin in God, the 
 principle of all existence. 
 
 A similar explanation is given by the great Amer- 
 ican Geologist James D. Dana. In speaking of the 
 cosmogony of the Bible, he first of all expresses his 
 conviction that this ancient document must be of a 
 divine origin. For "no human mind was witness of 
 
 1) Migne, vol. LXXXII., p. 470. 
 
KVOI^UTION AND FAITH. 8 1 
 
 the events; and no such mind in the early age of the 
 world, unless gifted with superhuman intelligence, 
 could have contrived such a scheme, — would have 
 placed the creation of the sun, the source of light to 
 the earth, so long after the creation of light, even on 
 the fourth day, and what is equally singular, between 
 the creation of plants and that of animals, when so 
 important to both; and none could have reached to 
 the depth of philosophy exhibited in the whole plan. ' ' 
 Then he continues: ^'If divine, the account must bear 
 marks of human imperfection, since it was communicated 
 through Man. Ideas suggested to a human mind by 
 the Deity, would take shape in that mind according 
 to its range of knowledge, modes of thought, and use 
 of language, unless it were at the same time super- 
 naturally gifted with the profound knowledge and 
 wisdom adequate to their conception; and even then 
 they could not be intelligibly expressed, for want of 
 words to represent them. The central thought of 
 each step in the Scripture cosmogony .... is brought 
 out in the simple and natural style of a sublime intel- 
 lect, wise for its times, but unversed in the depths of 
 science which the future was to reveal. The idea of 
 vegetation to such a one would be vegetation, as he 
 knew it; and so it is described. The idea of dividing 
 the earth from the fluid around it would take the form 
 of a dividing from the fluid above, in imperfect con- 
 ceptions of a mind unacquainted with the earth's 
 sphericity and the true nature of the firmament, — 
 especially as the event was beyond the reach of all 
 ordinary thought. ' ' 
 
 Finally, having explained the remarkable harmony 
 between the opening page of the Bible and the results 
 
82 DARWINISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 of geology, he concludes with these beautiful words: 
 "The record in the Bible is, therefore, profoundly 
 philosophical in the scheme of creation which it pre- 
 sents. It is both true and divine. It is a declaration 
 of authorship, both of Creation and the Bible, on the 
 first page of the sacred volume. There can he no real 
 conflict between the two Books of the Great Author. Both 
 are revelations made by Ilini to Man, — the earlier telling 
 of God-made harmonies, coming up from the deep 
 past, and rising to their height when Man appeared, 
 the later teaching Man's relations to his Maker, and 
 speaking of loftier harmonies in the eternal future."^) 
 
 What, then, is the attitude of faith towards the 
 theory of evolution? The ansiver is a twofold one: 
 
 In the first place, faith requires that, in any case, the 
 first daion of plant and animal life — for this alone is 
 here taken into consideration — be ascribed, in some way 
 at least, to the creative power of God. All plants and 
 animals ultimately derive their origin from God, and 
 without God they could not exist. 
 
 In the second place, faith has not decided whether 
 plants and animals have been directly or indirectly created 
 by God. In other words, it is a matter of perfect in- 
 difference, as far as faith is concerned, to maintain 
 that the species of plants and animals, now existing, 
 were originally created by God in their present state, 
 or to hold an original creation of a few species which 
 possessed the power of developing into others. 
 
 There is no need whatever to shrink in dismay 
 
 from the theory of evolution. For, disregarding the 
 
 origin of man, and granting the origin of plants and 
 
 animals to be due to God as to their ultimate cause, the 
 
 1) 1. c, pp. 847—850. 
 
EVOI.UTION AND FAITH. 83 
 
 theory of evolution is nothing more than a question of 
 philosophy and of natural science^ a question in itself 
 entirely harmless and free from all dogmatic con- 
 siderations. Cling to the clear' distinction betiveen the 
 four different significations of ^^ Darwinism and Evolu- 
 tion^ \ adding to the last the two restrictions just men- 
 tionedy and rest assured that your assertion will in no 
 way contravene the doctrines of revealed truth. 
 
 Is the theory of evolution, therefore, to be accepted 
 in the sense just explained? This does not follow. For, 
 even if faith does not reject the theory of evolution, it 
 is not necessarily implied that the theory may be rea- 
 sonably adopted on the ground of natural science. 
 Consequently, to acquire a correct estimate of the 
 theory of evolution, we must necessarily submit the 
 question to the tribunal of reason and of the natural 
 sciences. 
 
Chapter IX. 
 Evolution and Reason. 
 
 pAITH and Holy Scripture are not opposed to the 
 theory of evolution. They merely insist on the 
 fact "that the world and all things which are con- 
 tained in it, both spiritual and material, have been, 
 in their whole substance, produced \ • God out of 
 nothing" (Canons of the Vatican Council). About 
 the manner in which all this was accomplished, faith 
 is silent. 
 
 Hence we turn to the tribunal of reason and ask : 
 What is the verdict of philosophy o'lZ -chc ilicory of evolu- 
 tion"^. Does this theory contradict th^ fundamental 
 tenets of Christian philosophy, or are both in concert 
 with each other? 
 
 The theory of evolution is intended to account for 
 the origin of the different species of plants and animals. 
 According to this, the theory implies that objects 
 which once were devoid of existence came into being in 
 the course of time. Hence, there must be a sufficient 
 cause which fully accounts for this effect. For it is a 
 fundamental principle of sound philosophy that there 
 can be no effect without an adequate cause. What 
 may this cause be in our case? 
 
 Philosophy answers in unmistakable terms that the 
 origin of the first living cells is undoubtedly due to a per- 
 sonal God who has infused life into inorganic matter. 
 For brute matter is unable to develop into living 
 matter by its own forces. Brute matter is the lowest 
 
 (84) 
 
EVOLUTION AND RKASON. 85 
 
 form of being and in all its properties directly opposed 
 to living matter. For brute matter as such does not 
 act, unless it be acted upon, and the effect produced 
 is mathematically equal to the amount of force im- 
 parted to it from without. If left to itself, it spontane- 
 ously tends to enter into the most stable combinations, 
 and these again do not rest until they have assumed 
 the most stable state possible. Here are two illustra- 
 tions. If the element chlorine acts successively upon 
 the six metals potassium, magnesium, aluminium, 
 iron, silver, gold, six different chlorids or salts are 
 formed. Nov^ the action is most violent in case of 
 potassium ; but its intensity decreases as we proceed 
 through the scale from potassium to magnesium and 
 so forth, becoming least in case of gold. The amount 
 of heat set free in the single experiments is in the 
 same decreasing proportion, being greatest when 
 chlorine combines wnth potassium, and least when it 
 combines with gold. But the relative stability of the 
 compounds formed is in perfect harmony with these 
 facts. For each of the six metals can separate each of 
 the subsequent metals from their combination, but 
 none of the row is able to take the place of the preced- 
 ing metal. Silver can separate gold from a chlorine- 
 compound, iron both silver and gold from their com- 
 binations and so forth ; but it never occurs that gold 
 would replace silver or any other metal in the various 
 salts. 
 
 Again the element sulfur occurs in three different 
 forms, as rhombic crystals, as monoclinic crystals and 
 in the uncrystailized condition, the first of these 
 being the most stable. Accordingly, if uncrystailized 
 sulfur is left to itself, it spontaneously forms crystals 
 
86 DARWINISM AND EVOI^UTION. 
 
 under certain conditions, first of the monoclinic kind, 
 but at the end invariably of the rhombic system, a 
 change which is accompanied by a considerable evolu- 
 tion of heat. 
 
 Hundreds such like illustrations are furnished by 
 chemistry and physics, and a thousand may be added 
 from phenomena of daily experience, all evincing the 
 self-same conclusion that the tendency towards stabil- 
 ity and equilibrium is the fundamental characteristic 
 of inorganic matter. Indeed, there is no clock-work 
 powerful enough to v^^ind itself up by dint of its own 
 activity, no steam-engine which would supply itself 
 with coal and steam. If no motion be imparted to 
 them frovi without^ clock-work and steam-engine are 
 incapable of acquiring energy and of doing any work, 
 be it ever so little. The organism, on the contrary, is 
 able to act of and on itself , to develop and perfect itself by 
 its oivn motion and activity. Its tendency is not stab- 
 ility, but motion. Unceasingly the sap rises in the stems 
 and branches of trees, and without rest the blood hurries 
 through the arteries and veins of animals. Without 
 rest the cells divide and multiply, constantly expend- 
 ing energy and making up again for the losses. A 
 twig is broken from a tree, a limb torn from the body 
 of an insect, a wound inflicted on one's hand or leg; 
 at once a thousand cells rush to the injured spot; 
 a new twig grovv^s out from the tree; the limb is healed 
 or even restored; new tissue fills out the wounded 
 hand or leg. 
 
 No stone or crystal is capable of taking up foreign 
 elements into itself and of assimilating them to its own 
 substance. No stone or crystal has the power of 
 developing from within. No stone or crystal can 
 
EVOLUTION AND REASON. 87 
 
 propagate or reproduce its kind. Organized or living 
 matter alone is capable of performing all these func- 
 tions. Plants and animals alone can flourish themselves 
 and develop by taking food which they change into 
 their own substance and which they dispose of accord- 
 ing to their specific and individual form of structure 
 and according to the needs of every single part of the 
 oro-anism. They alone can give rise to new individual 
 forms, perfectly like to themselves, and multiply their 
 kind indefinitely. 
 
 In a further description of this essential difference 
 between crystal and organism, G. H. Williams says 
 as follows : 
 
 "Crystals are distinguished from living organisms 
 by the method of their growth. While the latter grow 
 from within outward and are conditioned both in their 
 form, size and period of existence by the internal laws 
 of their being, crystals enlarge by regular accretions 
 from without, and are limited in size and duration 
 only by external circumstances. Organisms must pass 
 through a fixed cycle of constantly succeeding changes. 
 Youth, maturity, and old age are unlike and must 
 come to all in the same order. There is, furthermore, 
 in nearly all living things a differentiation of organs, 
 limitation in the extent of growth and the power of 
 reproduction. In crystals, on the other hand, every 
 part is exactly like every other part. Our definition 
 of crystal structure is an arrangement of particles, the 
 same about one point as about every other point ; 
 hence, in one sense, the smallest fragment of a crystal 
 is complete in itself. Moreover, since crystals grow 
 by the addition of regular layers of molecules, arranged 
 just like all other layers, we can set no limit to the 
 
88 DARWINISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 size of a crystal, so long as the supply of material and 
 conditions favorable to its formation remain constant. 
 There is, in fact, the widest divergence in the size of 
 crystal individuals of the same composition and struct- 
 ure. Those of ultra-microscopic dimensions and 
 those many feet in length may be identical in every- 
 thing but size. Both are equally complete, and one 
 is in no sense the embrj^o of the other. Finally, the 
 individual crystal, unlike the individual organism, 
 will remain unchanged so long as its surroundings are 
 favorable to its existence. " ^) 
 
 In short, crystal and cell, the two most typical 
 representatives of brute and living matter, differ from 
 each other in three main points, (a) In the crystal 
 we observe the greatest possible homogeneity of struct- 
 ure and physical properties, in the cell the greatest 
 possible differentiation of structure and physiological 
 functions. (6) The crystal reveals the greatest pos- 
 sible stability in every respect, the cell an innate ten- 
 dency of perfecting itself from within. (c) In the 
 crystal increase in size and number is effected by an 
 unlimited external accretion, in the cell growth and 
 propagation of kind are due to the most complicated 
 processes of immanent cell-division according to a 
 definite plan of great perfection and with a definite 
 result. 
 
 Hence there can be no doubt that inorganic matter 
 is inferior to organic matter, and that the latter has 
 properties which are directly opposed to those of the 
 former. Consequently, inorganic matter as such could 
 never give birth to organic matter. But, besides inor- 
 
 "Elements of Crystallography", New York, 1892, 3rd 
 ed., pp. 10—11. 
 
EVOLUTION AND REASON. Sq 
 
 ganic matter, there was nothing in the beginning of 
 time which had the power of doing so excerpt God, the 
 Creator of all things, to whom matter itself with all its 
 laws and forces owes its existence. It iSy therefore, a 
 true 'postulate of reason to assume that the first origin of 
 life is due to the action of a personal Creator. 
 
 But what will philosophy tell us concerning the 
 living beings which in the course of ages succeeded 
 those that were originally produced by God ? There 
 is a twofold possibility. Either all species of plants 
 and animals existed from the very beginning, or came 
 into existence in the course of time. Now, if they 
 existed from the very beginning, then they were evi- 
 dently identical with those first living beings of which 
 we have just spoken. Hence, their origin is due to 
 God. If they originated at later periods, we must be 
 able to assign a sufiicient cause for their coming into 
 existence. Is there such a cause ? The answer is two- 
 fold. These species of a later date were either directly 
 produced by God as their predecessors were, or they 
 were the descendants of those first species, which originally 
 received from God the innate power and tendency of giv- 
 ing rise to new specific forms. 
 
 Both explanations are perfectly in accord with the 
 demands of reason. For both offer a sufiicient cause 
 to account for the origin of species. Which of the two 
 is the true one cannot be decided by reason alone. 
 What reason demands is, that the origin of all organic as 
 well as inorganic nature is ultimately due to God. For 
 there is no effect, which is not produced by a cause su- 
 perior, or at least equivalent to it. Absolute "nothing", 
 being less than "something", cannot by itself develop 
 into matter. Mere matter cannot evolve itself into 
 
90 DARWINISM AND EVOI.UTION. 
 
 life; for it is less than life. Species of plants and 
 animals, produced by God, cannot of themselves give 
 birth to new and more perfect ones; for without an 
 intrinsic law of development, without an intrinsic for- 
 mative power to transform themselves into beings with 
 new and more perfect organs and qualities, these first 
 species of plants and animals are less than the new and 
 more perfect species which should spring from them 
 as from their cause. 
 
 Again the intrinsic forces and laws of development 
 cannot possibly be the product of blind and impotent 
 chance, but must likewise be ultimately due to God's 
 wisdom and power. A proof of this. Unearth and 
 decipher the countless petrifactions which lie scattered 
 throughout the boundless tracts of nature's realm; let 
 your intellect, unclouded by the haze of prejudice, 
 study the richness and variety of a kingdom of plants 
 and animals now extinct, but inurned and embalmed 
 by the preserving hand of nature in vast layers of rock 
 and in many a curious cavern ; survey the endless 
 range of living creatures participating, each in its 
 own particular way, the singular beauty and harmony 
 pervading the entire world of living beings that 
 people this wonderful earth — and you cannot help but 
 recognize in all the organs, cells and tissues of the 
 single organisms, endowed, as they are, with a won- 
 derfully adapted and almost infallible activity, master- 
 pieces of inconceivable grandeur and harmony. At the 
 sight of such wonders, who can fail to acknowledge 
 that the almost infinite energy of the intrinsic forces 
 and laws, which moulded the present world of living 
 beings, cannot be the work of chance, but must have 
 had its ultimate source in the wisdom and power of 
 
EVOLUTION AND REASON. 9 1 
 
 God. He it is who has implanted them in the first 
 living germs which came from His hand. 
 
 What J therefore, does reason maintain about the origin 
 of species f It maintains that this origin must be 
 ascribed to God either directly or indirectly. Reason 
 does not decide whether all the species now existing 
 have always remained in the same condition of their 
 original creation, as they were when first produced by 
 God, or whether they descended from other species 
 more or less different from themselves. Nor does she 
 explain how many species were originally produced by 
 God, and in what manner others were derived from 
 them. She also refuses to furnish any positive infor- 
 mation on the question whether, after the first species 
 were produced, God repeatedly called new forms of 
 plants and animals into existence, as the long geologi- 
 cal periods succeeded each other. All this is a matter 
 of perfect indifference to her. She does 7iot even decide 
 which particular laws regulated tlie development of 
 species, if such has taken place, and which intrinsic 
 powers have brought new forms. Place, time and 
 other circumstances connected with the first origin of 
 life, the succession of the single species as to kind and 
 number, all this reason cannot determine. Most of 
 these questions can be solved only by having recourse 
 to the natural sciences. At any rate, they have nothing 
 to do with Philosophy. It is the task of the philosopher 
 to search, as far as possible, into the ultimate causes of 
 things and phenomena, and to watch with greatest 
 care that the laws of logic remain forever intact. 
 
 What, therefore, is the attitude of reason towards the 
 theory of evolution f 
 
 The answer comprises three propositions : 
 
92 DARWINISM AND KVOI^UTION. 
 
 1. Reason demands that the theory of evolution sup- 
 poses the interference of God in the first origin of life, 
 
 2. Reason, furthermore, demands that the develop- 
 ment of new species is to be reduced to intrinsic powers 
 and to intrinsic laivs of development. These powers 
 and laws, in their turn, have been put into nature by the 
 Author of life. 
 
 3. Man — as has been proved above — is outside the 
 domain of evolution. For man is a living being, gifted 
 with intelligence and will, faculties of a purely spirit- 
 ual nature and in no way to be compared with the 
 material ^) soul of the animal and the living principle 
 of the plant. No theory of evolution can span the chasm 
 between matter and spirit. For the characteristic prop- 
 erties of each are in every respect diametrically opposed 
 to each other. It would, therefore, be an intrinsic 
 contradiction and an absolute impossibility to derive the 
 spiritual nature of man from the sensuous nature of 
 the brute. 
 
 This is what sound and unbiased reason has to tell 
 us concerning the theory of evolution. Provided the 
 theory remain within the limits defined by the three 
 restrictions made above, it is in full harmony with the 
 principles of reason and can meet the stern face of 
 philosophy with a clear and calm conscience. If, 
 however, that theory should ever presume in the dead 
 and dark of night to pass over the bounds and to ex- 
 tend its domain, it exposes itself to the ridicule of 
 contradiction and will finally be forced to restore to 
 its legitimate owner the territory unjustly occupied. 
 
 Philosophy, then, is not opposed to the theory of 
 evolution. On the contrary, it is strongly inclined to 
 ^) i. e., intrineioally dependent on matter. 
 
KVOLUTION AND REASON. 93 
 
 favor it. For it is a well-founded and universally 
 accepted principle of Christian philosophy, that no 
 direct interference of God is to be assumed, if merely 
 natural causes sufficiently account for phenomena, For, 
 she is convinced that it is more in accordance with the 
 ways of Divine Wisdom to make use of created causes, 
 whenever they are sufficient to produce the desired 
 result. It was for this reason that she welcomed the 
 Copernican system with all the main consequences it 
 involved, and cheerfully accepted the various proofs 
 suggested by the natural sciences in favor of the idea 
 that sun and earth and all the stars and planets were 
 developed from a huge ball of glowing gases. She 
 will be equally inclined to give preference to the theory 
 of evolution, provided, of course, the natural sciences 
 will supply the necessary facts. 
 
 Does it follow from this favorable verdict of phi- 
 losophy that the theory of evolution ought to be 
 accepted? We answer again that this conclusion is 
 unwarranted. For, so far we have only shown that 
 faith is not inimical to the theory of evolution and that 
 reason favors it. But from a mere possibility and 
 probability, we are by no means allowed to infer a 
 reality. The natural sciences must decide the question. 
 They and they alone are qualified to judge whether 
 the theory of evolution is based on real facts, or is 
 nothing else than a probable idea; in other words, 
 whether it is to be accepted or rejected. 
 
Chapter X. 
 
 Evolution and the Natural Sciences. 
 
 'T'HE theory of evolution has nothing to fear froid 
 faith. Nor does it come into collision with the 
 principles of philosophy. The final solution of the 
 question will, therefore, rest solely with the natural 
 sciences. If there are facts which evidently support 
 the theory of evolution, we shall not hesitate to adopt 
 that theory. Otherwise we shall adhere to the time- 
 honored theory of constancy, being in the meantime 
 satisfied to admire the beauty and grandeur of an idea, 
 the realization of which is but a mere possibility. 
 
 Whatj therefore, is the verdict of the natural sciences 
 upon the theory of evolution? In other words, are there 
 any facts at hand which cannot well be made to agree 
 with the theory of constancy, and are apt to find a 
 readier explanation if viewed in the light of an evolu- 
 tionary principle ? 
 
 I. 
 
 Before we enter upon this question, we call atten- 
 tion to the fact that, far from opposing dogma and 
 reason, the natural sciences even emphasize the restric- 
 tions which determine the domahi of the supposed, theory 
 of evolution. 
 
 With reference to the origin of man this is evident 
 at a glance. For we have amply proved that the 
 
 (94) 
 
EVOLUTION AND THK NATURAL SCIKNCES. 95 
 
 natural sciences have not been able to advance even 
 the slightest shadow of an argument in support of 
 man's animal descent. 
 
 But what do the natural sciences maintain con- 
 cerning the origin of life? We begin with a proposi- 
 tion, conceded by most scientists, that life must have 
 had a beginning. This follows from the fact, as Prof. 
 August Weismann argues, that all organic substances 
 are constantly and spontaneously changed into inorganic 
 substances. But "a being which conies to an end, 
 cannot be eternal; it must have had a beginning; 
 consequently organic combinations are not eternal, 
 but transitory, something which comes and goes, 
 originating when all necessary conditions are fulfilled, 
 but to be decomposed into simple combinations, as 
 soon as those conditions are undone. ' ' ■^) 
 
 The temperature of the earth, moreover, even at the 
 time when a solid crust had been formed, was at least 
 2500 degrees F. , which evidently must have rendered 
 the existence of living germs impossible. 
 
 Liebig's theory, finally, which suggests that life 
 has been brought to our globe from other cosmic bodies 
 by meteorites is untenable. 
 
 For the supposed living germs buried in the 
 crevices of meteorites could never have sustained the 
 extreme cold and absolute aridity of the cosmic spaces. 
 Nor is it in any way probable that a single living 
 germ could have been kept alive in a meteorite turned 
 into a glowing body when passing through our atmo- 
 sphere. Besides, it is plain that all such theorizing 
 merely retards the solution of the problem. For, if 
 
 1) "Vortrage uber Descendenztheorie," vol. II, ed. 2, 1904, 
 p. 306. 
 
96 DARWINISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 living germs have come to this earth from other cos- 
 mic globes, the same question of their origin confronts 
 us. At any rate, so the great majority of prominent 
 scientists assures us, life must have had a beginning. 
 
 On the other hand, it has been clearly demonstrated 
 that living beings cannot originate from inorganic ^natter, 
 but solely from other living beings. Professor Rosenthal 
 says to this effect: "In order to exclude with certainty 
 any development of living beings in infusions or 
 fluids, that contain the substances necessary for their 
 nutriment, two conditions must be fulfilled : receptacles 
 and materials must be entirely free from living beings and 
 their germs, and the subsequent entrance of the same must 
 be made impossible. But it is not easy to fulfill these 
 two conditions. This is the reason why we not in- 
 frequently meet men who maintain that their experi- 
 ments have proved primo-genesis beyond the possibil- 
 ity of doubt. But the very contrary must be asserted 
 with so much the more emphasis : in all experiments 
 that have been made with scrupulous care, living beings 
 have never come into existence under the above-mentioned 
 conditions.^ ^ Again, ''However we may vary the con- 
 ditions of the test, it can always be shown that no new 
 substances develop if no living substances be present. 
 Therefore we can maintain with certainty that no one has 
 been able to prove primo-genesis, the origin of a living sub- 
 stance from one that had no life.''^ ^) 
 
 Hence, since the laws of nature are supposed to have 
 been the same from the very beginning, it follows with 
 logical necessity that the first origin of life is not due to 
 spontaneous generation. 
 
 ^) "Ivchrbuch der Allgemeinen Physiologic," 1901, pp. 
 B54-556. 
 
EVOLUTION AND THK NATURAL SCIENCES. 97 
 
 This conclusion, it is true, the greater number of 
 modern scientists reject. ''All that we may legitim- 
 ately affirm," says Rosenthal, "is that under the con- 
 ditions which have been thus far realized in experi- 
 ments, this origin of life does not occur. " "I^iving 
 beings originated perhaps in quite another way and 
 from quite another material than that which we use in 
 our experiments. Hundreds and thousands of years 
 were perhaps necessary for such an origin. Perhaps . . . 
 ''It would be superfluous," Rosenthal concludes, **to 
 continue this enumeration of ' perhapses. ' We must 
 leave unanswered those questions which we cannot 
 solve with the resources at our disposal. We must be 
 ready to acknowledge that we know nothing about the 
 first origin of living beings on earth, and we must 
 wait to see whether the discovery of new facts in the 
 future will fill up this gap in our knowledge." ^) 
 
 In a similar spirit of agnostic resignation, Weis- 
 mann and others try to get around the dreadful con- 
 clusion of admitting the existence of a personal God. 
 Weismann even calls primo-genesis a demand of science 
 and — to make matters doubly sure — he maintains 
 that it will be impossible to show, that life does not origin- 
 ate from inorganic matter! For the first living beings 
 originating will be and will have been so small and in- 
 significant that no microscope would be powerful 
 enough to discern them. Indeed, those ^^biophorids,^^ 
 as he calls them, will be so minute as to be and for- 
 ever remain entirely imperceptible. But such are idle 
 dreams and no facts; fanciful ideas resulting from the 
 a priori assumption that rather than acknowledge a 
 personal Creator, we must admit the most groundless 
 assertions, made to rest on imperceptible facts ! 
 1) I.e. p. 557. 
 
98 DARWINISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 The matter is very simple. We have three factSy 
 universally admitted by modern scientists : 
 
 1. The laws of nature remain unchangeable. Hence 
 the laws of the present have been the laws of the past. 
 The contrary assumption would make all scientific 
 inquiries into the past altogether impossible. 
 
 2. No intermediate beings between inorganic matter 
 and the simplest living cell, composed of protoplasm 
 and nucleus, have ever been discovered. Weismann's 
 "biophorids," Hertwig's "idioblasts," Altmann's 
 ''autoblasts," etc., are to this day no more than pure 
 possibilities. Similarly HaeckeVs moners, which he de- 
 scribed as living beings without the vestige of a 
 nucleus, are fast disappearing with the constant im- 
 provement of modern instruments. According to 
 Hertwig, "the number of moners was formerly very 
 considerable, but decreased with the growing perfection 
 of technical means to prove the presence of nuclei. Hence, 
 it is not merely a conjecture, but a probable assump- 
 tion that the nuclei have only been overlooked in the 
 few forms that are still supposed to be monera. "^) 
 Moreover, the lower plants that were thought to be 
 
 1) "Ivehrbuch der Zoologie," 1900, p. 159. It is remark- 
 able that many books on zoology still describe the monera as 
 beings consisting of protoplasm. For such forms are well 
 adapted to make the difference between dead matter and the 
 lowest organisms less conspicuous. Thus we read in Pack- 
 ard's Zoology: "It is probable that the monera were the 
 earliest beings to appear, and that from forms resembling 
 them, all other organisms have originated. We can conceive 
 at least of no simpler ancestral form ; and if organized beings 
 were originally produced from the chemical elements which 
 form protoplasm, one would be naturally led to suppose that 
 the earliest form was like 'protamoeba' (one of the moners)." 
 (Advanced Course, 1897, p. 21-22). 
 
EVOICUTION AND THK NATURAI. SCIENCES. 99 
 
 destitute of a nucleus as the bacteria or microbes, have 
 been found to possess protoplasm and nucleus, though 
 the latter is dissociated into a number of tiny granules. 
 Even the red corpuscles in the blood form no exception 
 to the rule. They contain a nucleus, at least in the 
 beginning of their existence, and die soon after losing 
 it. In short, there is no living cell either among the 
 lowest plants or animals or within the tissues of 
 higher plants and animals, that is not composed of 
 -protoplasm and nucleus, a fact which proves to evidence 
 that all the various intermediate forms invented by many 
 modern scientists are fictions. Nor can this be otherwise, 
 since, as we have shown above, t-here is an essential 
 difference between organic and inorganic matter. 
 
 3. As has been stated, no spontaneous transition of 
 inorganic matter into living matter has been observed. 
 
 What conclusion are we to draw from these three 
 facts ? 
 
 That spontaneous generation has actually never taken 
 place and consequently that the first origin of life is due 
 to a cause not identical with inorganic matter. Or as the 
 famous biologist Reinke has it: *'If we assume that 
 living beings are at all and in any way derived from 
 inorganic matter, the theory of creation is in my 
 opinion the only one that complies with the demands 
 of logic and causality, and, consequently, with a 
 rational investigation of nature. I take creation to 
 mean that at the beginning of time, when no living 
 being of any sort moved on the surface of the earth, 
 the first organisms came from the pre-existing condi- 
 tions of the earth's crust through forces that were not 
 contained within inorganic matter, but worked on it from 
 without, just as iron and brass are turned into 
 
lOO DARWINISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 machinery by forces that are not a property of these 
 metals." ^) 
 
 It is clear from this that the natural sciences have by 
 no means succeeded in removing those restrictions which 
 faith and reason demand as necessary qualifications of 
 any evolutionary theory. 
 
 II. 
 
 Quite different, however, is the verdict of the 
 natural sciences on the theory of evolution, provided 
 the latter remains within the irremovable limits just 
 defined. L,et us shortly review the most important 
 points on which the entire question hinges : 
 
 I. Generally speaking, the plants and animals 
 now existing bear characteristic features of a constant 
 nature, and if changes occur, they generally remain 
 within the limits of the species. Our domestic animals 
 differ in no small degree from their wild progenitors. 
 They do not, however, constitute new species, but 
 varieties. For if left to themselves they will invariably 
 lose the improved ways and traits acquired by years of 
 training and domestication. And what will be the 
 ultimate outcome? That the animals we tried to 
 elevate above their less fortunate fellows of the forest 
 and the prairie, will within a very short time adopt 
 the life habits and structural peculiarities of their wild 
 companions. But, be it well remembered, the un- 
 deniable specific constancy of which we speak, proves 
 nothing beyond the fact that at the present period of the 
 earth's development the species of plants and animals 
 are generally constant. That they have always been so, 
 has not been determined. On the contrary, a series of 
 facts is at hand which encourage the assumption that the 
 1) "Einleitung in die Theoretische Biologic, " p. 559. 
 
EVOI.UTION AND THE NATURAI, SCIENCES. lOI 
 
 various species of today have come to their present 
 state of existence and perfection by a process of specific 
 evolution. Scientists of the best repute as Kerner, von 
 Marilaun, Kd. Fischer, and especially Hugo de Vries 
 and Eric Wasmarui have of late established the proof that, 
 hy way of rare exceptions, there exist even today a few 
 species of plants and animals which produce new sjyecific 
 forms. The facts, it is true, are mostly of so technical 
 a nature that to insert here an exhaustive explanation 
 and to point out their full argumentative value, would 
 be foreign to the nature and purpose of our present dis- 
 sertation. For their due appreciation the knowledge 
 and interest of the specialist or at least a thorough 
 acquaintance with those respective branches of natural 
 history, from which the arguments are drawn, forms 
 an indispensable requisite. It may nevertheless be of 
 some interest to indicate in brief the arguments of 
 Hugo de Vries and E. Wasmann.^^ 
 
 In the year 1866 de Vries observed a plant called 
 Oenothera Lamar ckiana (Evening Primrose), of Amer- 
 ican origin and possessing great powers of fertility. 
 At once he conceived the idea that precisely this 
 fertility might possibly inaugurate a period of muta- 
 tion, if the plant were put into foreign soil. Two 
 deviating forms were discovered on the same field 
 with the Oenothera Lamarckiana. They manifested the 
 constancy of true species, but were unknown to the 
 systematists of the day. This discovery rendered de 
 Vries' supposition highly plausible. Encouraged and 
 confirmed in his belief, de Vries took nine well devel- 
 
 1) The following is taken from our paper in the Messenger 
 (New York) April, 1905, on "The Arguments of De Vries and 
 Wasmann in Favor of Evolution," with the kind permission 
 of the Rev. Editor. 
 
I02 
 
 DARWINISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 Oped specimens of the Oenothera Lamarckiana and 
 transplanted them from Hilversum, a town situated 
 between Amsterdam and Utrecht, to his garden in 
 Amsterdam. And what was the result? Within seven 
 generations he produced from these nine single speci- 
 mens about 50,000 plants and among their number 
 about 800 specimens that had unmistakably deviated 
 from the original type. This interesting and marvel- 
 lous result is more clearly expressed in the figures of 
 the following table : ^) 
 
 Genetic Tree of Oenothera eamarckiana. 
 
 (The numbers designate individuals.) 
 (Plate 3-4.; 
 
 Generation. 
 
 
 
 < 
 
 1 
 
 
 3 
 
 
 't 
 
 1) 
 
 .2 
 
 ,0 
 
 c3 
 
 1 
 
 cd 
 
 Cd 
 
 to 
 d 
 cd 
 
 n 
 
 I. 1886-87- 
 
 
 
 — 
 
 9 
 
 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 2. 1888-89- 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 15,000 
 
 5 
 
 5 
 
 — 
 
 3. 1890-91- 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 I 
 
 10,000 
 
 3 
 
 ^ 
 3 
 
 — 
 
 A iSq^^ 
 
 I 
 
 15 
 
 176 
 
 8 
 
 14,000 
 
 60 
 
 73 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 
 c, i8q6 
 
 25 
 
 135 
 
 20 
 
 8,000 
 
 49 142 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 6. 1897 
 
 II 
 
 29 
 
 3 
 
 1,800 
 
 9 
 
 5 
 
 I 
 
 7. i8q8 
 
 9 
 
 — 
 
 3,000 
 
 '' 
 
 
 
 
 8. i8qq 
 
 5 
 
 I 
 
 — 
 
 1,700 
 
 21 
 
 t' 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 It is understood that all specimens were derived from the 
 Oenothera Lamarckiana in all the generations enumerated. 
 
 ^) Biologisches Centralbl., XXI., p. 298. 
 
EVOLUTION AND THE NATURAI, SCIKNCKS. 103 
 
 Now the various forms of mutation enumerated in 
 the table are by no means variations or races commonly 
 so-called, but exhibit and possess all the characteristic 
 traits of systematic species. 
 
 For J (i) the newly originated forms differ from 
 their parent-stock not merely in a few details, as 
 variations generally do, but in all parts and in all 
 stages of development as well. 
 
 (2) The new forms are not connected with each other 
 by means of transitional forms. They can be recog- 
 nized already as young plants, but are, of course, 
 more readily distinguished by the points of difference 
 coming into prominence as the plants approach their 
 full-grown state. Furthermore, transitional forms that 
 might give rise to doubts concerning the species to 
 which they belong, are hardly ever to be found. So 
 true is this that the systematic position of dead and 
 dried specimens can promptly be determined to ex- 
 actness. 
 
 (3) The new forms, moreover, possess perfect on- 
 stancy and transmit the features peculiar to their nature 
 unchanged to their offspring. Nor is any sign of an 
 atavistic return to the Lamarchiana type to be noticed. 
 Thus, to mention only one example, the 450 seeds 
 produced by the one specimen of the Oenothera gigas 
 in 1895 were sown in 1897, ^^^ ^^^^ forth 450 speci- 
 mens of the 0. gigas, while only one of them betrayed 
 at the same time some characteristics of the 0. nanella 
 and not a single one those of the 0. Lamarchiana. 
 
 Consequently it seems highly probable that the 
 0. Lamarchiana has in fact produced a number of true 
 systematic species. It is, moreover, plain that only 
 an intrinsic principle can fully account for the sudden 
 
I04 DARWINISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 and saltatory changes wrought in the evolutionary- 
 process which we have just described. 
 
 More intricate and xn many ways different is the 
 argument advanced by Wasmann, which we shall now 
 proceed to consider at least in its broadest outlines. 
 It is a well-known fact that in the nests of certain ants 
 a number of insects, called guests, are wont to dwell, 
 and, as the case may be, maintain a more or less 
 friendly (mutual) or indifferent relation to the ants 
 themselves. These insects, in the main, are members 
 of the beetle order and belong especially to the family of 
 the Staphilinidse or rove-beetles. Remembering this 
 simple fact we shall be able more easily to understand 
 the following statement which represents the "major" 
 of Wasmann 's argument. 
 
 Protracted observations and many experiments 
 showed that the four ant-guests: Dinarda dentata 
 Grav., D. Maerkelii Ksw., D. Hagensi Wasm. , and 
 D. pygmaea Wasm. were seen to manifest themselves as 
 four different forms of adaptation (Anpassungsformen) 
 of one and the same generic type to the four different 
 species of ants in whose nests they dwelt (to the four 
 ants: Formica sanguinea I^atr. , F. rufa L<., F. exsecta 
 Nyl. , and fusca-ruflbarhis For. ). The adaptation refers 
 primarily to size and color. Its purpose is to protect 
 the Dinarda, which belongs to the so-called indifferent 
 guests. 
 
 Now these various adaptations of one and the same 
 generic type clearly point to the actual differentiation 
 of the type with results of a lasting nature^ — in other 
 words to a real specific evolution. 
 
 For, as comparative zoogeography attests, the devia- 
 tion of the four forms from the original type of the 
 
EVOI^UTION AND THE NATURAI, SCIENCES. 105 
 
 Dinarda and their specific development has not yet 
 reached the stage of completion, but only different 
 stages of perfection, 
 
 I. The progress in specific development to which 
 the four forms of the Dinarda are subject, is greatest in 
 those parts of the European continent, where the final 
 retreat of ice and ocean in the last glacial period was 
 first accomplished, as in the northern valley of the 
 Rhine, in lower Austria, Silesia, Bohemia, etc. *'It 
 was near Linz on the Rhein," says Wasmann, ''that 
 I observed a great number of the four forms of the 
 Dinarda together with their respective hosts. But all 
 of them clearly revealed the characteristics of well- 
 defined species. No transitional forms could be dis- 
 covered; the points of difference between the four 
 were unvarying." ^) 
 
 2. The progress is least in those tracts that were 
 longest buried under ice and water, as it happened to 
 the Central Alps and the regions along the northern 
 and north-western coasts of middle Europe. Here the 
 differentiation has scarcely begun. 
 
 3. Between these two extremities a wide region of 
 transition intervenes, where the differentiation of the 
 generic type of the Dinarda is still in a state of pro- 
 gressive development. Though this latter statement, 
 as restricted by Wasmann himself, is still somewhat 
 hypothetical in its generalization, still the fact remains 
 that especially the Dinarda pygmaea offers a striking 
 example of specific evolution going on under our very eyes. 
 By way of varieties and races it has attained different 
 stages of perfection at different points of its geographical 
 distribution. 
 
 1) Biologisches Centralbl., XXI., p. 708. 
 
Io6 DARWINISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 The factors that were and are still active in this 
 evolution are, next of all, an intrinsic principle of 
 development acting in harmony with an external 
 directive which, in the case under consideration, can 
 easily be detected in the difference of the ants that 
 harbor the Dinardae in their nests. 
 
 The objection that the four Dinardae are not to be 
 regarded as four different species, does not weaken 
 the force of our argument. For, granted they be only 
 races, they are by no means equivalent racesy but such as 
 have reached different stages on the way of specific develop- 
 ment and differentiation. 
 
 Consequently, far from being surprised, we find 
 it very reasonable that at the end of his learned 
 treatise and substantial explanation, Wasmann comes 
 to the conclusion : '*If one could prove that all these 
 facts (Wasmann mentions many more, the argumenta- 
 tive value of which is of an indirect character) can be 
 accounted for equally well or even better without 
 accepting the theory of evolution, then I admit that 
 this theory in the present case at least is not sufiici- 
 ently upheld by facts. If not, no one can blame me, 
 for acknowledging that theory as the best explanation 
 of facts otherwise inexplicable. ' ' ^) 
 
 These are the arguments proposed by Hugo de 
 Vries and B. Wasmann. What are we to think of 
 them? They evidently deny the absolute constancy of 
 specific characters and maintain that the idea of a 
 saltatory evolution proceeding from an intrinsic prin- 
 ciple and under the guidance of an external directive is 
 no longer a mere hypothesis, but a fact supported by 
 direct arguments of considerable weight and probabil- 
 1) Biol. Centralbl., XXI., p. 750. 
 
KVOI.UTION AND THK NATURAI, SCIENCES. 1 07 
 
 ity. How far this probability goes, is difficult to state. 
 As far as Wasmann's argument, at least, is concerned, 
 an unusual and very minute knowledge of the structure 
 and habits of tiny insects is required for the full 
 appreciation of the facts. 
 
 This much, however, is certain that no one can 
 object to the arguments of the two scientists on the ground 
 of religion or ^philosophy, unless he mistake the meaning 
 of evolution, nor on the ground of the natural sciences, 
 unless he be able to disprove the facts or to show that the 
 acceptance of evolution is unnecessary to understand and 
 explain them. 
 
 It may be added that paleontology offers a great 
 many facts which at least indirectly point to the same 
 conclusion suggested by the arguments of de Vries and 
 Wasmann. In case of the Equidae (horse), for in- 
 stance, there can hardly be any doubt that we have a 
 true specific development. For the progressive changes 
 observed in a good many species of successive geo- 
 logical periods do not only refer to a single organ, 
 but (i) to the tarsi of the fore-foot, (2) to those of the 
 hind-foot, (3) to the radius and ulna, (4) to the tibia 
 and fibula, (5) to the length and convolutions of the 
 teeth. Other facts of a similar nature refer to the 
 Brachiopod-genus Lingula, the well-known Nautilus- 
 species, to the Ammonites, and to many insects such 
 as the Phasmidae, the Paussidae and others. 
 
 2. It is still impossible to define how far within the 
 realm of plant and animal life the principles of evolution 
 are to be applied. It is certain that the evidence in 
 favor of specific development becomes weaker and 
 weaker, the greater the number of different species 
 which are compared with each other. In case of the 
 
I08 DARWINISM AND EVOI.UTION. 
 
 so-called sub-kingdoms and main classes, probabilities 
 become mere 'possibilities^ so that we cannot make any 
 reliable statement concerning their origin. "The ab- 
 sence of life," says Conn, "in rocks older than the 
 Silurian, shrouds in absolute darkness the origin of 
 :he various sub-kingdoms and classes, for, at the very 
 first glimpse we have of life they were as widely apart 
 as they are now."^) Again: "Before the Silurian 
 age is over, all of the important classes have made 
 their appearance without previous warning." ^) 
 
 Similarly Geikie : "Ferns, equisetums, and lyco- 
 pods appear as far back as the Old Red Sandstone, 
 not in simple or more generalised, but in more com- 
 plex structures than their living representatives. The 
 earliest known conifers were well-developed trees 
 with woody structure and fruits as highly differen- 
 tiated as those of the living type. . . ." ^) 
 
 Moreover, fossils like the famous "bird-reptile" 
 Archeopteryx and the well-known toothed birds of 
 the Cretaceous Era can hardly figure as evident con- 
 necting links. 
 
 We do not know how many primitive species were 
 originally called into existence by God; nor can we 
 tell ivhether these primitive species were produced simul- 
 taneously or only after shorter or longer intervals. We 
 are also more or less ignorant of the individual, in- 
 ternal and external causes at work in the different 
 specific evolutions. Not until years of unceasing 
 scientific investigation have elapsed can we reason- 
 ably hope to unravel such and similar secrets, and it 
 
 1. c, p. 117. 
 
 2) 1. c. p. 96. 
 
 3) I.e., p. 666. 
 
BVOI<UTION AND THK NATURAI. SCI^NCE^. 109 
 
 is doubtful whether the natural sciences will unravel 
 them at all. 
 
 What, therefore, is the attitude of the natural 
 sciences towards evolution ? 
 
 First of all they confirm the verdict passed by faith 
 and reason, according to which the theory of evolu- 
 tion is kept within due limits. Furthermore, they fur- 
 nish us at least a few facts which, with great probabil- 
 ity, must be interpreted in favor of specific develop- 
 ment. It is meanwhile impossible to determine the 
 number of species which have been developed from a 
 primitive type originally produced by God. At any 
 rate, to adopt the principles of evolution as probable, is 
 safe and sensible. However, one could hardily be cen- 
 sured as unreasonable, were he to suspend his judgment. 
 For, as the theory stands today, it is still in a very 
 primitive state, being supported only by probable argu- 
 ments, which can be fully appreciated only by speci- 
 alists. A hostile attitude, however, is unpardonable and 
 cannot be defended, except weighty reasons be advanced, 
 such as wotdd satisfactorily account for the facts of Was- 
 mann and de Vries without implying evolution, 
 
 C0NC1.USION. 
 
 Thus we have reached the end — and we venture 
 to hope — the purpose of our inquiry. L,et us briefly 
 review its result. 
 
 The word ** Darwinism" is used in four different 
 meanings. In the first place, it denotes Darwin's 
 theory of natural selection; secondly, HaeckeVs monism; 
 thirdly, man^s animal descent; fourthly, the theory of 
 evolution as opposed to the theory of constancy. 
 
no DARWINISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 The last signification of Darwinism is an abuse of 
 the term, which merely serves to create bias and con- 
 fusion. 
 
 Darwinism, properly so called, is to be unconditionally 
 rejected. For ( i) Darwin^ s theory is insufficient in prin- 
 ciple and contradicted by facts. 
 
 (2) HaeckeVs monism is not only a philosophical 
 absurdity, but on account of its atheistic character 
 undermines the very groundwork of religion and mor- 
 ality. 
 
 (3) Similarly the doctrine of man^s animal descent 
 is directly opposed to faith, and from a philosophical 
 point of view untenable. For man possesses a spiritual 
 soul. Nor does manh body descend from the animal, 
 it being directly produced by God. Every attempt to 
 argue to the contrary from a scientific basis has proved 
 to be a failure. 
 
 The theory of evolution, on the other hand, is a 
 harmless doctrine which belongs entirely to the domain 
 of the natural sciences. For this theory does not con- 
 sider the origin of life, nor the origin of man. It sup- 
 poses, moreover, intrinsic causes of development and rests 
 on the principle that God does not act by direct and 
 personal intervention, if secondary or created causes 
 can achieve the same results. Hence the theory of evo- 
 lution is not opposed to faith, nor does it contradict the 
 principles of reason. On the contrary, being in full har- 
 mony with the Christian view of creation, it is supported 
 by facts, the probable argumentative force of which can 
 hardly be denied. 
 
Skeleton of man and gorilla, the later unnaturally stretched. 
 
 (Ranke.) 
 
Skullcap of Pithecanthropus erectus. 
 (Dubois.) 
 
 The Neanderthal Skullcap. 
 
 (Macnamara) 
 
Oenothera Lamarckiana. 
 
 (DeVries.) 
 
Oenothera gigas, originated in 1895. 
 
 (DeVries.) 
 
Princeton Theological Seminary Libraries 
 
 1 1012 01247 9483 
 
 DATE DUE 
 
 "^Mlti^^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 liyf'- " '^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 CAYLORO 
 
 
 
 PRINTEOINO.S.A.