,-' "IjpmtXefe Boohs-
\ for- tie 0n&<$nsg 0,^fig0^ in this ColonyP

""""** ¦ -"¦t»»mi« ^gj u*^ *.'«. HB^BSBBBS

Bought with the income
of the
Samuel Lockwood Fund
 i  ","*"1 ' "¦• "

THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE

THE CHURCH AND
SCIENCE

BY
SIR BERTRAM C. A. WINDLE
M.A., M.D., Sc.D., LL.D., F.R.S., F.S.A.,
M.R.I.A., K.S.G.
of st. Michael's college, toronto
late president of university college, cork

Scientia sine caritate inflat ; caritas sine scientia aberrat ;
scientia cum caritate aedificat

FOURTH THOUSAND

LONDON
CATHOLIC TRUTH SOCIETY
69 SOUTHWARK BRIDGE ROAD, S.E. 1
1920

First Edition , ,

- W7

Second Edition

. IQ17

Reprinted . ,

IQ2Q

TO
HIS EMINENCE
CARDINAL GASQUET, O.S.B,
THIS BOOK
WITH HIS PERMISSION
IS DEDICATED
IN TOKEN OF AN OLD UNBROKEN
AND MUCH-VALUED
FRIENDSHIP

PREFACE
THIS is not what is commonly called a work of recon
ciliation ; it is rather one of delimitation and ex
planation. Its first object is to present an outline of
the attitude of Science to-day towards various problems,
physical and biological, and to show how very few of these
problems come in any way into contact with dogmatic
religion. If some writers were to be believed, there exists
¦and must always exist between the Church and Science so
fundamental and inexorable an enmity that it is utterly
impossible for any person honestly to serve both. That
such is not the case is proved by scores of instances
which need not here be insisted upon. Another of the
chief objects of this book is to show why this is so, and in
cidentally to make clear how wide a range for speculation the
Church permits — even, for example, on such a subject as the
interpretation of the first chapter of Genesis.
On the other hand, no attempt has been made to minim
ise the teachings of the Church, nor is it denied that there
are points where her teaching and the theories of certain
men of science come into direct conflict. But a further
¦object of the book is to make it clear that these are theories,
at present unproved and perhaps insusceptible of convinc
ing proof ; that scores and scores of such theories have been
put forward and will continue to be put forward ; that
scores and scores of them have been thrown on the scrap-
heap of abandoned ideas, whither others will follow them ;
and that the believer in Christianity may possess his soul
in patience, well aware that no theory which is really in
opposition to revelation can be true.
In compiling this work the author has naturally con
sulted and utilised many scores of books, to whose authors
he now expresses his grateful acknowledgements. He has
received much assistance from kind friends. To Fathei
Maher, d.lit., S.J., who has read the entire book in MS.,

viii THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
and to A. J. Rahilly, m.a., b.sc, who has read the greater
part of it, his thanks are specially due for the trouble which
they have taken and for the valuable assistance which they
have given him. Sir Oliver Lodge, f.r.s., and Professor J.
Joly, f.r.s., were also good enough to help him in connection
with special points, but these gentlemen, needless to say,
are in no way committed to or responsible for the substance
of the book. The Most Rev. Dr. Cohalan, Bishop of Cork, and
the Right Rev. Abbot Bergh, o.s.b., also assisted with
advice, and Mr. James Britten, k.s.g., has been good
enough to make various suggestions whilst the work was
passing through the press. To all these the author's
thanks are due and are most sincerely rendered.
The author has at times made raids upon works of his own
where subjects of an identical character were under discussion
and where he did not see his way to improve on his earlier
statements. It is a great source of satisfaction to him to know
that the sections dealing with theological and philosophical
matters have been carefully examined by more than one
competent critic. That these sections have been seen and
approved leads him to hope that he may not have gone
astray in regions with which he is necessarily only super
ficially acquainted. All such theological and philosophical
statements are, as far as he is concerned, made subject to
correction. „ n . „.
B. C. A. W.
University College, Cork.
December, 1916.
PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION
A second edition of this book having been called for in,
to me, an unexpectedly short time, it has not seemed neces
sary to do more than make a few additions which have been
noted since the volume appeared.
I would like to thank my reviewers for the kindly reception
which they have given to the book. Some of them have
suggested additional chapters or subjects for treatment:
I have, however, felt that the book is long enough, nor am
I the person to deal with some of the matters which they
have indicated. B. C. A. W.
October, 1917.

CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE.
I. Introductory — Science : its Scope and Limits i
II. Religion — Its Scope and Limits . . 12
III. The Relation of the Church and Popes to
Science — Galileo . . . .22
IV. Philosophy . . . . .33
V. Facts and Theories — Important Distinction 44
VI. " Space " and the Ether of Space . . 57
VII. Matter and the Electrical Theory of
Matter . . . . .66
VIII. Facts and Theories once more . . 77
IX. Matter and Form . . . 87
X. The Universe . . . . .96
XI. The Origin of the Universe . . . 107
XII. The Origin of the Universe (concluded) . 118
XIII. Laws of Nature — Prayer . . .131
XIV. Miracles . . . 142
XV. .Geology ..... 156
XVI. The Seven Days of Creation . . 171
XVII. The Seven Days of Creation [concluded) . 186
XVIII. Early Man — Some Preliminary Considera
tions ..... 192
XIX. Early Man — Arch^ological Time and its
Divisions ..... 200
XX. Early Man — His Implements and some Con
siderations thereon . . . 208
ix

x THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
CHAPTER *AGE
XXI. Early Man— Account of Discoveries of
Early Skeletons . • .219
XXII. Early Man — Classification — Prehis
toric Periods . 229
XXIII. The Glacial Period . • • 24<>
XXIV. The Age of the Earth and the Age of
Man on it . . • • 256
XXV. Life— Vitalism— Materialism . . 271
XXVI. The Cell— Its Characteristics . . 280
XXVII. Vitalism— I . . . .290
XXVIII. Vitalism— II . . . ¦ 297
XXIX. Vitalism— III . . . .305
XXX. The Origin of Life . . . 3l6
XXXI. Transformism — Some Preliminary Con
siderations .... 325
XXXII. Transformism and Creation . . 333
XXXIII. Transformism — Heredity and Variation 340
XXXIV. Darwin and Natural Selection . . 350
XXXV. Doubts as to Darwinism — Mendel and
his Discoveries . . . 361
XXXVI. Transformism — A Summing-up . . 370
XXXVII. Man and His Origin — His Bodily Part . 379
XXXVIII. Man and His Origin — His Spiritual Part 389
XXXIX. Man and His Origin — His Spiritual Part
(concluded) .... 396
XL. A Few Final Considerations . . 404

SYNOPSIS OF CHAPTERS

CHAPTER I
The Church unaltering in her doctrines but accords full liberty in pace
doubtful cases — Science, what is meant by it — Ascertainment
and verification of facte — Science does not cover the whole
field of knowledge — Science must make an Act of Faith in the
reality of things — Pragmatism ...... I
CHAPTER II
There are wide fields of knowledge over which religion has no
sway — Why is there any conflict between Science and Religion ?
— Theophobia — Attempts to discredit the Church — Fallopius and
Fossils — Huxley and Bathybius . . . . . .12
CHAPTER III
The Popes and Science — Alleged prohibition of dissection — Real
facts of the case — Aristotelomania — Temper of the time — Sarsi
and Lord Bacon — Kepler and the University of Tubingen —
Galileo and the two theories of the solar system — His condemna
tion — Catholic and non-Catholic opinions on this — The subse
quent history of Copernicanism . . . . . .22
CHAPTER IV
Philosophy : what is meant by the term — Scholastic Philosophy —
Not to be confused with Scholastic Theology — Nor to be regarded
as based upon it — Ancient solutions of questions, once derided,
now accepted in principle — The decadence of Scholasticism and
its revival .......... 33
CHAPTER V
Facts and Theories and their relation to one another — An explana
tion may explain yet be false — A Fact cannot conflict with a
dogma though a Theory may — Linnaean and Natural classification
of plants — Leo XIII and the Providentissimus Deus — Father
Hull on the policy of the Church when confronted with a new
idea ........... 44

xii THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
CHAPTER VI
Vagueness in Science — The Ether of Space — How is action at a pack
distance to be explained unless there is a continuum ? — Ether is
luminiferous, i.e. transmits radiations from the sun and other like
bodies — It is dense — It is frictionless — It is incompressible — It
is omnipresent and permeates all matter— A note on " Space " . 57
CHAPTER VII
Materia Prima or prothyle — -Richard Boyle and his " Skyptical
Chymist" (1661) — Molecules and Atoms — Mendeleefi's Law —
The Electrical Theory of Matter — Electrons and Ether — Electrons
and the Atom — The Disintegration Theory of Radio-activity . 66
CHAPTER VIII
Theories prematurely claimed as facts — " Laws " of Nature — Laws
of reflection — Once more a Fact and a Theory and the difference
between them — The Chemical Elements — A partial truth may
be useful for a long time — Attitude of Catholics to apparent
difficulties .......... 77
CHAPTER IX
Scholastic idea of Matter and Form — Matter the basis ; Form the
determinant — The Form may change — The animal soul — The
rational soul — Difference between Scholastic idea of Matter and
the Electrical Theory of the same — Rehgion does not stand or
fall by Scholastic Philosophy — A note on various " Forms " . 87
CHAPTER X
The solar system — Astronomical units — The solar system and the
Universe — " Light-years " — The Pole-star and its distance —
Size of the Visible Universe — The Milky Way and the solar
system — Space and the Universe — Time — Space and God . . 96
CHAPTER XI
Nebulae and their composition — Spectra of nebulas — Laplace's
Nebular Hypothesis — Radiation of heat from the sun  How is
it explicable ? — The Meteoric Hypothesis — Radium and the sun 
The ancient climates of the earth and how we come to know
anything about them ....... I07
CHAPTER XII
Du Bois Reymond's Seven Enigmas — Matter must have been
created or it must be self-existing and alive — Haeckel's " Law
of Substance " — Lord Kelvin declared that Science positively
affirms creative power — How the end of the world may come
about — Constant degradation of energy — The clock running
down must once have been wound up . . . . 118

SYNOPSIS OF CHAPTERS xiii

CHAPTER XIII
Different kinds of Laws — A Law-Giver or Chance-Medley — PAOB
Different kinds of universes are conceivable, but there is only one
realised — Laws and Law-Giver — Prayer — The human will can
alter the operation of Nature — The Universe is not a rigidly
connected system . . . . . . . . .131
CHAPTER XIV
Definition of a Miracle — Apostolic and post-Apostolic Miracles —
Lourdes — Hume and Huxley on Miracles — Hysteria — Sugges
tion—Instantaneous cures — Spinoza and Miracles — Result of
explaining away of Miracles . . . . . . .142
CHAPTER XV
Division of Geological Studies — Dynamical Geology — Stratigraphical
Geology — Action of Rivers — Of Ice and Frost — Palaeontology —
Geological Formations and the evidences of life which they
contain .......... 156
CHAPTER XVI
Primary intention of early chapters of Genesis — Interpretation of
Scripture — " Days " of Creation — Anthropomorphic idea of God
inevitable though inaccurate — A suggested harmony between
the Biblical account of Creative and Scientific discoveries. . 171
CHAPTER XVII
Other permissible methods of exegesis — A Liturgical formula — A
series of dissolving views — An allegorical drama — An Epic —
Dangers of premature reconciliations — A further suggestion . 186
CHAPTER XVIII
Implements constructed by Early Man — Arrow-heads and Stone
Axes — Primitive pottery — Evolution of Bicycle and Lamp —
Belief in a Future Life . . . . . . . .192
CHAPTER XIX
Historical Time — Archaeological Time — Geological Time — How far
back can we trace Historical Time ? — Stone and Bronze Ages —
The Early Iron Age  200
CHAPTER XX
Considerations arising out of discovery of human bones in con
nection with prehistoric implements — The Neanderthal Skull —
Thenay and Puy Courny Flints — Eoliths and the controversy
respecting them — Icenian implements — Stratigraphical position
of objects — Relation between bones and implements . . . 208

xiv THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE

, CHAPTER XXI
Trinil remains discovered by Dubois — The Neanderthal Skull — page:
Cranial capacity — Size of brain in relation to mental capacity —
The Piltdown Skull— The Heidelberg Jaw — Races of Prehistoric
Man ........... 219-
CHAPTER XXII
Classification of Early Men — Pre-Palasolithic, Palaeolithic, and
other Periods — Characters of implements and of civilisation —
Prehistoric art — Early men in America ..... 229
CHAPTER XXIII
Suggested causes of the Glacial Epoch — Croll's Astronomical Theory
— Limits of ice during Glacial Period — Great thickness of ice —
Milder intervals during the period — The Mammoth — The Hiatus
— The Recent Period ... .... 24a
CHAPTER XXIV
" Geological clocks " — Rate of deposition of stalagmite — Solvent
denudation and the age of the ocean — Thicknesses of strata —
Calculations in actual years, their discrepancies — G. F. Wright's
view and that of Penck — Swedish laminated marine clays — The
Gorge of Niagara — Date of appearance of man — The Church and
Chronology  256-
CHAPTER XXV
Living and not-living objects — Definition of Life — The " Some
thing " over — Vitalism — History of its decadence and revival
—The " Vital Principle " — Result of denying its existence . 271
CHAPTER XXVI
The cell — its parts and constitution — The Amoeba — Its characters and
life — history — irritability and tactisms  280-
CHAPTER XXVII
Development of embryo from single cell — Bearing upon the machine
theory — The Amphioxus or Lancelet — Its development — The
frog's egg — Experimental derangements of development — Each
a law unto itself — Pharaoh's serpents .... 290.

worrr

CHAPTER XXVIII
Repair of injuries in living things— Regeneration in the salamander
and other living things— The lens of the tiiton—Clavellina
lepadiformis — Driesch's " harmonious-equipotential system " . 297

CHAPTER XXXIII

3°5

SYNOPSIS OF CHAPTERS Xv

CHAPTER XXIX
The Law of the Conservation of Energy — Steady diminution of
available energy of universe — Relation of the above Law to
Vitalistic question — The Law may be incomplete — Some sug
gestions as to the apparent opposition between the Law and
facts ........... CHAPTER XXX
Stages in development of organic world where a new cause or power
must have come into action — Spontaneous generation — St.
Thomas Aquinas and Avicenna — Biogenesis and Abiogenesis —
Redi and his experiments — Needham . and Spallanzani — Pasteur
— Present position of controversy . . . . . .316
CHAPTER XXXI
Origination and Maintenance of Life — The Creator and human beings
— Time and Eternity — The " Nowness " of God — Process of
Creation — The God of Christians and the god of Bergson . . 325
CHAPTER XXXII
Transformism defined — St. Augustine and " potential " creation —
Opinions of St. Thomas Aquinas and others — Mediate creation —
Tom the Water-Baby — Monophyletic and polyphyletic evolu
tion — Fr. Wasmann's views . . • .

333

Heredity — Its vehicle — Pangenesis — Unconscious memory — " Ar
rangement " — Inheritance of acquired characters — Lamarck and
variation — Germinal selection ...... 340
CHAPTER XXXIV
" The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection " — The con
stant number of living things — How its constancy is provided for
— The giraffe according to Darwin and Lamarck — De Vries on
Natural Selection — The Argument from Design — Paley's Evi
dences — A restatement of the argument — Nature and Christianity
— Human Life under rigid Naturalistic methods . . . 350
CHAPTER XXXV
Progress and scepticism in Science — Doubts as to Natural Selection
— Saltations or Mutations — A series of Sweet Peas — The Pedigree
of the Horse — " Inhibited " qualities — Mendel and his theories
and laws — Tall and dwarf Peas — The Law and the Law-Giver . 361

ui pvjiy jju.y i^lii^ :  vuuvbigi^
Fathers and Evolution — God and Creation . -37°
CHAPTER XXXVII
Man's Body and Soul — Creation of man was dual — Man anatomically
an ape — The common origin of the two used as a working hypo
thesis — No conclusive proof of it — " Gradual accumulations " the
difficulty in case of man — His brain — Was it a Mutation ? —
The attitude of the Church on this matter to-day . . -379
CHAPTER XXXVIII
Matters de fide fewer than commonly thought — The immortal soul —
A. R. Wallace's three stages in the development of the organic
world — " Gratuitous gifts " — The Soul, definition of — Relation
to theory of Matter and Form . . . . . .389
CHAPTER XXXIX
Ideahstic Monism — Dr. Johnson and Matter — The Universal Con
sciousness — Ethical dilemma — Materialistic Monism — The brain
and its physics — The brain and thought — Human and Anthro
poid brains, their likeness — Yet the great unlikeness of the pro
duct — Dr. McDougall on Parallelism and Animism . . . 396
CHAPTER XL
Religion and Science, their respective spheres — Horace Walpole on
Scientific theories — Constant changes of scientific opinion natural
and explicable — The glory and greatness of Science — Need for
humility  .4o4

THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
CHAPTER I
SCIENCE : ITS SCOPE AND LIMITS
WHEN one starts upon a task such as that with which
this book is concerned, one cannot but be struck
by two considerations. In the first place, their objects
being so different, why should there be any need to state,
still less to attempt to adjust, the relations existing between
the Church and Science? That such need must exist is
proved by the vast number of books which have been
written with no other object than that just mentioned.
Their number, in fact, is the second of the two considera
tions alluded to above. With regard to these points a few
words may be said, leaving their further consideration to be
treated in the succeeding pages.
The Church is unaltering in her doctrines — in the essence
of the inner meanings of her doctrines -at any rate, however
much her comprehension of the bearings of some of them
on extrinsic problems may gradually come to be enlarged.
But this is not to say that in doubtful matters, fringing
greater questions as to which her opinion has never been
otherwise than definite, the accredited exponents of her
doctrine may not and do not pass from one opinion to
another in view of new facts and discoveries.
In dubiis libertas is a part of her motto often forgotten
by her adversaries, who are never tired of picturing her to
their public alternately as a fossilised organisation incapable
of any intellectual life and, on the other hand, as torn by
fierce and internecine quarrels as to questions of doctrine.

2 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
As a matter of fact, they fail to grasp the difference between
articles of faith and minor items as to which no decision
has ever been given and on which every Catholic is entitled
to form his own opinion. On such points, as every student
of history knows, there have been violent and, it may even
be admitted, at times unseemly controversies. And con
troversies there are to the present day, but not respecting
the dogmas of the Church, as defined in her creeds and in
other definite and authentic pronouncements. From this
point of view of course she is unchanging. It can scarcely
seem reasonable to any thinking person that, if a Divine
Revelation were given to man, it should not be perfectly
definite as to those points which must be held by those who
wish to save their souls by it. We are not now arguing the
case for a Revelation ; that is the province of other writers.
In this particular work we assume the fact that a Revelation
has been made to man and that the Catholic Church is its
custodian and the judge of what is meant by any particular
doctrine. This book is not a compendium of Apologetics ; it deals
with a special branch of the subject, and with that alone.
This statement is made lest it should be supposed that we
are here assuming the very point which we ought to set out
to prove, namely, the position and authority of the Church.
Our position, on the contrary, is briefly this : assuming
that the Church is what she claims to be, what are the exact
relations which she bears to the science of the day and
those which the science of the day bears towards her ?
Having thus defined the exact scope of this book, it may be
well to define the terms which we have just been employing,
on the excellent principle that we should be quite clear as
to what we are talking about before we begin to talk
about it.
The subjects under discussion in this book are the Church
and Science. For our present purposes we may equate the
Church and Religion, and speak, as so many others have
done, of the relations between Science and Religion.
These two terms, then, come first before us for con
sideration and definition. Inseparably connected with
them is yet a third term, that of Philosophy, which must by

SCIENCE— ANCIENT AND MODERN 3
no means be omitted from this preliminary consideration,
if only because so much confusion exists outside the Church
—perhaps indeed within it in the case of her less-instructed
members — as to the true" relations between the Scholastic
Philosophy and Scholastic Theology. As they form the
framework of this book, these three terms must neces
sarily appear time and again in it, nor can their con
nections and limitations be fully developed save by a
gradual process. But, even though this be so, the ground
must be broken by some general observations before, in
the words of the Scottish legal phrase, we can " condescend
to particulars."
Like many other terms which are constantly on our
tongues, the term Science is one which bears to-day a
very different significance, and, it may be added, a very much
narrower significance, than that which it once possessed.
When Milton, for example, spoke in his " Areopagitica " of
" the seven liberall sciences," he did not mean what we
should mean to-day. He was alluding to the two classical
groupings of learning — the " Trivium," consisting of Gram
mar, Logic, and Rhetoric, and the " Quadrivium," consisting
of Arithmetic, Music, Geometry, and Astronomy. Now it
is clear that in this classification there are included a number
of subjects which would never rise to the mind to-day
when the term science is used, such as Grammar, Rhetoric,
and Music, which last, though it involves scientific prin
ciples no doubt, would still be reckoned by us rather among
the arts than among the sciences. For the term science has
become narrowed down to that form of knowledge which
deals with the observation of phenomena — to what in truth
is really Physical Science, in which we include such branches
as Physics, Chemistry, and Biology, with all their numerous
sub-divisions. Sir Norman Lockyer sums up the work of
Science, as thus understood, quite fully and quite adequately
when he says that " The work of the true man of science is
a perpetual striving after a better and closer knowledge of
the planet on which his lot is cast, and of the universe in
the vastness of which that planet is lost."
First and foremost, then, Science deals with ascertained
facts. Some might even be inclined to limit its sphere to

4 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
the collection, classification, and proximate explanation1 of
facts, and to assert that, when scientific men desert that
narrow path, they stray into the fields of philosophy. Of
this more in a moment, but with regard to these " facts " —
and far more, let it be parenthetically said, with regard to
these philosophisings — if it is not already known to the
reader — it will become abundantly clear, as he makes his
way through this book, that Science has been constantly
changing her mind both as to facts and as to the philo
sophical conclusions derivable from them. In the nature
of things, since we can only arrive at unrevealed knowledge
step by step, this must be so ; but it helps us to understand
a consideration mentioned at the commencement of this
chapter and left for fuller consideration until the argument
had been sufficiently developed.
We were considering why the positions of the Church
and of Science towards one another required re-stating so
frequently as it would appear that they do. That this is
largely due to the fluctuating nature of scientific opinion, the
necessarily fluctuating character of that opinion, will be
come abundantly obvious to any reader of this book.
Apart, however, from the collection of facts, Science is
concerned, and, as will be seen shortly, necessarily and
usefully concerned in forming deductions from the facts
which she has collected, in fact of philosophising from them.
This exceedingly important branch of her work is also very
highly contentious and brings science into touch with other
branches of knowledge and other realms of thought. It
was chiefly, though of course not by any means only of
this aspect of science that Huxley was thinking when he
wrote: "Science is, I believe, nothing but trained and
organised common sense."8 Science observes the facts of
nature by means of the senses, aided nowadays by all sorts
of truly marvellous pieces of apparatus, such as the tele
scope and microscope. So much have we come to rely on
these aids that it is difficult for those unacquainted with
1 By " proximate explanation " is meant the reduction of facts under
general laws ; whereas philosophising proper is the tracing them back to
ultimate or transcendental causes, causes which lie beyond the ranee of
material experience. 5
2 In one of his "Lay Sermons" (1870, p. 86).

SPECIALISATION «
scientific history to suppose it possible for any real progress
to have been made without them. Yet Tycho Brahe
established an observatory on a little island near Elsinore,
made memorable to us by " Hamlet," an observatory which
was very remarkable as being destitute of a telescope, and
this for the very excellent reason that that instrument had
not then been invented. Of course he had other and even
elaborate apparatus with which he made extraordinarily
accurate observations, but he had no telescope. Yet it
was on the observations thus made that the great discoveries
of Kepler and the epoch-making conclusions of Newton
were founded. With or without instruments Science makes
observations out of doors and in laboratories where, with
the aid of apparatus of almost inconceivable delicacy and
ingenuity, she endeavours to wrest her secrets from
nature. The ascertainment and verification of facts is the object
of the observations of which we have just been speaking.
When collected they must be sorted out and arranged. It
is found that some of them fall into definite categories ;
classification can now be effected. Then, as already stated,
deductions come to be made and so-called " Laws of Nature "
are formulated. It must be noted, however, that the
enormous, almost incredible growth of science during the
past half-century has brought about an extreme specialisa
tion which if inevitable is none the less regrettable. Time
was, and that only a few years ago, when there were many
real biologists working in the field of science. Nowadays
these are divided up into Zoologists, Botanists, Geologists,
Physiologists, Bio-Chemists, and so on, each knowing but
little of any subject save that included in his own specialty.
And within these specialties are others even more minute.
Every reading person will remember the late Oliver Wendell
Holmes's " Scarabee " — the enthusiast who would not call
himself an entomologist, hardly even a coleopterist, but
who would go to his grave quite contentedly if he could
solve the question as to whether " the Pediculus Melittce
is or is not the larva of Meloe." The writer in question was,
as some people are prone to forget, a teacher of science,
and knew what he was talking about : his satire is hardly

6 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
an exaggeration. Another thing which must be noted
respecting the growth of specialisation in biological science
is the divorce which it has brought about between field
and laboratory work, though an exception should be made
in the case of geology. This has led the laboratory workers,
who are the enormous majority, rather to look upon the
field worker as an amateur, in spite of the great memories
of Darwin and Wallace. Such is the fashion of the day.
And the laboratory workers are undoubtedly too prone to
forget that the prime fact about living nature is that it is
alive. For the most part in their laboratories they study
dead nature, and very naturally they come to dwell, for
the most part, on its attributes when dead. For example,
how many persons who read about the characters and
chemical aspects of protoplasm have it really borne in upon
their minds that most of the things which we know about
that very important substance, and all the things which
we know about its chemistry, are known about dead
protoplasm, and are to be accepted with that reserva
tion? We may grant that the extreme specialisation to which
we have alluded has resulted in a wonderful progress in
scientific knowledge, but we are obliged also to admit that
it cannot but have a narrowing effect upon the specialisers :
since, after all, the human mind will always consider that
the problems upon which it is engaged surpass in importance
all others, and in consequence will conclude that the " laws "
which appear to be detectable in its own branch of work
must also exercise an overmastering power over those
who may endeavour to take a wider survey of scientific
ideas. And, of course, when it comes to philosophising, it is
obvious that little which is of any value in that direction
can be accomplished by any one who cannot take a fairly
comprehensive view of the general facts of science.
These moralisations respecting the effect of specialisa
tion on science may perhaps be pardoned because they
certainly tend to explain some of the curious statements
made from time to time by very eminent specialists.
But the main point which we had before us when this

MEASURABLE KNOWLEDGE 7
digression was entered upon, was the methodology of Science.
As we have seen, this consists in the observation of natural
facts by the use of the unaided or aided senses and
by experiments of all kinds ; of the classification of the
facts thus laid hold upon ; and, finally, of the codifica
tion of the laws which seem to guide the operations of
nature. .With all its wide scope and its many conquests, it must
not be forgotten that Science does not cover the whole
field of knowledge. Enthusiastic writers — usually not themr
selves great authorities in any branch of science but rather
exponents to the populace of other persons' work — on the
principle that "there is nothing like leather," seem some
times to forget this fact, but it is none the less true. As
just stated, whether we study science or literature, or com
parative mythology, or whatever it may be, we are all of
us prone to consider the studies in which we are engrossed
as of paramount importance. We are constantly exposed
to the temptation of imagining that in our own line of
study is to be found the key which will unlock all the secret
chambers of the universe when we shall have discovered
how to fit it into the wards. When one considers all the
circumstances this is a perfectly natural obsession ; but none
the less it is an obsession, as we shall see if we look at the
matter a little more closely.
In the first place, confining ourselves for the moment
to the obvious limitations of Science, it is clear that
there are a whole range of common experiences which
are totally outside the sphere of scientific study. Sir
Oliver Lodge in his address to the British Association,1
dealt with this aspect of the case as follows : " The
fact is that some of the best things are, by abstrac
tion, excluded from Science, though not from Literature
and Poetry ; hence perhaps an ancient mistrust or dislike
of science, typified by the Promethean legend. Science is
systematised and metrical knowledge, and in regions where
measurement cannot be applied it has small scope ; or, as
1 Also published as " Continuity," London, Dent, 191 3, under which
caption it will be quoted in these pages: this quotation is from
p. 12.

8 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
Mr. Balfour said the other day at the opening of a new
wing of the National Physical Laboratory, ' Science depends
on measurement, and things not measurable are there
fore excluded, or tend to be excluded, from its attention.
But Life and Beauty and Happiness are not measurable.'
And then characteristically he adds : ' If there could
be a unit of happiness, Politics might begin to be
scientific' "
There is, however, another limitation which does not so
readily occur to the mind of the general reader.
Before beginning her work Science must make her Act
of Faith. She must recite her Credo as to the reality of the
things with which she has to do ; in the reality of the
External World and not less in the uniformity of its
processes. On this point it may be well to say a few
words. Perhaps the most awkward and difficult question of
Philosophy is that which asks : " What ground have I for
believing in the existence of a Material World outside of,
and independent of, my own thought ? " The Absolute
Sceptic (philosophically speaking) would reply that there
are no grounds and that all that we think that we observe
is an illusion. With such there can be no argument, since
they place themselves outside all discussion. The Idealist
is a considerably mitigated form of the last, who, however,
denies the existence of an independent material world.
Locke upheld the theory that we do not know things but
only ideas excited in us by them. Berkeley carried this idea
still further by asking how it is possible for us to know that
there is anything behind these ideas to which they may be
properly attributed. For, he argued, our ideas may be
communicated to us by the direct action of God, without
the intervention of any material objects, which, on this
theory, do not exist. Thus Berkeley got rid of the material
object of knowledge. Hume went a step further and got
rid of the perceiving subject or soul : for he argued that
whilst we do know our impressions and ideas, we cannot
know anything of the mind which receives them, so that
we have no right to believe in the existence of any abiding
mental reality in ourselves as the subject of these ideas and

IDEALISM g
impressions. But, if that be true, then both object and
subject wholly disappear and the whole universe vanishes
into unreality.
It is obviously impossible to enter into any detailed
discussion of these philosophical points in such a work as
this : those who desire to follow it more fully must be
referred to the many standard philosophical treatises which
deal with it.1 All that need here be said is that if these
views are true it is waste of time to bestow any consider
ation on science and scientific problems.
Of course Science makes her Act of Faith and has, as
most " common-sense " persons will say, abundant reason
for doing so. For example, physicians all the world over
administer certain drugs, and, be it remembered, administer
them to patients who do not know what is being adminis
tered to them, nor the effect which it is expected to produce.
Yet the effect follows, whether opium is administered in
London or in New York. It is difficult to see how this
can happen if there are no such things as independent
realities in existence, and if all things external to us are
mere illusions : this matter is more fully discussed in
Chapter xxxix. It is even more difficult, perhaps, if we con
sider that science has been able to make predictions as to
the existence of objects afterwards discovered. Adams in
England and Leverrier in France simultaneously, but quite
independently, asserted by mathematical calculation the
existence of a planet, then unknown to astronomers but
afterwards discovered and named Neptune. This feat,
which is rightly considered to have been one of the most
astounding performances of science, seems wholly impossible
of achievement if we were confronted by nothing but illu
sions. " Idealism," writes Dr. Maher,2 " is incompatible
not only with vulgar prejudices, but with the best established
truths of science. Astronomy, Geology, Physical Optics,
and the rest of the physical sciences, are inseparably bound
up with the assumption that matter which is neither a
sensation nor an imaginary possibility of a sensation exists
1 The Catholic student may be referred especially to Fr. John Rickaby's
" First Principles of Knowledge " in the Stonyhurst Series.
* " Psychology," Stonyhurst Series, p. 113.

10 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
apart from observation. They teach that real, actual,
material bodies of three dimensions, not only exist, but act
upon each other according to known laws, whilst no human
mind is contemplating them. Possibilities enjoying no
existence beyond consciousness could not attract each other
with a force varying inversely as the square of the distance ;
they could not pass from green forests into coal beds, nor
could they refract or interfere with other phenomena so as
to determine the character of visual sensations indepen
dently of our wills."
But though we may accept the common-sense conclusion
that we must trust to everyday human experience as a safe
ground for speculation and that science is justified in pro
ceeding on the assumption that there are real bodies of
three dimensions which exercise certain effects upon one
another, we may still be required to answer the question as
to how far it is possible to know the truth respecting the
objects of our study. Pragmatism, the latest school of
philosophical thought on this point — though indeed it is
only a modern modification of ancient Greek ideas — would
have us believe either that there is no definite truth behind
our ideas, or that, if there is, it is unattainable. Truth,
according to this philosophy, " is merely a quality in our
ideas which ' helps us to get into satisfactory relation with
the rest of our experience.' In other words, Ideas are to be
tested by their practical consequences, and true ideas are
those which practically will work. Thus there is no ultimate
or final truth, or permanent reality to be known ; there is
for us nothing but a progressive adaptation of our ideas to
one another. ... If, as Pragmatists assert, no principle is
more than a ' working hypothesis,' which may, and prob
ably will be set aside when it has served its turn, there can
obviously be no system of Ontology in which we can repose
confidence ; and religious and scientific convictions are both
equally improbable, or can only be held under a very large
measure of reserve. But the past history of human thought
and enterprise does not suggest that such a system as this
is likely to be at all fruitful."*
1 " The Spectrum of Truth," Sharpe and Aveling. London. Sands
& Co., 1908, p. 23 seq.

PRAGMATISM . n
What we may conclude from this very brief discussion
of a very important and very complicated matter is that
Science, in the opinion of the world, is justified in regarding
the objects with which she deals as realities. But we have
also learnt that the whole range of knowledge and experi
ence does not come within the scope of Science.

CHAPTER II
RELIGION : ITS SCOPE AND LIMITS
SCIENCE has her limitations, as we have just seen ;
so also has Religion. The Church is the mouthpiece
of Revelation and Faith just as Science is the exponent of
Reason and Sight ; their spheres are totally different. The
object of Science is to study the Universe and its phenomena ;
the object of Theology is to study God in the first place, and
in a secondary manner the relation of His creatures to Him.
In this book we are concerned with the'^GatluilicXhurGh
as the embodiment ofReligion, and this attitude is adopted
wrthT^riihy~lhTended-dight to the adherents of other
denominations. But, as a matter of fact, the observations
which are now to be made with respect to the limitations of
the Church are equally applicable to all forms of Christianity.
Every Catholic is aware of the claims which his Church
has upon him and what his duties towards it are. In no
way, however, does it derogate from the august privileges
and powers of the Church, nor in any way lower it in
the estimation of any thinking person to make it quite
clear that the Church has limitations in her field of work
and in her teaching functions. As we shall see in a short
time, there have always been — nay more, it must regretfully
be admitted, there still are — the most extraordinary mis
conceptions as to what is meant by Papal Infallibility. I
do not hesitate to say that there are still quite a number
of persons who would be very much hurt if they were de
scribed otherwise than as educated persons, who seriously
believe that everything said by the Pope, even down to
his mere obiter dicta, must be accepted as revealed truth.
Of course, as every Catholic, indeed every really educated
person, knows, this is foolish nonsense ; but as the impres-
12

LIMITS OF RELIGION I3
sion, or something closely resembling it, exists, it cannot
too frequently be pointed out that Papal Infallibility is
limited to the sphere of Faith and Morals, and thereby we
are brought face to face with the limitations of the Church.
Science, as all its followers will admit, has no right 01
title to deliver judgements in matters of Religion. Nor,
it may be added, has Religion any right or title to
express any opinion as to the Facts — I desire, for reasons
which will shortly appear, to emphasize the word Facts — of
Science. On one occasion only has any authoritative body
in connection with the Church attempted to do so. This
was in the case of Galileo, shortly to be considered, and the
result was not of a nature to be a source of pride to the
Catholic historian.
There are wide fields of knowledge over which Religion
has no sway: indeed it would hardly be too much to say
that with ninety-nine per cent of the facts and theories of
science Religion has no sort of concern. Religion could not
inform us as to the distance between the earth and the
moon, nor elucidate for us the chemical composition of the
sun, the anatomy of bird or beast, nor the composition or
origin of the rocks which lie around us ; nor, it may be added,
would any person in his senses ever seek to obtain such
information from her. One does not go to a chemical
laboratory for information as to -the doings of Charlemagne,
nor expect the professor of history to be an expert in
Spectrum Analysis. The Bible, it was once said, was given
to us in order to tell us how to go to heaven, not how the
heavens go. So far then as concrete facts go, facts ascer
tainable by observation or experiment, what has often been
urged is quite certainly true — namely, that Science and
Religion exist in different fields and have no relation to one
another, perhaps even, it would be urged by some, no points
of contact. Of course this, as we shall see, is only true in
a narrow and non-natural sense, but in that sense it is true.
This, at any rate, is true : that Religion and Science have their
respective jurisdictions in different territories and cannot,
therefore, conflict with one another when rightly inter
preted. In order to bring this point out I will quote the utter
ance of a typical man of science and that of a theologian,

14 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
and, in the latter case, I will select one not belonging to our
Church. These statements will exemplify the point which
I am trying to make. " Modern science," says its repre
sentative,1 " has arrived at a systematic interpretation of
the phenomena which we call ' Nature ' as a vast and
orderly mechanism, the working of which we can to a large
extent perceive, foresee and manipulate, so as to bring about
certain results and avoid others. In consequence we not
only enjoy that happiness and prosperity which arises from
the occurrence of the expected, the non-occurrence of the
unexpected, and the determination by ourselves within
ever expanding limits of what shall occur, but we also
experience a delight in the knowledge of the order of Nature
which comes from the exercise of our intellectual faculty
and from an increased area and complexity in the sources
and measure of that joy which we call ' the sense of beauty.'
As to what, if anything, is outside or behind this mechanism
of Nature : as to whence or how it came about, or whither
it is going : as to what it and what our consciousness of it
really are and why it is, and why we are here — modern
science has no answer."
With this statement no theologian will quarrel ; it simply
implies that science of itself can give no reply to the ques
tions stated, though this is by no means to say that from
the facts elucidated by science it is not possible for the
theologian to deduce many cogent arguments for the
existence of an omniscient and omnipotent Creator. But
the statement in question carries us a step further, for if
science has no answer to these questions then undoubtedly
those who speak in the name of science have no claim to
assert that science has proved that there is no God, no soul,
no hereafter, as at least some of those who have been
described as " the camp-followers of science " may some
times be found doing. This quite clearly follows from
the statement that science has no answer to these
questions. Now let us listen to the theologian, with whose utterance
I venture to think no man of science will quarrel.
1 I take this characteristic utterance from " Science from an Easv-
Chair," by Sir Ray Lankester. '

LIMITS OF SCIENCE I5
Speaking of religion and science Mr. Mozley1 says :—
" The truths of these respective departments are the truths
of two different spheres, which cannot come into contact
with each other. If men feel a conscience within them, if
they acknowledge its presages, and respect its voice as
judicial, they must do so all the same under the Ptolemaic
and Copernican theories of the solar system. If they derive
from conscience the sense of sin they must derive it whether
light is explained upon the theory of emission or the theory
of undulation. There are difficulties in a personal Deity,
there are difficulties attaching to prayer, and there are
difficulties attaching to special providences ; but those
difficulties are exactly the same whether the cellular
theory is true or false, and whether the sun is fed by the
mechanical collision of asteroids or by the continuous con
densation of its own matter. Free will is not contradicted
by the uniformitarian in geology, and predestination is
not contradicted by the revolutionist in geology. Scientific
analysis cannot possibly discover any fresh objection to
the doctrine of the Trinity, the doctrine of the Atone
ment, the doctrine of Grace, or the doctrine of the
Sacraments." But, if all these statements be true — and no one will
deny their truth— how comes it that there is any quarrel,
any ground even for dispute, between Science and Religion ?
That there are such discussions and even differences of
opinion between the two must be patent to all men, and this
is demonstrated, if by nothing else, by the fact that such a
book as this should come to be written at all.
It will be well to devote some little attention to this matter,
for in doing so we shall be able to clear the way for a good
many considerations which will arise in later sections of
this book.
There are several reasons for this difference of opinion which
we will endeavour to state as clearly and as fairly as possible.
Let us take the most avoidable and the least excusable
^first. It is certainly true that more than one scientific
theory, perhaps even when in a very inchoate conditioa
1 In his " Bampton Lectures."

16 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
has been proclaimed and even exulted in as the final and
death-dealing argument against Christianity. Let us hasten
to add that it may be gratefully admitted that these paeans
of joy seldom, if ever, come from the real luminaries of
science. These, for the most part, if having no belief in
religion, are content, like Sir Ray Lankester in the quota
tion given above, to express no opinion on the matter, in
a word, to maintain that agnostic position defined and
adopted by Huxley. But the assertion is often made, and
made in such places as to come most prominently under
the notice of " the man in the street," namely, in the pages
of daily and weekly journals.
Let us take the case of Mr. Burke's so-called " radiobes."1
People who wrote about these seemed to think that if they
were what they were claimed to be — which parenthetically
it may be said they were not — the whole fabric of Chris
tianity would vanish like a dream. This is only one example
of the ignorant (for we must charitably allow that it is
ignorant) way in which these matters are dealt with, for
if the " radiobes " had been all and more than was claimed
for them, the Catholic position would be exactly what it
was in the time of St. Thomas Aquinas in his controversy
with Avicenna — exactly what it is at this moment— namely,
that if life is spontaneously developed from non-living
material it must be because the Creator infused that
potentiality, under suitable opportunities, into non-living
matter.2 This, no doubt, is a recent example, yet it may be ad
mitted that such paeans were far more frequent during the
earlier portion of the last half-century — when the wine of
new discovery had a little got into the heads of some of the
less exacting thinkers— than it is to-day. That time was
one when " cock-sureness " rather than the scientific sceptic
ism of to-day was the note of the hour. But, nevertheless,
the thing has existed and does exist to some not wholly
inconsiderable extent, and must be taken into consideration
1 These were objects appearing in an organic fluid under the action of
radium. Originally claimed to have a bearing on the origin of life they
have since been shown to have a purely chemical explanation.
* For a further consideration of this point see Chapter xxx.

THEOPHOBIA ty
when the question of the differences between Religion and
Science are under discussion.
Some explanation of this tendency may unquestionably
be found in the fact that many of these expressions of
opinion are from the pens of journalists " sore gravelled
for matter," and well aware that " The Final Destruction of
Christianity " makes a most attractive " headline." But
beyond this it is true, pitiable though it may be, that there
are people who would be really gratified if it could be made
quite certain that there is no God and no Hereafter. That
this is not the attitude of really thoughtful agnostics is
exemplified by the following quotation from the writings oi
the late Mr. Romanes, during his agnostic days :x " For
asmuch as I am far from being able to agree with those
who affirm that the twilight doctrine of the new faith is a
desirable substitute for the waning splendour of " the old,'
I am not ashamed to confess that with this virtual nega
tion of God the universe to me has lost its soul of love
liness ; and although from henceforth the precept ' to
work while it is day ' will doubtless but gain an intensified
force from the terribly intensified meaning of the words
that ' the night cometh when no man can work,' yet when
at times I think, as think at times I must, of the appalling
contrast between the hallowed glory of that creed which
once was mine, and the lonely mystery of existence as now
I find it — at such times I shall ever feel it impossible to
avoid the sharpest pang of which my nature is susceptible."
This utterance might and probably would be made by
other reverent minds unable to accept the doctrines of
Christianity; but there are those others of whom the learned
Fr. Wasmann is thinking when he deplores the fact that
" in many scientific circles there is an absolute theophobia, a
dread of the Creator,"2 as to which he adds, " I can only re
gret this, because I believe that it is due chiefly to a defective
knowledge of Christian philosophy and theology. ' ' However
1 " A Candid Examination of Theism," 1878. It may be noted that
the writer in question returned in later days to a belief in Christianity and
was engaged upon a reply to his earlier work at the time of his death.
This incomplete work has since been published under the title " Thoughts
on Christianity."• " The Problem of Evolution," London, Kegan Paul, 1909, p. 47.

18 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
this may be, there is the fact, and it has to be reckoned with,
that persons suffering from theophobia and knowing the
Church to be the one strong fortress of belief attack it by all
means fair or foul.
Thus it often occurs that the Church and Science are made
to appear out of harmony with one another by means of
an illegitimate use of some scientific theory of the day:
and if any exception is taken to this on the part of the
Church, then " She is at her old games, trying to stifle
enquiry." There is a further method very adroitly used
by those who desire to discredit the Church and to repre
sent her as the age-long enemy of science. The prescription-
runs somewhat in this way : Take some mediaeval man
of science confronted with some wholly new problem. He
possesses only the knowledge (or ignorance) of his day. As
almost every learned person of the time was a cleric of some
kind or another, and as at any rate he is tolerably certain to
have been a Catholic, it is perfectly obvious that any foolish
though natural mistake which he may have made must
necessarily be due to the blighting influence of Catholicity.
It is as well to conceal from the public that this groper after
knowledge may have stumbled upon some fact or facts in
the course of his gropings which have caused his name " on
fame's eternal bede-roll " to " be filed." But, if this un
pleasant fact must be made known, then of course the dis
coveries were made in spite of the disadvantages which he
suffered under from being a Catholic, and would have been
much more fundamental had he not been in terror of what the
Inquisition might do to him. By this means it is possible to
picture a very pretty quarrel between Religion and Science.
Perhaps it may not be amiss to give an instance
of what has just been alluded to. When fossils first
came under the observation of thinking men it is not
wonderful that they should have excited great curiosity
and even greater wonderment as to their nature and origin.
Amongst those men of science who tried to account for
them was one Gabriel Fallopius, a canon of Modena, who
thought, foolishly enough as we now know, that they were
" generated by fermentation in the spots where they were
found " ; or that they had in some cases acquired their

FALLOPIUS 19
form from " the tumultuous movements of terrestrial
exhalations." The remarks are inept enough, as all will
admit, but can it be credited that it has actually been
claimed that these assertions were made by a dignitary of
the Church — who we must suppose knew what the real
explanation was — for no other purpose than that of deceiv
ing the unlearned in the interest of his Church !
It does not seem to have occurred to such persons,
nor would they probably allow such a thought to occur
to them, that Fallopius made a very foolish mistake
quite explicable in one whose date was 1523 -1562.
Others, with much less excuse, have also made foolish mis
takes without thereby forfeiting the name of scientific
authorities. Huxley admittedly fell into a very gross
error over his so-called "Bathybius Haeckelii " ; yet I have
never seen the accusation hurled at his head that he
declared an inorganic object to be organic in order to per
suade his unlearned audience that it explained the origin of
hfe. No doubt Fallopius's statements with regard to ' ' tumul
tuous movements " are vague, but vagueness was a not
unnatural feature of the time. Is their vagueness after all
any greater than the vagueness of Herbert Spencer's state
ment that " inorganic matter, through successive complica
tions, gave origin to organic matter" ? " Successive com
plications" and "tumultuous movements" make a very
pretty pair of nebulous remarks, and there is certainly not
less excuse for Fallopius than there is for Spencer. To
complete the tale, two further points are carefully concealed
from the reader. The first of these is that Fallopius was the
discoverer of certain important things in the science of
Anatomy to which his name is attached — a tube and an
aqueduct (so called) — so that he was not quite the nonentity
that he might be imagined to be. Further, it is still more
carefully kept in the background that the first man to set
science on the track of the truth respecting fossils, was also
a Catholic churchman, and what is more a bishop — also by
the way a distinguished anatomist — whose name is connected
with important discoveries in that subject, but whose greatest
scientific fame it is that he is acclaimed to be the Father of
Modern Geology by all the authorities in that subject. This

20 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
was Nicolaus Stensen, whose life extends from 1638-1687.1
Of course it is quite clear that when a churchman makes a
foolish blunder it is the Church which is responsible, indeed
he probably made it to bolster up the pretensions of that
organisation. But when the same man makes a valuable
discovery, the Church not only has nothing to do with it—
which is probably quite true — but would have harried him
to death if it could, for having made it. When Dr. Johnson
was asked why he had made a mistake in the definition of
some part of the anatomy of a horse in his Dictionary, his
reply was " Crass ignorance." Crass ignorance, misrepre
sentation — it is to be feared at times purposeful misrepre
sentation — are amongst the causes of the disputes, real or
apparent, between Religion and Science.
Finally, in strict fairness, it must be said that the defenders
of Religion are not free from responsibility. In this matter,
indeed, Religion more than once has been in a position in
which she might well have asked to be delivered from her
friends. What is here being alluded to is the often foolish
way in which quite incapable representatives — self-chosen
too — of Religion have often made fatal havoc of their case
by failing to understand their opponent's position, or the
real effect which his theory might have upon religious
dogmas and by endeavouring to confute what they supposed
to be the point at issue by arguments often of an incon
clusive character and frequently not even ad rem. This is
no more than to say that all defenders of religion are not
infallible, and the same might be said about writers on
science. At any rate there is no doubt that the Church gets
full credit for this kind of defender.
Then, of course, there is the case of Galileo, which never
fails to be cited when this matter of the Church and Science
comes under discussion. This is assumed to have been only
the most prominent instance of a habitual line of conduct
instead of actually being the only case of the kind on record.
It may seem superfluous to say anything more on this point,
but, as several important questions closely connected with
1 An account of his life will be found in the book " Twelve Catholic
Men of Science," published by the Catholic Truth Society (price 2s.). See
also the account of his work in the " Encyclopaedia Britannica," sub
voce Geology.

DE LAPPARENT 21
our subject are involved, it may be permissible to devote a
brief space to a survey of this matter.
Note. — The following passage from a paper by that dis
tinguished geologist and Catholic A. de Lapparent1 ("Revue
pratique d'apologetique," 1906, pp. 270-1) shows clearly his
experience of the attitude of the Church to-day towards science.
" In spite of the care which I had taken to keep myself
exclusively on scientific ground, it happened to me once or twice
to be severely taken to task by the sharpshooters of apologetics,
displeased at not finding in my publications any argument in
favour of particular theses which they had constructed. But
these episodes (which indeed made little commotion) had the
result of displaying the extreme wisdom of the authorities whom
they were attempting to rouse. These supreme judges were not
disturbed. So far they have seen nothing incorrect in the
enunciation (which of course is subject to ulterior rectification)
of theories in which one is satisfied with summarising the facts
which seem established by observation. I feel bound to state that
no one ever felt so free in speech and writings as I myself have
done. Rarely indeed has a professor received more explicit and
continual assurances of a goodwill all the more valued as it
came from high quarters. Without claiming to find herein any
dogmatic confirmation of the views exposed in booksof science,
I see in it at least a motive for rendering a special homage to the
wisdom of the Church as well as to her consideration for sincere
opinions which are submitted in advance to her definitive
jurisdiction." 1 For an account of his life and writings see " Twelve Catholic Men
of Science," referred to on opposite page.

CHAPTER III
THE RELATION OF THE CHURCH AND POPES
TO SCIENCE: GALILEO
THIS chapter is perhaps somewhat in the nature of a
parenthesis, but in the writer's opinion it is a necessary
parenthesis. It cannot be expected that the general Teader
should be intimately familiar with the attitude of the
world towards learning and new discovery in the Middle
Ages, nor can such a reader be expected to make himself
acquainted with the real facts concerning the attitude of
the Church, and especially of the Popes, towards Science
Wherever he finds any allusion to such points in the writings
of non-Catholic authors, even when unbiased against the
Church, he will hardly fail to run up against the oft-
repeated statement that the Church is the deadly enemy of
all science, and that, if she only had the power, she would
once and for all put an end to all learning and all research
into Nature. He reads statements such as these and he
comes to the conclusion— he could hardly perhaps do other
wise — that the Church really is the enemy of progress.
If he is a good Catholic he probably makes an Act of Faith,
gives a sigh, and goes his way a little discouraged as to
the body to which he belongs. It may perhaps cross his
mind that he has heard, and correctly too, that nearly
every one of the more important and ancient Universities
owes its origin to the Bull of some Pope, and that may give
him pause for a moment. Still the spirit of distrust has
been roused in him— all the more certainly if he has found
the depreciatory statements, as he may quite well do, in
a book written by a man whom he knows to be but little
influenced by anti-religious prejudice.
It is largely in the interests of persons of this kind that
22

HUMAN ANATOMY 23
this parenthetic chapter is introduced, and if it does nothing
else than inform them that in the erudite works of Dr.
J. J. Walsh of New York they can find a complete answer
to all these misstatements, it will at least have achieved
the purpose of making it plain that there is an answer, and
a very sufficient answer too, to all these misrepresentations
of the attitude of the Church towards learning of all kinds,
and especially towards that kind of learning which is known
as Science.1 How have these misrepresentations come to
exist ?
We may leave aside those baser persons who have de
liberately invented accusations of intolerance : there have
been such, and with them there is no way of dealing except
by showing the utter falsity of their statements. But there
are others, blameworthy though less blameworthy, who
have been content to take their facts secondhand from
writers who do not seem to have taken any particular
trouble to verify the statements to which they have com
mitted themselves. 2
Let us take one instance of a hoary fable which has from
generation to generation served as an example of the
obscurantist policy of the Popes ; I refer to the oft-repeated
statement that the dissection of human bodies was for-

1 " The Popes and Science " is the first of Dr. Walsh's works which the
reader should apply himself to, and, having done so, he will not require
any persuasion to continue his reading of the remainder of the series.
With respect to Galileo, the reader is advised to consult the late Fr. J.
Gerard's penny pamphlet if he desires a very brief statement of the matter.
If he wishes for fuller information, he will find it in the admirable account,
with full copies of all the documents in connection with the matter,
written by Fr. Ernest R. Hull, s.j., from which most of the facts and
quotations in this chapter are taken. As will be gathered from those
quotations, neither of the above-named writers is desirous of blinking the
unpleasant facts connected with the case under discussion. All of these
books are published by the Catholic Truth Society, which also pub
lishes a volume, " Twelve Catholic Men of Science," edited by the writer
of these pages, in which a good many answers may be found to the allega
tions complained of in this and the previous chapter.
2 I might call attention to a recent work by a really distinguished
geologist, Canon Bonney — " The Present Relations of Science and
Rehgion," London, Robert Scott, 1913 — in which almost the whole of the
chapter on the Catholic Church is based on White's " Warfare of Science,"
which has been so frequently refuted and by none more successfully than
by Dr. Walsh. Bonney's accuracy may be judged from the fact that he
states that Newman's " Essay on Development " was " written to justify
his secession to the Roman Communion 1 "

24 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
bidden, and consequently all progress in Medicine and
Surgery put an end to, by the dictates of Rome. Now sup
posing this to have been true, it might have been charitable
to look upon it as an unfortunate but perhaps excusable
concession to the weaknesses of those unreasonable but very
real persons who even to-day make the task of the human
anatomist so difficult, and must have existed with tenfold
force in the Middle Ages — the objectors to human dissection.
Leaving that consideration on one side, the anatomist who
meets with this statement is surely bound to look upon it
with doubt if he knows anything about the history of his
subject, the nomenclature of which is full of the names
of Italian anatomists of the Middle Ages as, for example,
Fallopius and Stensen, mentioned in the last chapter, or
again as Eustachius and others who actually practised
this alleged-to-be altogether forbidden art in Rome under
the very nose of the Pope, whose body-surgeons they
often were, and further had the audacity to publish their
discoveries in Rome and lay them at the feet of the reigning
Pontiff. Of course there is one explanation of this and only
one possible explanation : there was no such edict against
dissection. Was there anything wbich TRlgriFbaveTTeen
so construed ? I must confess that when I was teaching
Anatomy and came, as I often did, across this story, I set
it aside as the usual anti-Catholic lie, for of course I was
well aware of the numerous papal anatomists and of their
work. But the indefatigable Dr. Walsh went further, for
he took the trouble to burrow into the records until he got
to the bottom of the matter. And what is the explanation
of the story ? Well, it appears that during the Crusades
many of the warriors left directions that if they Tost "then-
lives when away from home, their bodies were to be brought
back to their native places for burial. It is perhaps un
necessary to point out in any detail how difficult if not
impossible a task this imposed upon the survivors. In
order to lighten it they adopted the barbarous but practical
expedient of dismembering the dead bodies, boiling the
flesh from off the bones and bringing these more portable
portions of the body home for interment. This was what
the Popes forbade under pain of excommunication —

ARISTOTELOMANIA 25
whether wisely or foolishly matters nothing to the present
argument. That the prohibition has nothing to do with
the practice of ordinary dissection is perfectly clear. x
Then again there is the individual only too common,
who has neither knowledge nor imagination enough to place
himself in the position of one living in the Middle Ages and
to try to think how he, under those circumstances, would
have confronted any new discovery which was brought
under his notice. Yet in this is to be found practically the
whole explanation of the so-called opposition of the Church
to Science. The whole spirit of the age was necessarily
doubtful of any new thing, and the Church which existed in
that age had many of the prejudices of its period. Being
composed of the men of the age, how could it well be other
wise ? Let us look at the matter for a few moments from
this point of view.
First of all we have to" remember that, unlike our own
time — when everybody expects to find a new discovery each
day in his morning's paper, and when everybody's mind is
consequently in tune for new facts — the attitude of the Middle
Ages was to imagine that the last word had been said on
all matters of knowledge, usually by Aristotle, and to look,
therefore, on all new facts as superfluous, if not annoying.
Doubtless a foolish attitude, but there it was. Further, we
can hardly imagine the extent of the obsession of people's
minds with regard to Aristotle and his authority. As an
example of this the following may be given : 2
A Jesuit Father, Schejner* who appears to have made the
discovery of sun-spots^ independently of Galileo, submitted
this discovery to his Provincial, whose response was as
follows : " I have react" Aristotle's writings from end to end
many times, and I can assure you that I have nowhere
found anything similar to what you describe. Go, my son,
tranquillize yourself. Be assured that what you take for
spots on the sun are the faults of your glasses, or youi

1 The reader will find the matter fully discussed and copies of all the
documents in question in " The Popes and Science," Catholic Truth
Society, 191 1, p. 28 seq.
* The incident is narrated by Fahie, " Galileo, His Life and Work,"
Murray, London, 1903. and quoted by Hull.

26 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
eyes." Scheiner was allowed to publish his observations,
but anonymously.1
The average writer would set all this foolishness down to
the obscurantist policy of the Church, not to speak of the well-
known and double-dyed obscurantism of the Jesuits whom
everybody knows to maintain observatories and laboratories
for no other purpose than of frustrating the progress of
science. But, as a matter of fact, it was nothing of the kind.
It was the obsession of Aristotle— never yet acclaimed as
a Doctor of the Church — and of Aristotle, not only as the
philosopher but also as the scientist, from whom the
excellent Provincial and nearly all the men of his age
suffered. Mr. Hinks2 points out as a curious fact that " while many
of the principal facts, the rotundity of the earth, the gradual
change in the position of the pole among the stars, were
known to the famous astronomers of antiquity, who were
Greeks, yet the influence of the Greek philosopher Aristotle
was for many centuries sufficient to stifle any spirit of
enquiry into the truths of astronomy. That their teaching
was contrary to Aristotle was enough to condemn Coper
nicus or Galileo. . . . The first astronomers of Europe had
to work against, not with the support of, whatever remained
in repute of the ancient learning of Greece. At every turn
they were stopped with the objection that Aristotle said so
and so. Now what Aristotle said was founded upon the
1 I give this tale, with the respectable authority for it, as an example
of what is said of the extreme Aristotelomania of the time, as to which,
it may be added, much more of the obloquy belongs to the anti-Scholastic
Averroists and Alexandrians of Padua and Venice than to the much-
abused Scholastics themselves. Perhaps the more correct version of the
Scheiner story is this : He observed sun-spots in 1611, using a helioscope
which he had either invented or perfected. His Provincial (one Busee)
counselled prudence in publication. He therefore published his observa
tions anonymously, stating as his reason for so doing: " My Superiors
thought that I should proceed slowly and cautiously until the phenomenon
should be corroborated by other people's observations, and that I should
not depart from the beaten track of the philosophers without evidence
to the contrary," which seems very sensible advice and much more
probable than the tale in the text. As another instance of the Aristotelo
mania of the day may be quoted the tale which relates that Cassar
Cremonini (1552-1631) refused to look through Galileo's telescope for fear
of finding that Aristotle's physics were wrong I
* " Astronomy," in Home University Library, Williams & Norgate
n. d., p. 9.

FRANCIS BACON 27
vaguest kind of foundation. Planets must move in circles
because the circle is the only ' perfect ' figure. Seven is a
perfect number, and therefore if you have found seven of a
thing you need not waste time looking for an eighth. This
was the kind of argument that passed for scientific in the
Middle Ages ; this was the kind of prejudice which the early
European astronomers had to rid their own minds of first,
and then to banish from the minds of others."
Very foolish, no doubt ; still it was the spirit of the
period, and unless we try to grasp that fact it is impossible
to understand the relations between religion in general
and science at that time.. Again, the very idea of proving a
statement by experiment never seems to have entered into
the minds of men ; "if it is in print, it must be true"
seems to have been their attitude. Take, for example, the
case of the discussion between Galileo and Sarsi. x
Sarsi quoted Suidas, in supporf of histKebry that motion
always produces heat, to the effect that the Babylonians
used to cook their eggs by whirling them in a sling. Galileo
replies by pointing out that it is quite easy to repeat the
experiment and by so doing to expose the absurdity of the
statement. Sarsi, no doubt, had never thought of that ;
an excellent illustration of the attitude of the time which
has to be reckoned with. " Yes," it will perhaps be argued,
" but all these instances relate to places and persons under
papal sway, and it is just that baneful influence which led
them to take up these absurd positions." Well, Francis
Bacon was pretty nearly contemporary with Galileo.
No one will contend that he was under papal sway, nor
has he ever been charged with being an obscurantist : in
fact he is bften called the Father of Modern Science. Yet
Bacon's writings are full of the same kind of errors which
might easily have been corrected by experiment. For
example,2 wooden arrows without an iron point penetrate
farther into wooden substance than the same arrows pointed
with iron, owing to " the similitude of substance." No more
foolish sentence could be discovered in Sarsi.
1 " Galileo," by Hull, p. 40.
* " Natural History," Cent, viii, 704. A number of similar absurd
ities can be culled from his pages.

28 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
Again in 1596 — that is, some thirty odd years before
Galileo's trouble — the University of Tubingen was certainly
not under papal sway or influence : its Theological Faculty
was of a purely Protestant character. Yet that Faculty
censured Kepler most unmercifully for writing a book in
favour of the Copernican views — that is, for taking up the
same position as Galileo was to take up somewhat later.
In fact they harried the unfortunate man to that extent
that he fled from Tubingen, and to whom ? Of all people in
the world, to those notorious obscurantists the Jesuits of
Gratz and of Ingoldstadt, who welcomed him warmly on
account of his great services to learning ! Still two wrongs
do not make a right, and the Protestant condenrnatipn of
Kepler does not make the Catholic condemnation of Galileo
any the more tolerable.1
But it does help us to understand how it came about.
And, further, it does lead us to ask ourselves how it comes
about that whilst we are dosed with the Galileo episode ad
nauseam, we never hear Protestantism attacked for its
treatment of Kepler. At any rate, what has just been said
will help us to understand to some slight extent the kind
of world into which Galileo was born. Galileo (1564-1642)
found himself confronted by two theories as to our solar
system. There was the geocentric theory of Ptolemy, which
made the earth the centre around which the sun, moon, and
stars revolved ; and there was the heliocentric theory of
Copernicus, which regarded the sun as the centre around
which the earth and the other bodies in question revolved.
Galileo's observations led him to adopt the latter theory,
which everybody now knows to have been the correct one :
but it was the unpopular view amongst the men of science of
the day, not to speak of the theologians of various kinds.
They attacked Galileo and his theory on scientific grounds,
and, being worsted, turned their attention to the religious
1 As bearing upon the history of the time and its ideas, it must not be
forgotten that Servetus, in whose " Christianismi Restitutio" [i^i\
occurs the first description of the pulmonary circulation ever penned was
slowly and barbarously roasted to death at Geneva by order of Calvin
Cardinal de Tournon, who controlled the Inquisition in France had
previously rejected with scorn the accusation of heresy which the 'arch-
heretic Calvin had sent to him against Servetus.

JOSHUA AND THE SUN 29
aspect of the case. Literal explanation of every proposition
in argument had been fostered by the scholastic method of
discussion. Further, the controversies with the Protestant
Reformers, committed by their fundamental principles to
theories of rigid verbal inspiration, had intensified this
narrow method of scriptural exegesis, and caused the ancient
broad figurative and symbolic interpretation of S. Augustine
and other Fathers to be at times lost sight of, even by theo
logians when drawn into ardent controversy on properly
scientific questions, unfortunately with subsequent discredit
to the cause of religion. In a later chapter our present
attitude to this question will be alluded to — a question
adequately and illuminatively dealt with by Leo XIII in
his Encyclical " Providentissimus Deus."
It was on account of its apparent inconsistence withuthe
Biblical account of the miracle of Joshua and the sun that
the Theological Faculty at Tubingen had condemned Kepler,
and it was on very similar grounds that the Qualifiers or
experts of the Holy Office or Inquisition gave their cele
brated verdict that : " the proposition that the sun is the
centre of the world and does not move from its place is
absurd and false philosophically, and formally heretical,
because it is expressly contrary to Holy Scripture " : and (2),
" The proposition that the earth is not the centre of the
world and immovable, but that it moves, and also with a
diurnal motion, is equally absurd, false philosophically,
and, theologically considered, at least erroneous in faith."
In thus concluding, the experts did take upon themselves
to condemn what we all now believe to be a fact of science.
Of course, at the moment it was a theory only, but let that
pass. In this, as all writers now agree, they acted wrongly
and foolishly, and led the Pope, who possibly did not know"
very much about what was under consideration, into error
with- them. No doubt Galileo's own conduct,1 which was
1 Of course what was really wrong with Galileo was that he was unable
to grasp the conception of a " working hypothesis," a thing well known
and well recognised to-day by men of science, though apparently unknown
to many of the writers on " popular science." In his " Trattato della
Sfera," written in 1606, Galileo adopted the Ptolemaic views as not merely
usefui but as indisputably true. Later on he was equally sure of Coper-
nicanism, though his proofs were patently inadequate, and one of them,
that based on the tides, wholly wrong.

30 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
tactless and provocative in the extreme, conduced to a
condemnation which might otherwise not have been asked
for, perhaps even obtained. But none of this really excuses
what took place, and in the interest of truth the fact should
not be blinked. Huxley, who certainly was not biased in
favour of the Church, stated his opinion as follows : " I
looked into the matter when I was in Italy, and I arrived
at the conclusion that the Pope and the College of Cardinals
had rather the best of it."1 That Catholic writers take a
less favourable view than did Huxley may be gathered
from the following quotations : " In spite of such pleas "
(i.e. pleas, Catholic and Protestant, on behalf of the Roman
authorities), " we can only deplore the prosecution of
Galileo, and the assumption by an ecclesiastical tribunal of
authority to which it had no claim in the domain of physical
science."2 "The official documents plainly embody the
view that the Copernican theory was not only ' false ' but
also ' heretical ' because ' altogether contrary to Scrip
ture ' ; and Galileo was condemned as ' grievously sus
pected of heresy,' which heresy is defined as ' holding
that the earth moved and the sun stood still.' It is pre
cisely in this dogmatical pronouncement on the heretical
character of the new astronomy that their blunder con
sisted."3 It has been claimed by some who were wholly
ignorant of what they were writing about, that the Infalli
bility of the Church and of the Pope was involved in this
decision. It would be impossible here to deal fully with the
matter, so we content ourselves with summing up the reply
in the words of a very distinguished Protestant astronomer : 4
" The Catholic doctrine on' the subject " (Papal Infallibility)
" is perfectly definite ; and it is absolutely certain that the
decision in regard to Galileo's teaching, shown now to have
been unsound, does not in the slightest degree affect the
doctrine of infallibility, either of the Pope or of the Church.
The decision was neither ex cathedra nor addressed to the_
whole Church ; in not one single point does the case illus-
1 " Life and Letters," Macmillan, London, 1900, II, 113.
* Gerard, op. cit.
8 Hull, op. cit., p. 118,
« Proctor, in " Knowledge," Vol. IX, p. 274, teste Hull, p. 117.

THE COPERNICAN DOCTRINE 31
trate this doctrine of papal infallibility as defined by the
Vatican Council."
Lastly, we may look at the further history of the question,
which, as Cardinal Newman somewhere points out, is re
markable above all things for this fact that it is the only
case of its kind which the enemies of the Church are able to
bring against her.
Father Hull sums the matter up thus : " In spite of its
condemnation by the Roman Congregations, the Copernican
doctrine gradually spread till it was finally clinched by
Newton's Principia in 1696, and so secured general accept
ance. The decrees of the Congregations were by no means
regarded as having closed the question for Catholics ; and,
generally, no scruple was felt on disciplinary grounds as
regards professedly teaching the new theory in Catholic
colleges. Thus, as early as 1634, leave was given to intro
duce instruments for the teaching of astronomy in Rome
based entirely on the Copernican system. Cardinal Barberini,
nephew of Urban VIII, was presented with one of them.
In 1639 and 1645 Bulialdus and Gassendi, both of them
Catholic priests, undertook the defence of the Copernican
system, and were neither reprimanded for it nor suspected
of heretical teaching.
" In 1656 the Imprimatur was given in Rome itself for a
defence of Copernicus against various physical and astro
nomical objections ; and the same occurred again in 1667
and 1669. In 1661, P. Fabri, s.j., professor at the Roman
College, publicly declared that the authorities would at
once adopt the figurative explanation of the various passages
in Holy Writ, if only a real proof for the Copernican system
were forthcoming. P. Baldigiani, s.j., in 1678, thought that
the time had come to revoke the decree forbidding the
reading of the Dialogues ; and in 1685 P. Kochansky went
so far as to state that every Catholic was allowed to search
for a proof of the truth of Copernicanism. Meantime [like
the ancient obsolete laws in England], the decrees remained
on the books, and presented a certain technical difficulty
to the canonist. Hence, in 1757, Benedict XIV expunged
the universal prohibition of 1640. In 1744, Galileo's
Dialogo was allowed to be included in a new edition of his

32 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
collected works. In the year 1820 positive official permis
sion was asked for and granted by Pius VII to Canon
Joseph Settle, a Roman professor, to publish a textbook
on science, containing the Copernican doctrine. Finally,
in 1822, the Inquisitor-General, under the sanction of Pope
Leo XII, declared that the printing and publication of
works treating of the motion of the earth and the stability
of the sun, according to the opinion of modern astronomers,
is permitted in Rome. In the next edition of the Index,
dated 1835, the decree of 1616 and all others touching the
question, as well as the names of all the prohibited books,
were finally expunged from the list." x
The criticism which at once rises to the mind is that it
took a long time to convince Rome that a mistake had been
made. In this connection it is only right to remember that
the mistake was admitted eventually by the highest authori
ties, and that it is at least fair to argue that, having once
fallen into error, it was better to wait and make perfectly
certain before once more expressing an opinion. But this
point may be raised again in a subsequent chapter.
1 It may be interesting to note that the famous expression attributed
to Galileo after his disavowal of the earth's motion (e pur si muove, i.e. yet
it does move), which has unfortunately been adopted as a motto for
that very useful series the Home University Library, is a myth. The
earliest known source of it appears to be the Abb6 Irailh's " Querelles
Litteraires," Paris, 1761. (See " Notes and Queries," 7th series, xi, 424.)

CHAPTER IV
PHILOSOPHY
IN the course of the preliminary pages of this book,
when the subjects which were to come under discus
sion were being enumerated, mention was made of a third
factor in addition to Religion and Science — namely, Philo
sophy : and to that subject it will now be necessary to devote
some attention. More especially it will be necessary to
draw attention to and to correct certain wholly inaccurate
ideas which exist in the minds of many persons with regard
to that system of Philosophy which is usually known by
the name of Scholastic. The term Philosophy, like the term
Science, has come to possess a much narrower significance
than it once had, or indeed than its derivation warrants.
Philosophy means a love of knowledge, and it must be
admitted that, if such were its present-day signification, a
considerable number of persons would be entitled to describe
themselves as philosophers to whom the world would deny
that title, at least in its rigid significance.
At the present day philosophy means a system of unifica
tion and explanation of knowledge, or of the sum of know
ledge. The learned Professor de Wulf says that "all philosophy
consists in a rational study of all or some of the problems
arising from our attempts to explain the universal order of
things by their ultimate causes or principles."1 It will
scarcely be necessary to remind the readers of this work that
whilst the term Philosophy is one, the systems of Philosophy
are many, and are usually distinguished from one another
1 " Scholastic Philosophy," Dublin, Gill, 1907, trans., Coffey, 1907,
p. 7. Quotations from this work in this or subsequent chapters will be
cited as de Wulf.
D 33

34 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
by the names of their founders ; thus there are Kantians,
Hegelians, and so on.
The Scholastic system or system of the School is the
system traditionally associated with Catholic teaching in
stitutions, and it is that with which we shall chiefly be con
cerned in this book. It must, therefore, be very briefly dealt
with, and its exact relationship to the Church explained.
The Scholastic Philosophy may generally be said to be
built upon the works and ideas of Aristotle, who, though he
was affected by the erroneous science of the day, was un
doubtedly one of the greatest thinkers and most powerful
intellects in the history of the world. The system was
developed by many great writers, not always by any means
on identical lines. For an account of these we must refer our
readers to some general work on the History of Philosophy.1
Here it need only be said that the exponent whose name
is of the greatest significance to us is St. Thomas
Aquinas (1226-1274), a man whose marvellous knowledge
and extraordinary output of work during the comparatively
few years of his life upon earth cannot but excite the astonish
ment of all who devote even the most casual attention to
the subject. From him is named the Thomistic Philosophy,
which is a form of Scholastic Philosophy, and that form
which has received the special approbation of Pope
Leo XIII, in his celebrated Encyclical " ^terni Patris."
From the very fact of its close connection with the
Church and her teaching organisations, there have arisen
two misconceptions altogether too prevalent, even to-day,
to which attention must be drawn. First of all, it is a
common mistake to confuse Scholastic Theology with
Scholastic Philosophy ; and secondly, even if this mistake
be not made, to imagine that the scholastic philosopher is
so tied and bound by authority that he cannot deal freely
and independently with his subject. On these two points
I shall not rely on my own statements, which would be of
but little value, but shall quote freely from those whose
1 The general reader may be confidently recommended to read de Wulf,
as translated by Coffey. Admirably translated and not unduly technical]
this book gives an adequate idea of the older and of the newer Scholastic
Philosophy. It is published by Gill in Dublin and by Benziger in America.

SCHOLASTIC PHILOSOPHY 35
expressions of opinion must be listened to with respect as
coming from acknowledged authorities on the subject.
There is perhaps some excuse for the first mistake, for there
is a Scholastic Theology as well as a Scholastic Philosophy,
and, at least during the Middle Ages, the authors of books
upon one of the subjects were often, if not usually, also the
writers whose names are known in connection with the other ;
such, for example, was the case with St. Thomas Aquinas.
But that does not make the two subjects identical, and
de Wulf1 bids us beware lest we confound, " as happens too
often, scholastic philosophy with scholastic theology. Theology
is not a study of the universal order by the light of human
intelligence ; it is, at least in its dogmatic portion, a systema-
tisation of certain doctrines that a positive revelation has
delivered to us. To confound scholastic philosophy with
scholastic theology is to confound the examination of
natural truths by reason with the study of Christian dogma
— as if scholasticism were only, as Brucker expresses it, a
discussion of revealed mysteries by the light of the badly
understood principles of Aristotelianism." In a further
passage de Wulf strenuously opposes this false view, pointing
out that, if it were true, the history of mediaeval philosophy
would be nothing more than a subsection of the history of
religions. And he continues, " What determines the proper
individuality of each of the various sciences, what furnishes
us with a test of their diversity, is not, the scholastics tell
us, the identity or diversity of the materials which they
treat (the material object of the sciences), but the treatment
itself of those materials (formal object of the sciences).
The distinction between two sciences is altogether due to
the distinction between the points of view from which they
regard things, of their principles and of their methods of
procedure. Just as two architects can build, by different
arrangements of the same stones, the one a Roman temple
the other a Gothic cathedral, so can two sciences deal with
the same realities, provided they approach them from
different standpoints. The astronomer, remarks St. Thomas,
studies the rotundity of the earth, no less than the physician, 2
1 Op. cit., p. 8.
' The physicist, not the medical man, is here meant.

36 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
but the former draws his proofs from mathematics, the
latter from the laws of matter. So it is with theology and
philosophy. Each presents under every respect the char
acteristics of that independence which is proper to a distinct
science. The one is based on the revealed word, the other
on the light of reason : the one is built up by way of au
thority, the other proceeds by scientific proofs. Thomas of
Aquin, Henry of Ghent, Bonaventure, Godfrey of Fontaines,
Duns Scotus — in a word, all the scholastics, have given
expression to the same view regarding the distinction between
theological science and philosophical science." The other
error is that, though Scholastic Philosophy and Scholastic
Theology may be formally recognised as being distinct
studies, yet the former is so much based upon and con
ditioned by the latter as to be unworthy of the name of an
independent branch of study. This objection was actually
pressed before the Irish Privy Council quite recently in
connection with the opposition to an appointment of a
lecturer in this subject in a college in Ireland. It was then
contended that the Scholastic system was not really a
philosophy at all " inasmuch as it was avowedly based on
the authority of the Roman Catholic Church, and accepted
this authority instead of the evidence of reason as the
ultimate motive of assent to all its teachings."1
Now to this error also de Wulf calls attention, remarking
" what a number of modern authors fall into the same error
and think that ' the content of the ideas being fixed by
dogma, no liberty remained except in the method of ex
plaining and applying them.' If scholasticism be no more
than that, we may truly call it no longer a philosophy, but
an exegesis of behef, a commentary on the faith, a mere
plea pro domo." But I shall allow Dr. Coffey to speak on
this matter. " Anyone," he writes, " who has even a super
ficial acquaintance with scholastic philosophy will be aware
of its clear and emphatic insistence on the fact that no
authority, human or divine, can be the ultimate ' test ' or
1 Coffey, quoting from the report of the proceedings before the Privy
Council in his article " Philosophy and Sectarianism," " The Irish Theo
logical Quarterly," October, 1910. The learned Professor of Philosophy
at Maynooth is admittedly an unexceptionable authority on his subject
and I quote his criticism of the opinion in question a few lines lower down!

OBJECTIVE EVIDENCE 37
' criterion ' of truth, or the last underlying ground for our
assent to, and acceptance of, any truth ; and this for the
very simple reason that whenever we do assent to truth on
authority, we must first have employed our own reason to
estimate and judge the evidence forthcoming on behalf of
the knowledge and truthfulness of that authority. This is
a dictate of common sense ; and it is applied by scholastic
philosophy to all authority — including the authority of
God and the authority of the Church (and the Bible) in
regard to the contents of the Christian Revelation. Were
we unable to convince ourselves on grounds of reason —
namely, by submitting to the independent judgement of our
own reason the objective evidence available — that an all-
wise and all-truthful God exists and has spoken to men,
and that His revelation is faithfully conveyed (in the
Bible, or in the Bible and Tradition) and accurately inter
preted for us by the Church (or by ourselves, according to
non-Catholic Christians) we could not rationally assent
(whether as Christians or as men) to what the Church (or
the Bible) proposes to us for our belief.1 So scholastic
philosophy teaches that objective evidence, estimated by
the careful and cautious use of our own judging and reason
ing faculties, is the ultimate test of all truth. And if it
taught otherwise it would obviously stultify both itself
and whatever authority, whether human or divine, it pur
posed to examine. When, therefore, truths are proposed
for our acceptance by authority, scholastic philosophy
teaches that before believing them we must convince our
selves by our own individual reason that the authority is
trustworthy. And when there is question, not of truths
to be believed on authority, but of such truths as can be
tested and verified by examining the intrinsic evidence for
them in the light of our own reason — for such truths it
teaches that human authority is the weakest of all motives
of assent. Aquinas himself, the prince of scholastics, has
laid down this principle in unambiguous terms — 'locus
ab auctoritate quae fundatur super ratione humana est in-
1 The Catholic reader will remember that the necessity of supernatural
grace for the making of an act of faith leaves such act still conditioned by
the laws of rational assent.

38 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
firmissimus.' How absurd it is, then, to represent scholastic
philosophy as teaching that the ultimate criterion of truth
is ' Revelation as interpreted by the Church.' " x The
Scholastic Philosophy is a method of dealing with facts.
Whether it is the best method or not is a question on which
general agreement has never been reached and probably
never will be reached. It is the traditional method of the
Catholic world, no doubt ; but that is not to say that the
Catholic Church stands or falls by it.
This at least may be said, that all its instructed opponents
allow that the scholastic is a distinct, clear-cut, complete
method of Philosophy, a method, moreover, capable of
application, as any true system of philosophy must needs be,
to every new discovery which may be made in any branch
of learning.
A remarkable fact, which will appear in later sections of
this book, is that in certain cases ancient thinkers seem to
have arrived at the same conclusions as modern science
though by very different roads — the one by that of pure
thought, the other by the slow and painful but, to most of
us at any rate, more convincing path of observation and
experiment. If eventually the fact emerges that pure
reason can untie and has untied a knot long before science
has accomplished that task, it at least permits us to look
not with less respect on the work of science but with more
upon the cogitations of the philosophers. This is not a
manual of philosophy, nor has the author of this book any
title to speak for philosophers, but it seemed necessary, in
view of the many misconceptions and misunderstandings
which have been woven around the subject, to make these
few observations ; to which this may be added for the sake
of those readers, if any, who are wholly unfamiliar with the
Scholastic Philosophy and its value. Catholic Philosophy,
by which is meant the Scholastic Philosophy, has been
belittled and sneered at usually by those very imperfectly
acquainted with its scope and work ; and the general and
uninstructed reader is led to conceive that as a subject of
real importance it has long ago disappeared, behind a cloud
of unextinguishable laughter, from the consideration of
1 " Philosophy and Sectarianism," pp. 9, 10.

THE FOURTH DIMENSION 39
really scientific minds. " What is to be said," it is asked,
" of a philosophy which concerns itself with such trifles as
the question of how many angels could dance on the end
of a needle ? " " What is to be said," we might reply, " of
a subject like Mathematics, which concerns itself with such
a thing as the Fourth Dimension, as to the very existence of
which we have no knowledge, a thing, moreover, which, if
it did exist, would turn everything we know to confusion
and chaos ? " The fact is that all great sciences, like
Mathematics and Philosophy, must have their explorers
into remote and undiscovered districts which appear to be
grotesque and fantastic to the ignorant or half-informed.
The Fourth Dimension is a fascinating and most scientific
subject to those who are capable of understanding it, and
the philosophic problem mentioned above is not a mere
joke but an abstract example of the vast philosophical
subject of the relations between matter and spirit, the
extended and the unextended.
With all this, however, no historian can deny, nor do Catho
lics attempt to do so, that an epoch arrived when Scholasticism
fell into a state of serious decadence. " There were vexa
tious and inexcusable faults of method ; the endless multi
plication of distinctions and sub-distinctions and divisions
and classifications, on the plea of clearness ; until finally
all thought became mystified and muddled in an inextric
able maze of scheme, systems, and departments ! Nothing
could have been better calculated to foment those abuses
than the dialectic formalism that poisoned all the philo
sophical writings of the sixteenth century."1 The same
learned author may with advantage be quoted on another
all-important point, namely, the disregard of new scientific
discoveries which marked the hide-bound philosophers of
the period of the decadence ; their fatal obsession by Aris
totle in his worst as well as in his best moments, to which
allusion was made in the last chapter. All these things
explain why the new learning, disgusted at the attitude
taken up by the scholastics of the day, clamoured for the
complete abolition of the system which they so much
misunderstood since it had been so much abused. " No-
1 De Wulf, 147.

40 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
where," he writes,1 "was the culpable ignorance of the
scholastics regarding contemporary thought so disastrous
as in the domain of the natural sciences. Great discoveries
were everywhere revolutionising physical and mechanical
astronomy, physics, chemistry and biology, and the mathe
matical sciences as well. The geocentric system of Ptolemy
gave place to the heliocentric system of Copernicus ; and
Galileo's telescope had begun to reveal the secrets of the
heavens. But the paths of the stars careering through the
immensities of space gave the theory of solid celestial spheres
its death blow ; the displacement of the sun-spots on the
solar disc revealed a rotatory movement in the sun itself ;
the moon displayed its mountains and plains, Jupiter its
satellites, Venus its phases, Saturn its ring. In 1604, a
hitherto unknown star was discovered in the sign of the
Scorpion. Later on it was shown to evidence that the
magnificent comet of 1618 was not an atmospheric will-o'-
the-wisp but a heavenly body moving through the inter
planetary regions of space. Then Kepler formulated the
laws of the elliptical motion of the planets, and Newton
inferred from Kepler's laws the law of universal gravitation
which unified all astronomical phenomena. In another
department, Torricelli invented the barometer and dis
covered the weight of the air ; heat and cold were registered
by the thermometer not as distinct and contrary properties
but as different degrees of one and the same property of
matter ; light was decomposed and water analysed ; La
voisier laid the first foundations of modern chemistry. At
the same time Descartes, Newton, Leibnitz, and others
devoted their genius to mathematical researches ; and,
enriched by their contributions, those sciences made rapid
and giant strides. Man's scientific conception of the uni
verse was reconstructed on altogether new lines, and many
of the scientific theories which the medieval mind had in
corporated in its synthetic view of the world were now
finally and completely discredited. To mention only a few :
There was an end of the idea that circular motion is the
most perfect, and of the theory that the heavenly bodies
1 p. 148 seq.

DECADENCE OF SCHOLASTICISM 41
are exempt from generation and corruption. If there are
spots on the sun, the immutability of the heavenly bodies
becomes a respectable myth. Nor were the new mechanics
long about exploding the theory of the locus naturalis of
bodies. In short, there was much that needed to be recon
structed or modified.
"Now, the traditional astronomical, physical, and chemical
theories were bound up with the principles of general
metaphysics and cosmology by ties that were centuries old,
though often indeed of a frail and fanciful character. Were
not the principles dependent upon the theories, and did not
the overthrow of the ancient science involve the ruin of the
ancient philosophy ? Not necessarily ; and that for this
reason : amid the debris of the demolished science there
remained untouched quite sufficient data to support the
constitutional doctrines of scholasticism. It is sufficiently
obvious that philosophers and scientists alike should have
closely watched and studied the scientific progress of the
time in order to be able to pronounce upon the possibility
or impossibility of adapting the new discoveries to the
traditional philosophy. That is certainly what the princes
of scholasticism would have done had they lived at such a
critical turning point in the history of the sciences. We are
aware from well-known and oft-quoted texts that they never
meant to give all the scientific theories of their own time
the value of established theses, but rather of more or less
probable hypotheses whose disproof and rejection would in
no wise compromise their metaphysics. So, for example,
St. Thomas, when speaking of the movements of the planets,
makes use of these significant words : ' Licet enim talibus
suppositionibus factis apparentia salvarentur, non tamen
oportet dicere has suppositiones esse veras, quia forte
secundum aliquem alium modum, nondum ab hominibus
comprehensum, apparentia circa stellas salvantur.' 1 And
his disciple, Giles of Lessines, gives frequent expression to
the same view. But, unfortunately, the reverse of all this
was what actually took place. The deplorable attitude of
1 This may thus be paraphrased: — "Though the hypothesis would
explain the appearances, that does not prove it to be true, for the real
explanation may be one not yet known to us."

42 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
the seventeenth-century peripatetics towards the science of
their day was just the opposite of what it ought to have
been. Far from courting or welcoming a possible alliance
between their cherished philosophy and the new scientific
discoveries they turned away in terror from the current
theories lest they should be compelled to abandon their
own out-of-date science. It is said that Melanchthon and
Cremonini refused to look at the heavens through a tele
scope. And Galileo speaks of those Aristotelians who,
'rather than alter Aristotle's heavens in any particular,
obstinately deny the reality of what is visible in the actual
heavens.' The Aristotelian teaching they regarded, as a
sort of monument from which not a single stone could be
extracted without upturning the whole. This it is that
explains the obstinacy with which they tried to defend the
discredited astronomy and physics of the thirteenth cen
tury, and the ridiculous attitude of the ' Aristotelians ' in
their widespread university controversies with the Car
tesians. Those philosophers were shortsighted ; they were
apparently unable to distinguish the essential from the
accessory ; they failed to realise the possibility of abandon
ing certain arbitrary applications of metaphysics in the
domain of the sciences without abandoning the metaphysic
itself. Is it any wonder that they drew upon themselves
the ridicule of the scientists ? And these latter in turn
made the scholastic philosophy responsible for the errors
of medieval science, from which the former had been declared
inseparable. " When we remember that for very many scholasticism
meant merely the old systems of astronomy and physics we
can understand at least to some extent why they should
treat it with such sarcasm. They were not long about dis
crediting a system that defended such mistaken views. The
necessity of making a clean sweep of the past became more
and more apparent. And some, not satisfied with condemn
ing all scholasticism en bloc, went even so far as to condemn
all philosophy. It is from this epoch of unparalleled progress
in the sciences of observation that we may date not only the
sharp distinction between common and scientific knowledge,
but also the divorce of the latter from philosophy. The

DECADENCE OF SCHOLASTICISM 43
more moderate among the scientists, while repudiating
scholasticism with scorn, gave their adherence to some
system or other of modern philosophy ; for the latter had
always, professed its respect from the very commencement
for the sensational scientific discoveries of the seventeenth
century. To sum up : The contest that arose in the seven
teenth century between the peripatetics and the scientists
had no real bearing on the essential content of the scholastic
teaching, but regarded mere side issues and secondary
matters. The misunderstanding was indeed inevitable : it
was almost if not altogether irremediable, and unfortunately
it exists even still. The scholastics and the scientists of
those days were both alike responsible for it : the latter
would cut down the powerful oak tree of centuries on the
pretext that it bore some rotten timber under its spreading
foliage ; while the former stupidly contended that its hoary
head must not be touched at any cost — that by stripping it
of a few withered branches it would be deprived of its very
life."1 1 I quote at length from de Wulf since he is a writer of the highest
authority, but it should be added that others take a less pessimistic view
of the so-called decadent period of scholasticism. For example, Duhem,
a first-rate authority, says (in his " Essai sur la notion de theorie physique
de Platon a Galilee," 1908, p. 71) : " From the beginning of the fourteenth
to the beginning of the fifteenth century the University of Paris upheld
concerning scientific method a doctrine whose accuracy and depth far
surpass anything which the world heard on this subject until the middle of
the nineteenth century."

CHAPTER V
FACTS AND THEORIES: IMPORTANT DISTINCTION
IN a previous chapter something was said as to the
methodology of Science, but the question was scarcely
carried beyond the mere matter of the collection of facts.
It is clear that Science, were it to begin and end its labours
by the collection and registration of facts, would be a barren
and uninteresting study. The collection of facts would be
like the words in a dictionary — "fine, confused reading,"
without any interest until the hand of a master has welded
them into prose or verse ; or they would be like the heap of
bricks from which, after the plan of the architect, there will
arise the stately Elizabethan hall. But directly that Science
begins to build a house with her bricks or facts she leaves
the region of fact — more or less undoubted fact — as we shall
see, for the land of surmise. She, in her turn, begins to
philosophize and it is now that she comes into direct rela
tions, or may come into them, with religious ideas. The
truth is, of course, that Science cannot be, and ought not
to be supposed to be, capable of being confined to the mere
collection of facts without any relation to one another ; for
while she is so confined she must needs be sterile. To
become the fertile mother which she ought to be, she must
needs attempt the task of considering the relation of one
fact to another. Yet the moment that she does begin to
consider the relation of one fact to another and still more
the relations of the facts of one branch of scientific study to
those of some other branch, she enters the domain of
philosophy ; for she commences the rational study of one
or of some of the problems involved in our effort to explain
the universal order of things by their ultimate causes or
principles. 44

FACTS AND THEORIES 45
It may seem a grandiose way of alluding to some very
small deduction from facts, but in essence that is what it
is; and when the deductions are really far-reaching it is
quite obvious that they may come into serious conflict, or
at least may appear to do so, with the findings of philosophy.
If, on the fullest consideration of all the facts of the case,
it should appear that the findings are wholly irreconcilable,
then one of three things must be the case : either the
scientific man or the philosopher or both must be wrong.
Or both ; for there is an all-important point too often
forgotten, which is that because an explanation explains
it is not, therefore, the true explanation. There may be
twenty plausible explanations of a set of facts of which
nineteen must be, and all the twenty may be, wholly wrong.
Enthusiastic writers of popular treatises on science often
seem to forget this important point. Because the doctrines
of protective colouring or of sexual selection, for example,
seem to explain, and as a matter of fact would explain a
number of facts, it is therefore assumed that they must be
true explanations. Which is a non sequitur. The more
facts which a theory explains and the more wide apart
from one another those facts are, the more likely it is to be
true ; but there is a considerable gulf set between extremely
likely and perfectly certain. Many enthusiasts seem to
take this gulf in their stride ; at least they neglect to inform
their followers that it has been passed. The wary traveller
in the Land of Theories wHl be on the look out for the gulfs
and will be quite clear, or should make himself so, that it,
passage is legitimate.
Substitute for the Philosopher in the above remarks the
Theologian — for it is obvious that the difference of opinion
is perhaps even more likely to arise between him and the
man of Science than in the former case — and again the
same three cases arise. In some at least it will be clear
that the third alternative is the real solution and that
neither party to the question has been wholly right and
neither wholly wrong. In a word, the opposition between
the two views comes to be recognised to be apparent rather
than real. " Sometimes," says an author already quoted,1
1 Mozley, op. cit.

46 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
" Science seems to threaten the very formulation of a spirit
ual existence, and some theory pushes forward into the
first ranks which seems to convert our very personality
into a development and form of matter. Men tremble at
the approach of the giant who comes with uplifted arm to
aim his blow ; but if they only stand their ground the spell
is broken, the descending stroke falls harmlessly upon us
and the spectre vanishes. We shake ourselves and feel
whole and untouched. All that is required in such cases is
distinctly to see that A is not B. The theory of the correla
tion of vital and physical forces, while it reduces some life
to the same head with material properties, does not touch
the spiritual being or self ; consciousness witnesses to that
ego as distinct from the mere living bodily organism. The
theory again that a living organism can develop itself from
inorganic matter deals with the origination of one fact,
while that which we are conscious of is another. The
material science, even granting its pretensions, only advances
as far as some facts which come under the head of hfe ;
it then stops upon the outer brink, and can only look from
thence upon an unsolved personal being."
The most serious opposition naturally arises when some
scientific theory challenges, or seems to challenge, a dogma
of Theology. Of course in this case the attitude of the
Catholic is perfectly clear, nor need he feel the least anxiety
of mind. Unless everything which he, on wholly different
grounds, believes to be true, is untrue, the theory which is
giving trouble will either prove to be false or will be shown
to be explicable in terms of the dogma. Those who have
read their Newman will not require to be reminded that
whilst implicitly all dogmatic truth is final, this does not
contradict the undoubted fact that there is a development
in our comprehension of the meaning of a dogma ; and that
our comprehension may be aided and our view as to the
exact significance of the dogma in some one or more of its
applications may be modified, indeed on various occasions
has been modified, by the discoveries of science.
Hence, as will be shown from the quotation to be given
from Fr. Hull's book at the end of this chapter, the extreme
desirability of not being in a hurry to rush to the attack of

BATHYBIUS 47
every or any new theory. But can a scientific fact ever
really come into conflict with a Catholic dogma ? To this
enquiry it may be quite confidently answered that, seeing
that God is at once the Author of Revelation and of Nature,
and that it is, therefore, impossible that there should be
any conflict between the two, it is utterly impossible that a
Fact of Science and a Dogma of Rehgion can come into
conflict with one another. But a Theory of Science may very
well conflict with a Dogma of Religion when the conditions
above alluded to arise. We must now, even at the risk
of some repetition, endeavour to make this matter of
Scientific Theory or Hypothesis clear, for it underlies every
thing which will be dealt with in this book. Let us first
consider the genesis of a Hypothesis. In so doing, let us
not forget the attitude of Science, which is one of constant
expectancy of new facts and of new theories, and of readiness
to accept such theories as working hypotheses, though
without definitely committing herself to their truth.
In the first place, then, scientific observers are constantly
engaged in the revision of old facts and the search for new ;
and this brings us to the point as to the acceptance of what
is claimed to be a fact as really entitled to that name. Here
we are dealing not with what is called a theory, but with
an isolated case. Properly speaking, a theory is something
which binds together a number of isolated facts and ex
plains their relation to one another. But to the fact. It is
for example, an undeniable fact that human beings have
skulls. That is plain and obvious and incontrovertible. It is
a fact if there are any facts, if everything is not illusion.
But let us take another case. Huxley discovered a certain
substance in bottles containing dredgings from the deep
sea which he considered to be the simplest form of hfe and
named Bathybius Haeckelii. Now it will be observed that
he did not say, " My theory is that this is living substance."
He was quite clear that it was a hving thing and he described
it as such, just as another man might describe a new butterfly
or a new bird. In this case, however, the fact turned out
not to be a fact. A mistake had been made and a chemical
compound accidentally formed had been taken for an
organised and living thing. Huxley, the most candid of

48 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
men, at once owned his mistake, a most unpleasant thing
to have to do, and the so-called fact disappeared save as
one of the curiosities of Science. Here was a case of mistake
as to what we may call a Central Fact ; with respect to Sub
sidiary Facts there is far more reason for doubtfulness. In
a later section of this book it will be necessary to devote
a good deal of attention to the skulls of extinct races on
this earth. The first question — what we may call the Central
Fact — about each of these is "Is it a human skull ? "
Sometimes this question is not easy of resolution when asked
of the fragments which have alone come to hand. But
when it is answered, there are a whole series of other or
Subsidiary Facts to be determined, all of which will be dis
cussed in their proper place. The first thing which has to
be settled is whether what appears to be what we have
described as a Central Fact is a fact at all.
With regard to thousands upon thousands of these there
is no kind of doubt possible. A group of these is brought
together by means of a theory or hypothesis. It is published :
it is submitted to scientific criticism. It may be shattered
by that criticism and disappear from view, as many a hypo
thesis has done. Or it may survive and be accepted as a
working hypothesis, and as such may prove of inestimable
service to science, even though in the long run it may turn
out to have been at least partially and perhaps wholly
inaccurate. But all this time it remains what it has been
from the beginning — the idea of a man's mind ; and thus
wholly different from an objective fact.
In strict logic or under the strict laws of logic it is difficult
to see how anything in the nature of a Theory can ever be
said to be definitely and irrefutably proved.
Formal logicians, I believe, would tell us that by their
rules the heliocentric theory of the solar system is not
proved to a demonstration. Yet no one doubts that ex
planation any more than anybody doubts the truth of
Gravitation, though physicists are still unable to show what
causes the results which are described under that name.
We may now proceed to consider an illustration of these
remarks. The fact that a buttercup, for example, has five or more

THE LlNNiEAN SYSTEM 49
petals and numerous stamens is a fact which any person
with eyes can demonstrate fop himself at the proper season
of the year, which no one will desire to dispute, and which
has no relation to any religious dogma. But it does not
carry us very far. Let us go a step farther and observe
some thousands of buttercups. We find that they all have
the same general characters, and we establish in our mind
the idea not only that there is a single flower called a butter
cup but that there are uncounted millions of buttercups
every year. The next thing which we find is that there are
a lot of other flowers which certainly are not buttercups
but which have the same general characters. So that one
of the first tasks to which botanists have to apply, and
have applied, their minds is the arrangement of plants into
classes. Linnaeus tried to do this on an unnatural system —
a system admitted by its author to be unnatural, since it
grouped together in a wholly arbitrary manner plants
really quite unrelated. Nevertheless, even this system,
though non-natural, was a very useful one ; for it at least
effected this object, that it brought isolated facts into some
sort of concordance with one another and afforded an op
portunity for a further sorting out to take place.
It became clear before long, however, if indeed it
was not clear from the first, that the Linnaean system
grouped together plants whose real characters were not
similar but widely opposed to one another, and this
because the lines on which it worked were non-natural :
and eventually there came into existence the so-called
"natural" classification, which we owe very largely to
the labours of de Jussieu in France and of Robert Brown
in England. This system, so we think at present, does
include in one group plants having common characteristics
and perhaps a closer genetic relationship with one another
than those of other groups. I ask my readers to note the
importance of those last few words. For a moment, however,
we may observe that in thus leaving the region of isolated
facts for that of the construction of classes — categories, we
may call them for the time being — science has begun to enter
the fields of philosophy. It may be admitted that she has
not got far enough into them to come into any kind of

50 'THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
contact with the philosophers, still less with the theologians.
But let us return to the last few words of the sentence above
to which attention was called. Here we enter upon more
debatable ground. No one will deny that the sweet-pea has
certain characteristics which need not here be detailed.
No one will deny that the common horse-bean has similar
characteristics. No one will quarrel with their both being
placed in the same family of Papilionaceee. Few, if any,
will dispute the theory that the sweet-pea and the bean,
since they have not existed from the beginning of things,
may have had a common ancestor. The theory is often
expounded that all plants have come from a common
ancestor — even that all living things have come from a
common ancestor, if we may use so exalted a title for what is
postulated as the primeval hving cell. Yes, but let us see
how far we are treading on rock in this matter and how far
on less certain ground. So far as the characters of the
plants are concerned there is no doubt. These are facts,
that is to say if there is any reality in the things which we
see, then the pea and the bean have the characteristics
which are set down concerning them in the manuals of
botany. In other words, we may give them the same
credence that we do to the whiteness of snow, the coldness
of ice, or any of the other natural facts which are made known
to us through our senses.
Further, when the botanists bring them into groups by
assembling them in the so-called Natural Orders we are
still confronted by easily ascertainable facts, and would be
wholly unjustified if we refused to admit them. But when
we come to the next series of questions we are on very differ
ent ground. No person has ever seen or ever demonstrated
the common ancestor of the bean and the sweet-pea. How
ever likely it may be that they have had a common ancestor,
the fact is still unproved ; the common ancestor remains a
matter of theory or hypothesis. And the same is still more
true of the hypothetical primeval cell. In the very nature
of things no one can possibly have seen this cell ; and as a
matter of fact up to the present, in spite of all the efforts of
men of science, no one has ever discovered any absolutely
irrefutable evidence in favour of what most people think

THE UNPROVED THEORY 51
to have been the probable explanation of species. " It is
ridiculous to ask for any such evidence ! " This may be
admitted, but what remains is that without such evidence
the thing before us is not a Fact but a Theory or Hypothesis.
It may be a well-established Theory or it may not. It
may be held by every man of science or it may not. It
still remains a Theory and, as such, is in a wholly different
category from that of the ascertained and demonstrable
fact. It may become a demonstrated Fact some day or it
may not. Considering the finite nature of man's knowledge
and the constant increase in his acquaintance with facts in
the nature of things the latter is the more likely event.
The Theory may hold the field for a long time and serve a
most useful purpose while it does, as did the old chemical
theory of the elements ; and like that theory it may turn
out to have been wholly untrue, even though at one time it
was the teaching of all men of science. A person cannot
refuse to believe a true scientific fact, such as that human
beings have osseous backbones, and still retain a reputation
for sanity. But, when he considers all that has happened
even in recent years, perhaps especially in recent years,
in the history of science, he can be pardoned if he suspends
his opinion on any theory of science, and particularly if he-
suspends it when that theory appears to conflict with any
thing which he believes on higher grounds. He can and he
may do this, when he would be insane if he asked leave to
suspend his decision on the backbone question. More
especially may he venture to suspend his opinion when he
finds that men of science are not all of one mind on the
point in question ; indeed, under those circumstances, it
would seem to be prudent for the ordinary person to suspend
his judgement.
Thus a man who would refuse to believe in the Law of
Gravitation would certainly be taking up a position very
hard of justification, whereas if he contented himself with
stating that Natural Selection was a very unsatisfactory
explanation of the origin of species he may at least shelter
himself behind the patent fact that men of science hold very
widely divergent opinions as to the real value of that
doctrine. When we are confronted with a difficulty of the

52 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
kind indicated in the preceding pages it will always be well
for us to ask ourselves, " Are we dealing with a Fact or a
Theory ? " It is quite safe to say that, if there be. any
difficulty for us to deal with, it is caused by a Theory and not
by a Fact : and, that being the case, it will then be necessary
for us to make careful enquiries as to what facts the Theory
is based upon, and how far it is really deducible from them
before we yield our assent to it.
The points on which emphasis has just been laid will
come up for consideration in specific cases more than once
in these pages : meantime it will clear the way to have
them briefly laid down in these preliminary observations.
It is part of the purpose of this book to state quite
definitely and unhesitatingly what are the dicta of the
Church in connection with scientific matters. They will
be found, by those ignorant of the real state of the
case, to be quite startlingly few in number. On the
point with which we have been dealing nothing can be
more specific or clear than the teaching contained in the
Encyclical of Pope Leo XIII entitled " Providentissimus
Deus " :
" There can never," it states, " be any real discrepancy
between the theologian and the physicist " (by which he
means what is commonly called the man of science), " as
long as each confines himself within his own lines, and
both are careful, as St. Augustine warns us, ' not to make
rash assertions, or to assert what is not known as known.'
If dissension should arise between them, here is the rule
also laid down by St. Augustine for the theologian : ' What
ever they can really demonstrate to be true of physical
nature, we must show to be capable of reconciliation with
our Scriptures : and whatever they assert in their treatises
which is contrary to these Scriptures of ours, that is Catholic
faith, we must either prove it as well as we can to be en
tirely false, or at all events we must, without the slightest
hesitation, believe it to be so.' To understand how just
is the rule here formulated we must remember, first, that
the sacred writers, or to speak more accurately, the Holy
Ghost ' who spoke by them, did not intend to teach men
these things (that is to say, the essential nature of the

"PROVIDENTISSIMUS DEUS" 53
things of the visible universe), things in no way profitable
unto salvation.' Hence they did not seek to penetrate
the secrets of nature, but rather described and dealt with
things in more or less figurative language, or in terms
which were commonly used at the time, and which in many
instances are in daily use at this day, even by the most
eminent men of science.
" Ordinary speech primarily and properly describes what
comes under the senses ; and somewhat in the same way
the sacred writers — as the Angelic Doctor also reminds us
— ' went by what sensibly appeared,' or put down what
God speaking to men, signified in the way men could under
stand and were accustomed to. The unshrinking defence
of the Holy Scriptures, however, does not require that we
should equally uphold all the opinions which each of the
Fathers or the more recent interpreters have put forth in
explaining it ; for it may be that, in commenting on pas
sages where physical " (i.e. scientific) " matters occur, they
have sometimes expressed the ideas of their own times,
and thus made statements which in these days have been
abandoned as incorrect. Hence, in their interpretations,
we must carefully note what they lay down as belonging
to faith, or as intimately connected with faith — what they
are unanimous in. For ' in those things which do not come
under the obligation of faith, the Saints were at liberty to
hold divergent opinions just as we ourselves are,' according
to the saying of St. Thomas. And in another place he says
most admirably : ' When philosophers are agreed upon a
point, and it is not contrary to our faith, it is safer, in my
opinion, neither to lay down such a point as a dogma of
faith, even though it is perhaps so presented by the philo-
phers, nor to reject it as against faith, lest we thus give to
the wise of this world an occasion of despising our faith.'
The Catholic interpreter, although he should show that
those facts of natural science which investigators affirm to
be now quite certain are not contrary to the Scripture
rightly explained, must nevertheless always bear in mind,
that much which has been held as proved certain has on
further examination turned out not to be so."
There are several conclusions which may be drawn

54 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
from what has been said in this chapter, perhaps the most
important of them being the wisdom of the advice which
recommends the defenders of religion, in the popular phrase
of the day, to " wait and see." Careful thought and con
sideration of the facts will often lead to a better apprecia
tion of the exact bearings of the opinion of one side and
those of the other.
I shall conclude this long but essential chapter with a
lengthy quotation from Fr. Hull, whose authority as a
theologian will -excuse me for preferring his statement to
anything which I could myself construct. Writing as to
the proper policy of the Church confronted with a new idea
and having stated that it consists in suspending judgement
until the matter has been thoroughly thrashed out, whilst
at the same time taking such steps as are necessary to pre
vent the consciences of less educated Catholics from being
wounded, he proceeds : " Down to a generation or two ago
it was the general belief of Christians that the deluge of
Noah covered the whole earth, and that it is so described
in the most explicit terms in the Bible. Certain new con
siderations, mainly drawn from Geology, led specialists to
the contrary conclusion that the deluge was by no means
universal, but was a comparatively local phenomenon ;
widespread enough to cover the area occupied by mankind
at that time, but not much more. The view at first found
considerable opposition in theological circles ; partly be
cause the restriction of the area of the flood was not as yet
demonstrated beyond question, and partly because it ran
eounter to the literal text of the Scripture as universally
understood by its interpreters. Fortunately the view did
not attain such sudden publicity as to cause a widespread
sensation, and so no crisis arose. The partial-deluge view
gradually came to look more and more feasible, and the
possibility of interpreting Scripture accordingly became
more and more evident. The new view gradually filtered
down from learned circles to the man in the street, so that
nowadays the partiality of the deluge is a matter of common
place knowledge among all educated Christians, and is
even taught to the rising generation in elementary schools.
" But suppose this denial of the universality of the deluge

GEOLOGY AND THE BIBLE 55
had been suddenly sprung uponjthe world in general, and
bruited about in the streets and squares of every city.
It would come as a shock, not only to theologians of the
conservative school but also and above all to the faithful
laity, who would look upon it as a sudden tactic of unbelief,
and the upsetting of their simple faith in the word of God.
Suppose, moreover, that those who embraced and pro
pagated the new view were most of them men prone to be
enamoured of ' progress ' and impatient of authority, while
its opponents were men of unquestionable orthodoxy and
edifying Catholic spirit. Before long a crisis would
certainly arise. The cry would go forth that infidelity was
spreading and the faith in danger. In such an emergency
the Church authorities would feel the necessity of a remedy ;
and this remedy might easily take the form of condemning
the new doctrine — not precisely because it was ascertained
to be false or contrary to divine truth, but because its
psychological effects on the minds of the faithful were
practically destructive of their faith. In other words, the
doctrine would have to be discountenanced for the time,
not as false but as rash or unsafe, and its propagation as
premature. " Other instances might easily be multiplied. For
instance, the discovery two generations ago by geologists
of the extreme antiquity of man on the earth was popularly
regarded as an entire refutation of the Bible record, simply
because people believed that the date of Adam was fixed
by the Bible ; and I. remember a young man who actually
became an infidel through reading a book of this kind.
Similarly in Italy, in the time of Galileo, it is quite likely
that a number of people, accustomed to understand the
miracle of Joshua in its literal terms, felt that the truth
of the Bible was gone when it became clear that Joshua
could not have caused the sun to stand still, because it was
standing still already. In such a contingency a strong and
assertive policy is required."1
No doubt this will seem a hard saying to those outside
the Church. To many such it is simply incomprehensible
that any person or any body should concern itself respecting
1 " Galileo," Catholic Truth Society (rs. 3d. net), p. 105 seq.

56 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
so nebulous and problematical a thing as the soul and its
future prospects. But if one is to understand anything
about any particular organisation, it is absolutely necessary
to try to comprehend its standpoint and first principles.
This book is written chiefly for the information of Catholics,
who will not require instruction in the first principles of
their religion. But it may also come under the eyes of non-
Catholics, who may be presumed to be seeking information
as to our ideas. It is as well for them to understand that
the central object, the raison d'etre of the Church, is the
salvation of souls. Bearing this cardinal fact in mind it is
clear that if at any time it appeared that the premature
brandishing in the face of the public of some doubtful and
disputable idea was endangering souls, it might be the
duty of the Church to forbid those of her children who were
not educated enough to appreciate the matter in all its
bearings, and to bring to bear upon it really valuable critic
ism, favourable or unfavourable, to abstain from discussing
it. And further it might be her duty to instruct those who
were capable of discussing it to do so amongst themselves,
and, above all things, not to proclaim as absolute truth
what might turn out to be only partially true. All these
things might and very probably would be done, though
nobody now would attempt to defend the action of the
Holy Office at the time of and in the case of Galileo. The
modern attitude is summed up in the words of Leo XIII —
" we proclaim that every wise thought and every useful
discovery ought to be gladly welcomed and gratefully re
ceived by us, whatever its origin may have been." On
these lines was founded the Institute of Catholic Philosophy
in the University of Louvain, from which has come forth
so much valuable constructive work, scientific as well as
philosophical.

CHAPTER VI
"SPACE" AND THE ETHER OF SPACE
WHEN any person not a professed physicist approaches
the question of the ultimate composition of the
Universe, he cannot fail to be impressed with the extreme
caution which authorities on that subject exhibit in dealing
with the hypotheses of the day ; with the hesitation which
they obviously feel in definitely and dogmatically commit
ting themselves to any special view; nay even with the
scepticism which some of them express, not only as to present-
day theories but even as to the possibility of attaining to
any true knowledge of the real state of affairs. Thus, for
example, Poincare, a distinguished French man of science
recently dead, writes in very pragmatist language :x " Prin
ciples are conventions and definitions in disguise. They are,
however, deduced from experimental laws, and these laws
have, so to speak, been erected into principles to which our
mind attributes an absolute value. . . . The fundamental
propositions of geometry, for instance Euclid's postulate,
are only conventions ; and it is quite as unreasonable to
ask if they are true or false as to ask if the metric system is
true or false. Only, these conventions are convenient. . . .
Whether the ether exists or not matters httle : let us leave
that to the metaphysicians ; what is essential for us is that
everything happens as if it existed, and that this hypothesis
is found to be suitable for the explanation of phenomena.
After all, have we any other reason for believing in the
existence of material objects ? That, too, is only a con
venient hypothesis." The same attitude has been com
mented on and criticised by Schuster.2 " Vagueness, which
1 As quoted by Lodge, " Continuity," p. 18.
» As quoted by Lodge, op. cit., p. 17.
57

58 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
used to be recognised as our great enemy, is now being en
shrined as an idol to be worshipped. We may never know
what constitutes atoms, or what is the real structure of the
ether; why trouble, therefore, it is said, to find out more about
them ? Is it not safer, on the contrary, to confine ourselves
to a general talk on entropy, luminiferous vectors, and un
defined symbols expressing vaguely certain physical rela
tionships ? What really lies at the bottom of the great
fascination which these new doctrines exert on the present
generation is sheer cowardice ; the fear of having its errors
brought home to it. ... I believe this doctrine to be fatal
to a healthy development of science. Granting the impos
sibility of penetrating beyond the most superficial layers of
observed phenomena, I would put the distinction between
the two attitudes of mind in this way : One glorifies our
ignorance, while the other accepts it as a regrettable neces
sity." When, therefore, we approach the study of the questions
which have to be dealt with in this and the next chapter
we must ever bear in mind that we are not dealing with
certitudes of science but only with theories more or less
well established in some cases ; perhaps highly likely in
others ; in certain cases only tentatively advanced.
With this preliminary caution we may now proceed to
consider what is placed before us for acceptance by the
highest authorities on that subject with respect to the
Ether of Space or the Luminiferous Ether or simply the
Ether.1 In the first place, why the Ether of Space ? Space is
often spoken of as " infinite," and no one can have read
1 For the sake of readers unfamiliar with the terminology of science it
may be well to point out that the entity with which we are dealing in this
chapter has nothing whatever to do with the fluid used as an anaesthetic for
operative purposes. Our subject has the prior right to the name, no doubt,
but for one person who has heard of the ether of space there must be
hundreds who have personally experienced the effects of the ether of the
pharmacist. Hence a very natural confusion. In the same way the
adjective " ethereal " has come to have a secondary significance which
has assumed so much greater importance than that which legitimately
attaches to it as to make it practically unusable in its proper way.' Hence
" etheric " is sometimes used in its stead when the properties of the ether
of space are under consideration. It ought also to be pointed out that
the Theory of the Ether is selected as one of prominence at the present
day, though it cannot be said to be proved to universal satisfaction.

GRAVITATION 59
much poetry without having discovered that it is commonly
described as " empty." But empty it is not if the ether
really exists, for wherever space is — that is, throughout the
universe— there also is the ether.1 Were it not so we should
be in a great difficulty as to how to explain the undoubted
occurrence of action at a distance. Matter, it is commonly
held, cannot act where it is not but only where it is. If
space is really empty how is it that the sun and moon
exercise influence over the earth ? " Technical action at a
distance is impossible. A body can only act immediately
on what it is in contact with ; it must be by the action of
contiguous particles — that is, practically, through a con
tinuous medium, that force can be transmitted across space.
Radiation is not the only thing the earth feels from the
sun ; there is in addition its gigantic gravitative pull, a
force or tension more than what a million million steel rods,
each seventeen feet in diameter, could stand. What mechanism
transmits this gigantic force ? Again, take a steel bar itself
when violently stretched, with how great tenacity its parts
cling together ! Yet its particles are not in absolute contact,
they are only virtually attached to each other by means
of the universal connecting medium — the ether — a medium
that must be competent to transmit the greatest stresses
which our knowledge of gravitation and of cohesion shows
us to exist."2 It must not for a moment be supposed that
the ether only exists in what is popularly called space.
Space for many people is a kind of ill-defined area which
begins somewhere about the point where our atmosphere
ceases. Of course such is not the case. The ether is omni
present. What is more, apart altogether from its relations
to the structure of matter, which are to be dealt with in the
following chapter, it interpenetrates all matter, indeed it
would be much more accurate to say that all matter is inter
penetrated by the ether. It is exceedingly difficult to bring
this relationship before the mind of the reader unaccustomed
to scientific ideas. Perhaps he may obtain an absurdly
rough but approximate idea by thinking of a currant bun
1 See end of this chapter for a note on Space.
1 Lodge, " Ether of Space," Harper, London and New York, 1909,
p. 26. Italics as in original.

60 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
where the floury part is the ether and the currants are the
ultimate constituents of the matter itself. It is the very
fact of its omnipresence that makes it so difficult to study,
so hard to detect and to realise, for, as Sir Oliver Lodge
most happily puts it, " The last thing that a deep-sea fish
could discover would be water."1 When we have to do
with a thing which is absolutely uniform and universally
present, it is obvious that its detection must be a matter of
singular difficulty. It might be urged by one unfamiliar
with the characteristics of ether that the air around us is
for all practical purposes, so far as we are concerned, uniform
and universal ; yet we are able to detect its existence. The
ether is frictionless, as we shall shortly see. Air is not ; and
it is by the friction of its own currents, winds or breezes, or
by our rapid passage through it that we appreciate its
existence. There are other points, but this will suffice.
It is also, as we have seen, called the Luminiferous Ether,
and this name it owes to the fact that it bears the light
across inter-stellar space. It is the transmitter of radiations,
and when we feel the warmth of the sun or the heat of a
flame it is because the radiations are conveyed to us by the
ether. In fact it is through the ether that nearly all the
energy now informing all movable things on this earth
has reached us. The motor-car which rushes along the
road, the train, the steamship, the manufactory — these owe
their energy to that which came to the earth from the
sun in ages long gone by and was stored up to be employed
by us in these later days. How did these sunbeams make
their journey over the 90,000,000 miles which separate us
from the place of their origin ? It is inconceivable that
they could travel, so to speak, through an absolute vacuum :
they must have been transmitted, as the sunbeams of to
day are being transmitted, by some medium, and that
medium is what we call the ether. Further, we know that
it transmits light, and it may be added all the other in
fluences which traverse it, at a quite definite rate, namely,
185,000 miles per second. This is a characteristic velocity,
just as the velocity of sound through air, at 1200 feet
1 " Continuity," p. 109.

RADIATION 61
per second, is the characteristic velocity of the atmosphere
surrounding this earth. " Radiations," says Mr. Soddy,1
" be they light or heat, whatever their colour or wave
length, X-rays, the ether-waves employed in wireless
telegraphy, magnetic disturbances, whether they reach us
from the sun as the accompaniment of solar storms, or
whether, lastly, they circulate around the space surrounding
a wire in which a current of electricity is being started or
stopped — all travel through space with the speed of light.
Sound is the vibration of the air, and all the gamut of sounds
and noises are essentially air disturbances of the same type.
Radiation is the vibration of the ether, and all the various
phenomena just enumerated are due to electro-magnetic
changes accompanying the alteration either of the speed
or direction of motion of electrons. The ether, so far as
we know, vibrates only in this one way, and the vibrations
are transmitted only with one velocity."2
The point with which we are now dealing is further
summed up by Sir Oliver Lodge, 3 whose words may be quoted
in extenso : " Radiation," he says, " conspicuously comes
to us from the sun. If any free or ordinary matter exists
in the intervening space, it must be an exceedingly rare
gas. In other words, it must consist of scattered particles
of matter, some big enough to be called lumps, some so
1 " Matter and Energy," Home University Library, p. 186.
2 The distinction between transmission by the air and transmission by
the ether may perhaps be made clearer to the general reader by the
following : Many persons will have seen the experiment in which when a
sounding-fork of a certain pitch is struck, its note is echoed by an identical
note in another sounding-fork distant from and in no way connected with
the first but of the same pitch. Or, if they have not seen this experiment,
they can scarcely fail at some time or another to have noticed that a note
sounded on a violin or other musical instrument, even on a wine-glass,
will be echoed by some object capable of vibrating and " tuned " to the
same note as that which has excited it. Perhaps it should be added that
in all these cases the second or excited note is a real note, quite as real as
that which caused it. Such effects are due to vibrations conducted by the
air and travel with the characteristic velocity alluded to above. But
there is another experiment in which, instead of two sounding-forks, two
magnets, which must be identical in character, are suspended at some
distance from one another but in no way connected with one another.
Set one of them swinging. There is no sound and no disturbance of the air,
but the other magnet will also be set swinging to a small extent. Here the
waves which have produced the motion have not travelled through the
air but through a totally different medium, namely, the ether of space.
• " Ether of Space," p. 22.

62 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
small as to be merely atoms, but each with a considerable
gap between it and its neighbour. Such isolated particles
are absolutely incompetent to transmit light. And, paren
thetically, I may say that no form of ordinary matter, solid,
liquid, or gaseous, is competent to transmit a thing travel
ling with the speed and subject to the known laws of light.
For the conveyance of radiation or light all ordinary matter
is not only incompetent, but hopelessly and absurdly in
competent. If this radiation is a thing transmitted by any
thing at all, it must be by something sui generis. But it is
transmitted, — for it takes time on the journey, travelling
at a well-known and definite speed ; and it is a quivering
or periodic disturbance, falling under the general category
of wave-motion. Nothing is more certain than that."
From all this we may conclude that the ether is a real
entity, not a philosophical creation invented to explain
certain facts, and we may proceed to consider what char
acters physicists believe it to possess. In detailing these I
shall freely avail myself of quotations from the recent
writings of those most competent to speak on the subject
from long and careful study. This will, I think, convey a
much more adequate idea of the present state of opinion
on the matter than would be conveyed by any attempt on
my part to paraphrase their writings. And I specially rely
on the writings of Sir Oliver Lodge, since in this country
and elsewhere he may be regarded in an especial sense as
the prophet of the ether.
In the first place, then, the ether is exceedingly dense,
by far the densest thing in the universe. It is " massive
and substantial beyond conception. It is turning out to
be by far the most substantial thing — perhaps the only
substantial thing — in the material universe. Compared to
ether the densest matter, such as lead or gold, is a filmy
gossamer structure ; like a comet's tail or a milky way, or
like a salt in very dilute solution."1 Or again : " As to its
density, it must be far greater than that of any form of
matter, millions of times denser than lead or platinum."2
Yet it is not infinitely dense — if indeed any real meaning
1 " Ether of Space," p. xiv. * " Continuity," p. 33,

ETHER MACHINE 63
attaches to the word infinite in this connection. " It may
be said, why assume any finite density for the ether at all ?
Why not assume that, as it is infinitely continuous, so it is
infinitely dense, whatever that may mean — and that all
its properties are infinite ? This might be possible were
it not for the velocity of light. By transmitting waves at
a finite and measurable speed, the ether has given itself
away, and has let in all the possibilities of calculation and
numerical statement. Its properties are thereby exhibited
as essentially finite — however infinite the whole extent of
it may turn out to be."
Yet matter moves through the ether with perfect free
dom ; it is, in other words, quite frictionless. To anyone
unfamiliar with physics this seems a most contradictory
statement, having regard to what has just been said as to
its enormous density, but it appears that " viscosity is not
a function of density ; the two are not necessarily con
nected."1 Those who desire to comprehend more fully
the facts upon which this statement are based may be
recommended to study the account of the Ether Machine
given in the " Ether of Space."2 This, it may be very briefly
stated, consists primarily of a couple of large steel disks a
yard in diameter and so arranged as to be capable of being
spun so fast as to be in danger of flying in pieces. By means
of mirrors beams of light were sent round and round these
whirling disks at times so close as actually to graze them.
It is clear that if the ether were gripped and dragged round
ever so little by the whirling disks, this ought to be shown
to demonstration. The demonstration, it may be added,
would take place through the observation of " interference
bands," to explain which would take us much too far afield.
Suffice it to say that the acceleration, if there, could be
tested by perfectly well-known physical methods. The
experiment, after allowing for spurious results, showed
that the velocity was not affected by so much as one-
tenth per cent of the velocity of the moving matter, so that
practically we may say that the Ether of Space is never
carried forward, presumably not even by a planet. " So
1 " Continuity," p. 34. * p. 77.

04 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
far as experiment has gone, our conclusion is that the
viscosity or fluid friction of the ether is zero."1
Finally, so far as we are concerned with it in this chapter,
it is incompressible. " The fundamental medium filling
all space, if there.be such, must, in my judgment, be ulti
mately incompressible ; otherwise it would be composed
of parts, and we should have to seek for something still
more fundamental to fill the interstices."2
With its relation to what is known as matter I shall
deal in the next chapter, and until the theories there to be
discussed have been passed under review it will also be
convenient to defer any remarks as to the bearing of these
things upon the teachings of the Church or their bearing
upon philosophical ideas. But before concluding it may
be well to summarise what has been stated as to the ether
of space.
It is omnipresent, and fills what might otherwise really
be " empty " space. It transmits the vibrations of light
and other vibrations at a definite velocity. It permeates
all matter than which it is enormously denser. It is per
fectly frictionless and ultimately incompressible.
To the ordinary reader — indeed to almost any person, not
a professed physicist — these attributes will appear contra
dictory and even incredible. Yet we are told that we must
believe them and that they are deducible from the one
fact which we know about the ether, the one secret which
it gives away — namely, the rate at which it transmits light.
It is a curious fact, yet there seems to be no doubt about
it, that there are persons who cheerfully and without
difficulty accept the fact of the ether, contradictory as its
attributes are and modest as is the amount of evidence
which we have for its existence, yet who wholly refuse to
believe in the existence of the Creator, or at least proclaim
that there is not sufficient evidence to compel belief in the
existence of One whose attributes appear to them to be so
contradictory. Yet to others it would seem that God
makes Himself much more obvious and undeniable in His
creation than He has made obvious the ether through its
power of transmission of light.
1 " Ether of Space," p. 77. • Ibid., p. 82.

SPACE 65
Note to Chapter VI.— The following note on the difficult
question of " Space " in relation to the " Ether " has been
kindly furnished to me by my learned friend Fr. Maher, D. Lit.,
whose useful suggestions here and elsewhere I wish again to
acknowledge. The metaphysics of the conception of Space are
difficult in all philosophies. The chief points in the Scholastic
system are these : We must clearly distinguish between " actual "
or " real " space and " possible " space. The former corresponds
to or is co-extensive with the entire created material universe.
It is, therefore, an actual well-defined area. According to the
current scientific theory it is supposed to be pervaded through
out by the " Ether." This ether is created, is extended, is not
spirit but some form of matter or material stuff, whether made
of electrons or molecules, gaseous or solid or liquid, and whatever
be its relation to the other coagulated realities immersed in it
which we call " matter " or " bodies."
The whole bun must have been created — dough as well as
currants I — and most probably all together. That creation
thereby brought into existence " actual " or " real " space.
Now before that creation there was nothing there — and no
" there," for God, being a spirit, does not Himself exist in space
or constitute space by His being.
There was merely the possibility that God might create
extended material body which would carry with it into existence
and determine so much actual or real space — a mental conception,
an ens ideate. Now " outside " the sphere of the created material
universe there is similarly at present nothing — merely the possi
bility of more material creations and such possibility is in kseH
nothing "real" or "actual" — merely an ens ideate. "Real"
or " Actual " space is then finite, not infinite, and was actualised
or received determinate existence by the creation of matter with
its ocean of ether. Our imagination tends to ascribe to possible
space a real actual existence independently of the material
universe and to set it up as an entity distinct, from God, indeed
some philosophers have made it such. In reality " possible "
space is not an ens reale — a real being — any more than any other
possibility, such as the possibility of an angel or of a two-headed
horse before an angel or a horse of the kind had been
created. When we say that space is " infinite " we must not
understand the space filled with ether or actualised material
reality in any form : this is as strictly limited as a log of wood or
a cloud of smoke. Only God is actually infinite. But we may say
that possibilities are infinite, and so potential, or possible space.

CHAPTER VII
MATTER AND THE ELECTRICAL THEORY
OF MATTER
HAVING thus dealt with the theories of to-day con
cerning the ether we are in a position to turn our
attention to the highly . contentious and difficult question
of the nature of Matter. In this connection it may first be
noted that by far the greater part of that which is now
taught or thought concerning matter and its nature lies
outside the realm of actually ascertained fact and within
that of theory. Moreover, theory in connection with this
subject is of a constantly fluctuating character, so much so
that a good deal of what is now being set down here by the
present writer may very possibly be out of date and dis
regarded by physicists before it appears in print. Indeed
parts of it may be out of date at this moment with those
who really know, for the present writer has no claim to be
considered a physicist and can only avail himself of ordinary
text-books in making this sketch.
This, however, it will effect : it will teach the lesson that
a scientific theory is not a revelation given once for all
and unchangeable, which is the kind of idea that too many
manuals would like to impress upon their readers. To a
considerable extent this is the lesson of this book, and it
can be learnt from physics as it can from chemistry or from
biology. And it will be still more strikingly evinced if the
views here set down should have become old-fashioned
during the interval which must elapse between the writing
and the publishing of a book.
The fact is that we know — that is, have actual verifiable
knowledge of — practically nothing as to the real nature of
matter. But there are very definite theories which may —
66

MATERIA PRIMA 67
or may not — some day or another come to be demonstrated
as facts. With these we have now to deal, and the very
imperfect historical sketch which it will be necessary to
give will show how fundamental have been some of the
fluctuations in opinion. The scholastic doctrine of Matter
and Form has yet to be dealt with ; so, for the moment, all
that need be said is that during the Middle Ages the prevalent
idea, founded on Aristotle's teaching, was that there existed
— as a concept at any rate — a materia prima or prothyle
which was regarded as a substratum common to all the
forms of matter known to us. This fundamental identity
being allowed, it is clear that it might be possible for human
art to cause the materia existing under the form of one kind
of substance to take upon itself a modification of some other
kind, and be thus converted into a material substance of a
totally different kind. This was the underlying theory of
alchemy — that if lead and gold were fundamentally identical
there was no reason why some method might not be dis
covered whereby the less could be transmuted into the more
precious metal.
Such was the view disputed by Richard Boyle in his
" Skyptical Chymist " (1661) and abandoned in favour of
that which held sway over the scientific world until yester
day. According to that theory there were a certain number
of substances known as Elements, amounting in number,
at the time that radio-activity was discovered, to some
eighty or ninety. Of these some are ubiquitous, such as
sodium ; some, like erbium, are exceedingly rare, at least
on our earth. These elements could not be changed into
one another nor further split up.
But even these were not simple or continuous substances.
It was held then, just as it is now, that all matter is discrete
or grained ; the grains were what are called molecules, a
molecule being the smallest amount of any compound which
could exist separately — that is, whilst1 still possessing the
properties of that compound. It will be observed that the
term compound is used ; with regard to the elements it may
be said that whilst occasionally the molecule and the atom
1 The molecule is the physical unit — what the ancients (and even
Dalton) called " atom."

68 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
are the same, such is not usually the case. In all other cases,
and in all compounds, the molecule is made up of atoms,
the atom being conceived as the smallest portion of any
element — the portion beyond which subdivision could not
go ; the ultimate particle of that element.
Let us take the common instance given in all books on the
subject — that of water. A very small amount of imagination
wiU enable us to see that if we proceeded far enough in the
subdivision of a spoonful of water we should come to a
point where no further subdivision was possible. We
should then have arrived at the molecule of water : but we
should not have arrived at an entity which was indivisible,
for, theoretically of course, if we applied the methods of
electrolysis to our molecule of water we could split it up
into two parts of the gas Hydrogen and one of the gas
Oxygen. Here at length, according to the views with which
we are concerned, we should have arrived at an ultimate
and indivisible entity in the shape of the atom. Dalton, in
1803, formulated what is known as the Atomic Theory,
with which we cannot here concern ourselves. Suffice it to
say that it established an order and method in the com
binations of various elements with one another so as to
form the various chemical compounds; and that, though
ideas as to the ultimate nature of the atom have been, as
we shall see, profoundly modified, the Atomic Theory
remains just as useful and valuable to the chemist of to-day
as it was to his predecessor of the days before radioactivity
had been discovered. In 1815 Prout suggested that the
atomic weights of all the elements were integral multiples
of that of Hydrogen (which is usually taken as 1). Subse
quent experiments have discredited this hypothesis ; yet
the approaches of the atomic weights to whole numbers are
too close and too frequent to be regarded as purelyaccidental.
Consider the first, i.e. the lightest twenty-five elements. If
the values were chance-distributed, we might expect five
elements in twenty-five to have an atomic weight within
=o*i of an integer. As a matter of fact (prescinding from
H=i or else 0=i6) we have no less than twenty such
elements. In 1865 Newlands proposed the " law of octaves."
He showed that the elements when arranged in the order

THE ELECTRON 69
of their atomic weights exhibited a regular recurrence of
properties. In 1869 Mendeleeff completely formulated the
famous periodic law : that all the physical properties
(malleability, heat-conductivity and expansion, electro
chemical character, etc.) are periodic or regularly recurrent
functions of their atomic weights. It is a remarkable fact
that three gaps in Mendeleeff's table have since been filled
up by newly discovered metals.
It is quite impossible here to give the facts upon which
the statements now to be made are founded : for these,
readers must be referred to the various manuals quoted in
the footnotes. All that can here be done is to give the
barest outline of the chief points which constitute the mar
vellous conception of the physicists of to-day, the Electrical
Theory of Matter. No doubt philosophers and men of
science were always restive under the idea of such a multi
plication of entities as the Theory of Elements necessitated,
and facts were gradually brought to light which indubitably
pointed to something common to all the elementary atoms —
that is, that the eighty or ninety substances of which we
have been speaking were not intrinsically, unalterably, and
ab initio different from one another, but that there was in
reality only one kind of matter underlying all its mani
festations. It is only in recent years that we have ob
tained unequivocal evidence of something common, and,
strange to say, this common constituent turns out to be,
not, as Prout supposed, the atom of Hydrogen, but the atom
of Electricity — the Electron.
Everybody is aware that there are commonly supposed to
be two kinds of electricity commonly called positive and
negative, and represented respectively by the signs + and — .
Whether there are actually two kinds or not is not quite
clear ; what is certain is that up to the present time that
form which most unfortunately came to be named negative
is the only one which has as yet been isolated from the rest
of an atom of matter. " An electron," says Sir Oliver
Lodge,1 " is the natural unit of negative electricity, and it
may not be long before the natural unit of positive electricity
is found too. But concerning the nature of the positive
1 " Continuity," p. 28.

70 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
unit there is at present some division' into opposite camps.
One school prefers to regard the unit of positive electricity
as a homogeneous sphere, the size of an atom, in which
electrons revolve in simple harmonic orbits and constitute
nearly the whole effective mass. Another school, while
appreciating the simphcity and ingenuity and beauty of
the details of this conception, and the skill with which it
has been worked out, yet thinks the evidence more in
favour of a minute central positive nucleus, or nucleus-
group, of practically atomic mass ; with electrons, larger —
i.e. less concentrated — and therefore less massive than itself,
revolving round it in astronomical orbits. While from yet
another point of view it is insisted that positive and negative
electrons can only differ skew-symmetrically, one being like
the image of the other in a mirror, and that the mode in
which they are grouped to form an atom remains for future
discovery. But no one doubts that electricity is ultimately
atomic." The Atom, it appears, must be thought of as
made up of electrons which are electrical units. But
electricity is defined as ether-strain or ether-shear, and,
without going into technicalities, it is ether modified in
some way or another. From all of which it follows that,
in the last analysis, all matter is modified ether, inter
penetrated by unmodified ether as mentioned in the previous
chapter. It is quite clear that this conception is one of vast im
portance and that, if established, it means an extraordinary
simplification of our ideas of matter. When we come to
take this theory into consideration a question naturally
arises in our minds ; what is the exact kind of modification
which differentiates the modified ether of matter from the
unmodified ether by which it is interpenetrated ? Is it a
condensation of ether or a rarefaction, or what is the modi
fication with which we have to do ? On this point Sir Oliver
Lodge writes as follows : " The ether being incompressible,
and an electron being supposed composed simply and solely
of ether, it follows that it cannot be either a condensation
or a rarefaction of that material, but must be some singu
larity of structure, or some portion otherwise differentiated.
It might, for instance, be something analogous to a vortex

NATURE OF MATTER 71
ring, differentiated kinetically, i.e. by reason of its rotational
motion, from the remainder of the ether ; or it might be
differentiated statically, and be something which would
have to be called a strain-centre or a region of twist, or
something which cannot be very clearly at present imagined
with any security ; though various suggestions have been
made in that direction. The simplest plan for us is to think
of it somewhat as we think of a knot on a piece of string.
The knot differs in no respect from the rest of the string
except in its tied-up structure ; it is of the same density
with the rest, and yet it is differentiated from the rest ;
and, in order to cease to be a knot, would have to be untied
— a process which as yet we have not learned how to apply
to an electron. If ever such a procedure becomes possible,
then electrons will thereby be resolved into the general
body of the undifferentiated ether of space — that part which
is independent of what we call ' matter.' The important
notion for present purposes is merely this : that the density
of the undifferentiated or simple ether, and the density of
the tied-up or be-knotted or otherwise modified ether con
stituting an electron, are one and the same."1
If we assimilate this idea together with that which deals
with the interpenetration of matter by ether we shall see
our way through the next difficulty which confronts us,
namely : Unmodified ether is the densest entity known.
Modified ether or matter is not an attenuation or rarefac
tion of it. How is it then that we must think of matter as
being of a texture comparable with gossamer ?
Matter is " gossamer " in the same sense as a cobweb
is gossamer ; not because the actual substance of each fibre
is of specially light material, but because the whole average
of the cobweb is so. So it is in matter : the space actually
filled by electrons is remarkably small. The space " oc
cupied " by them in the sense in which soldiers occupy a
country, is large and is what appeals to us as matter : in a
word, it is the cobweb of the illustration. The particles
themselves, being composed of ether, must be of the same
density as ether. The average or group density is small,
simply because the particles really fill so small a proportion
1 " Ether of Space," p. 82.

72 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
of the space, a point which we have yet to deal with. The
rest of the space is occupied by unmodified ether, which
forms no part of the matter. The interstices of a cobweb
are filled with air, yet the air is no part of the cobweb. The
analogy is not fully accurate, but it may serve to clear up
the point we are dealing with. At any rate we may pass on
to our next point, namely, the relative size of some of the
objects with which we have been dealing in this chapter
and the relative proportions of the electrons and the un
differentiated ether which surrounds them.
The molecule of Hydrogen, which is the lightest known,
may serve for a starting-point. It would require that
about two million such molecules should be set side by
side in a row in order to occupy one millimetre, or, in
other words, one twenty-fifth of an inch. It requires fifteen
thousand million million million of them to make up one
single grain in weight. This is minute enough in all con
science, but it is relatively to the electron positively enor
mous. For, as Sir J. J. Thomson has shown, the electron
possesses a mass about one-thousandth of the atom of hy
drogen — the lightest atom of all, as we have already learnt.
In the words of Sir Oliver Lodge, "It may be
convenient here to emphasize the dimensions of an
electron, for the arguments in favour of that size
are very strong though not absolutely conclusive : we
are sure that their mass is of the order one-thousandth
of the atomic mass of hydrogen, and we are sure that if
they are purely and solely electrical their size must be one-
hundred thousandth of the linear dimensions of an atom ; a
size with which their penetrating power and other behaviour
is quite consistent. Assuming this estimate to be true, it
is noteworthy how very small these electrical particles are,
compared with the atom of matter to which they are
attached. If an electron is represented by a sphere an inch
in diameter, the diameter of an atom of matter on the same
scale is a mile and a half. Or if an atom of matter is repre
sented by the size of this theatre1 an electron is represented
1 The Sheldonian Theatre at Oxford, a building capable of accommo
dating a large number of persons, in which this,] the Romanes Lecture for
1 9°3 1 was delivered.

ATOMS IN MOTION 73
on the same scale by a printer's full stop."1 And as regards
the relations of the electrons within the atom he adds :
" An atom is not a large thing, but if it is composed of
electrons, the spaces between them are enormous compared
with their size — as great, relatively, as are the spaces be
tween the planets in the solar system."
From what has just been said we can now begin to form
a better idea of what has already been insisted upon —
namely, the gossamer nature of matter; since, relatively
speaking, the interstices are so enormously greater than the
particles themselves. Some have thought that these
electrons within the atom not only occupy towards one
another positions which have been compared to those of
the planets of our system in space but have further thought
that they may revolve around some centre as the planets
do in space, thus forming a kind of microcosm comparable
with that portion of the Universe to which we belong, which
again may quite possibly be but a very small fragment of
the Universe as known to its Maker. These are, of course,
only surmises ; but they serve to intensify the feeling of awe
and amazement with which any person gifted with the very
slightest shred of imagination must contemplate the won
derful ideas just brought under his notice. One thing, at
least, is not an imaginary statement : the atoms are in
motion. This is perhaps one of the most difficult of all the
ideas concerning matter, for nothing less movable or,
more correctly put, less possessed of motion in itself than a
huge block of marble one can hardly conceive. Yet nothing
can be more certain than that its atoms are in a state of
even violent motion. We get some clear proof to our
minds that what we call solid matter does move when we
learn that, if a block of gold and a block of lead be placed
side by side and left in that position, it will be found after
lapse of time that the originally pure block of gold has
come to contain some lead, whilst the block of lead in its
turn has become, so to speak, infected with gold — in other
words, some of the gold has moved into the lead and vice
versa. Finally, we have to learn that matter, even its
molecules, can and does undergo spontaneous change or
1 Lodge, " Modern Views on Matter," Romanes Lecture, 1903, p. 8.

74 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
evolution. This fact completely upsets all that was believed
but a few years ago. The statement on this point made by
Clerk Maxwell, one of the most distinguished physicists
of his time, in the ninth edition of the " Encyclopaedia
Britannica " has frequently been quoted as giving the final
— so it was thought — and definite opinion as to the fixity
of molecules. Even at the risk of bringing this under the
notice of those already familiar with it, it may not be amiss
to quote it, especially in view of certain matters which will
come under consideration in the next chapter.
Clerk Maxwell in the article in question details fully
the characteristics of the atom or molecule. Having
drawn special attention to the rates of its vibrations which
the spectroscope reveals, he continues : " It is the equality
of these spaces and time-constants for all molecules of the
same kind which we have next to consider. We have seen
that the very different circumstances in which different
molecules of the same kind have been placed have not,
even in the course of many ages, produced any appreciable
difference in the value of these constants. If, then, the
various processes of nature to which these molecules have
been subjected since the world began have not been able in
all that time to produce any appreciable difference between
the constants of one molecule and those of another, we are
forced to conclude that it is not to the operation of any of
these processes that the uniformity of the constants is due.
The formation of a molecule is therefore an event not be
longing to that order of nature under which we hve. It is
an operation of a kind which is not, so far as we are aware,
going on on earth or in the sun or the stars, either now or
since these bodies began to be formed. It must be referred
to the epoch, not of the formation of the earth or of the
solar system, but of the establishment of the existing order
of nature, and till not only these worlds and systems, but
the very order of nature itself is dissolved, we have no
reason to expect the occurrence of any operation of a similar
kind. In the present state of science, therefore, we have
strong reason for believing that in a molecule, or if not in
a molecule in one of its component atoms, we have some
thing which has existed either from eternity or at least

DISINTEGRATION THEORY 75
from times anterior to the existing order of nature. But
besides this atom, there are immense numbers of other
atoms of the same kind, and the constants of each of these
atoms are incapable of adjustment by any process now in
action. Each is physically independent of all the others."
The meaning of this is perfectly clear ; in the last quarter
of the last century, less than fifty years ago, it was the
doctrine of science that the so-called elements were abso
lutely distinct each from the other, and more, that they
had been so from the beginning. Further, it was held that
in no way could one of them become transmuted into
another. All this view of nature was upset by the discovery of
radium and the establishment of the Disintegration Theory
of Radioactivity by Rutherford and Soddy, occurrences
which practically belong to the present century.
By this time everyone who reads the daily paper can
hardly fail to be aware of the fact that Radium pours out
energy ; slowly no doubt and perhaps fortunately so, for
the quiet pursuance of life on the earth, for it has been
estimated that if all the energy contained in fifteen grains
of radium could be suddenly developed it would suffice to
blow the entire British Navy a mile into the air. But energy
is developed and with that development there must be a
change in the element ; in other words, a transmutation.
As a matter of fact, this is what is now known to happen
in the case of Radium and some similar radioactive sub
stances. It is a lengthy process in comparison with our
puny lives, for it takes two thousand years for radium itself
to fall to half-value ; but that is, of course, a brief period
when considered in relation to the age of the world. But
even Radium is not the first stage in the process of develop
ment ; for, from what we know of the age of the world, it
has been stated that if the entire globe, at the beginning
of time, had consisted of nothing but Radium, the amount
now left in existence would have been quite insignificant.
This predecessor of Radium seems to have been an element
known as Uranium, from which is formed Ionium, a sub
stance very slow in transmutation since it is asserted that
whereas Radium, as we have learnt, takes only two thousand

76 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
years to fall to half-value, Ionium requires two hundred
thousand. Radium itself passes through various stages
until, it would appear, it completes its history by becoming
lead. The transmutation, then,, of one so-called element
into another is actually an event which is slowly taking
place every day in the laboratory of nature. No present-
day alchemist has yet discovered how to effect that trans
mutation in his laboratory : he can only watch its progress.
But since it does take place it is clearly not impossible
that science may yet solve the question of how to effect
the transmutation, or, perhaps more properly should it be
said, to " speed it up " so that the slow processes of nature
may be replaced by the rapid transformations of the chemist.
At any rate, apart from the theories which have been all
too briefly touched upon in this and the preceding chapter,
we may allow the thought to sink into our minds that what
science firmly held some fifty years ago she has now dis
carded in favour of a totally opposite group of theories. It
is a lesson which we shall learn from the history of other
scientific theories ; and it may at least teach us, as it has
begun to teach the men of science of to-day, that caution
and even scepticism must be exercised in face of all theories
of the past, the present, and the future.

CHAPTER VIII
FACTS AND THEORIES ONCE MORE
THE lesson alluded to in the closing words of the last
chapter is one which should be carefully considered,
and a few of the matters of chief importance which have been
touched upon may here be recapitulated and expanded.
la the first place, then, an effort has been made to explain
the very real and all-important difference which exists
between a fact and a theory. That there is such a sub
stance as gold, for example, is a fact if there are any reali
ties external to ourselves. That it cannot be transmuted
by any means at present known to science into anything
but gold is a fact, so far as our present knowledge goes, but
it may not always remain a fact. It is, therefore, less cer
tain than the fact that there is such a thing as gold. But,
as we have seen, it was also set down as a fact, and that
within our own lifetime, that gold and all the other so-called
elements were all of them ab initio and unalterably distinct
from one another and wholly incapable of being transmuted
into anything else but what they were. The lesson we learn
from all this is that it is not always easy to be quite certain
as to what is and what is not a fact. There are a vast
number of facts as to which no doubt can exist. Either no
knowledge of any kind is possible, or it is a fact that man
has an osseous vertebral column, and so on. There are
also a large number of opinions, such as the Electrical Theory
of Matter which we have just been discussing, which are
admittedly theories subject to discussion and finally to
confirmation or disproof. It is true that we may find many
a theory definitely set down as established by enthusias
tic writers in the daily press which is not so regarded by
those who are really entitled to speak on the subject.
77

78 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
Unfortunately the "man in the street" usually learns of
these things from his newspaper and not from the scientific
expert, and is thus led to assume a certitude for such theories
which admittedly they do not possess, and which is in no way
claimed for them by those responsible for their formulation.
Further, no one can have failed to notice that as soon
as even the most tentatively enunciated theory is put
forward it is at once claimed as the last final and crushing
blow to the pretensions of religion, if in any conceivable
way it can appear to militate against belief. The age of
superstition is over — the absurd ideas of our fathers are
shown to be obsolete — there is no God, no future life, no
anything : all because someone has very cautiously and
very tentatively ventured to suggest that such and such an
explanation of such and such a physical or biological fact
may possibly be true. In all probability the theoriser
was not thinking about religion when he built his theory,
and it is more than likely that the theory in no way —
even if true — bears out the construction which has been
put upon it, and ultimately one or both of these facts
emerges. But by this time the populariser, without whom
the " man in the street " would never have heard of the
theory in" question, has gone his way. He has got his little
bit of " copy " ; he has had his congenial little fling at
religion ; he is hunting some totally different hare, and his
readers hear no more of the theory and its developments.
In all fairness it must be admitted that another result
usually follows. The fly skilfully thrown seldom fails to
" rise " some ecclesiastical fish. Unwarned by or ignorant
of the history of these things he rushes into print, often
with a very imperfect knowledge of the theory and what it
involves, and thus succeeds in one thing only and that is
in persuading the " man in the street " that things are
really looking black for religion. This is very far from saying
that the time does not sometimes arise when a definite word
must and should be said, but what is deprecated is the hasty
acceptance of newspaper accounts of theories with the
deductions therefrom made by the journalist. Readers
of the preceding pages at least will not require to be warned
against the too ready acceptance of theories, nor will they

ENERGY 79
need to be reminded that the theory loudly acclaimed to-day
may find itself on the scrap-heap to-morrow. Such has
been the history of many a theory in the past and no one
doubts that such will be the history of many another in
the future.
But there is a further matter to be borne in mind, and it
is this : — However imperfect some of these hypotheses have
now turned out to be, they were nevertheless invaluable as
working hypotheses from the time they were formulated
and still are. of the utmost value to science, and this because
each of them was an approximation to the truth or what
now seems to us as likely to be the truth. Thus what were
known as elements, though not really " elementary " in
the sense which used to attach to that word, are neverthe
less, so far as our present knowledge goes, unalterable by
any means that the chemist can bring to bear upon them
in his laboratory. So also the Atom, though it is no
longer to be regarded as the ultimate particle of matter, is
none the less a real thing from the chemist's point of view,
and the Atomic Theory, as has already been pointed out,
is just as indispensable to the chemist as it has been from
the time of its formulation. The same may be said about
the Molecule. Moreover, the same is true in other matters
which have not so far been touched upon. Thus, for ex
ample, what is meant by Energy and by the term The Law
of the Conservation of Energy ? As to the latter, something
will have to be said in a later chapter, so we may leave it
for the present. Energy as used by the physicist is a general
isation, and in order to make the law alluded to true, quite
a number of things have to be included under the term.
" Things as distinct from each other as light, heat, sound,
rotation, vibration, elastic strain, gravitative separation,
electric currents, and chemical affinity, have all to be
generalised under the same heading [the conservation of
energy] in order to make the law true. Until ' heat ' was
included in the list of energies, the statement could not be
made ; and a short time ago it was sometimes discussed
whether ' life ' should or should not be included in the
category of energy. I should give the answer decidedly
No, but some might be inclined to say Yes ; and this is

80 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
sufficient as an example to show that the categories of
energy are not necessarily exhausted ; that new forms may
be discovered ; and that if new forms exist, until they are
discovered, the law of conservation of energy as now stated
may in some cases be strictly untrue; just as it would
be untrue, though partially and usefully true, in the theory
of machines, if heat were unknown or ignored."1 " Partially
and usefully true," that is the point which we must keep
before our minds, that a theory, though it is only part of
the truth and therefore false as a complete explanation,
may yet be permanently valuable as a partial expression
of actual facts.
Further, so it would appear from the statements of
leaders in physical science, it is quite possible that if we had
grasped the significance of the law at the commencement,
it might never have been understood in its full complete
ness, or even that if conceived in all its complexity it
might never have been formulated ; nor ever have been
accepted. On these points I must again make reference to
the writings of Sir Oliver Lodge, which are of especial
interest because his constant endeavour is to present his
readers with the general or philosophical bearings of his
subject, and not merely to acquaint them with the dry
bones of science, as too many do in this age of over-special
isation. After alluding to the fact that it is the complexity
of the laws which our more exact knowledge of facts has
brought to our notice which is largely responsible for the
scientific scepticism which has already been alluded to, he
continues : " The simple laws on which we used to be working
were thus simple and discoverable because the full com
plexity of existence was tempered to our ken by the rough
ness of our means of observation. Kepler's laws are not
accurately true, and if he had had before him all the data
now available he could hardly have discovered them. A
planet does not really move in an ellipse but in a kind of
hypocycloid, and not accurately in that either. So it is
also with Boyle's law and the other simple laws in physical
chemistry. Even Van der Waal's generalisation of Boyle's
1 Lodge, " Life and Matter," London, Williams & Norgate, ed. 2,
1905, p. 21.

LAWS OF REFLECTION gi
law is only a further approximation. In most parts of
physics simplicity has sooner or later to give place to com
plexity : though certainly I urge that the simple laws were
true, and are still true, as far as they go, their inaccuracy
being only detected by further real discovery. The reason
they are departed from becomes known to us ; the law
is not really disobeyed, but is modified through the action
of a known additional cause. Hence it is all in the direction
of progress." And he quotes from Poincare" on the same
point : " Take, for instance, the laws of reflection. Fresnel
established them by a simple and attractive theory which
experiment seemed to confirm. Subsequently, more accurate
researches have shown that this verification was but approx
imate ; traces of elliptic polarisation were detected else
where. But it is owing to the first approximation that the
cause of these anomalies was found, in the existence of a
transition layer ; and all the essentials of Fresnel's theory
have remained. We cannot help reflecting that all these
relations would never have been noted if there had been
doubt in the first place as to the complexity of the objects
they connect. Long ago it was said : If Tycho had had
instruments ten times as precise, we would never have had
a Kepler or a Newton, or Astronomy. It is a misfortune
for a science to be born too late, when the means of observa
tion have become too perfect. That is what is happening.
at this moment with respect to physical chemistry : the
founders are hampered in their general grasp by third and
fourth decimal places ; happily they are men of robust
faith. As we get to know the properties of matter better
we see that continuity reigns."
It would thus appear that there are other reasons — be
sides that general one that we must usually proceed step
by step — why it is even beneficial to science that its dis
coveries should be made bit by bit. But it is certainly also
a lesson against proclaiming that we are at the end of our
journey when we may not yet have even come in sight of
the penultimate peak.
Those who take the trouble to pursue their studies in
this book to the end will scarcely fail to see that the greater
part of the argument which it presents is based on what

82 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
has been said up to the present, for the really important
thing to get into men's heads — difficult as the task seems—
is that there is all the difference in the world between a
Fact and a Theory, and more especially all the difference
in the world when we come to consider their respective
bearings upon the dogmas of religion. Consequently a
certain amount of repetition has been ventured upon in
this chapter in the hope that a restatement of certain of
the points previously dwelt upon may perhaps bring them
more clearly before the mind of some reader of these pages,
and for the same reason and again risking the accusation
of " vain repetition," a brief summary of these points may
now be given.
i. When we talk about a Fact we must be quite sure
that what we are talking about is a fact and not a mere
theory. Let us take a homely example to explain once more
what is meant by this. " I hear A.B. has just been married
to CD."—" Is that a fact ? "— " Oh, yes, there can be no
doubt about it, for I was at the wedding myself and saw
the ceremony and was a witness to the signatures." That
certainly may be accepted as a fact which cannot be dis
puted or cavilled at. But suppose the conversation con
tinues : " I hear he married CD. out of pique and because
E.F. refused him."—" Is that a fact ? "— " Oh well !
everybody says that was the reason for what otherwise
seemed inexplicable." That is not a fact at all, but what
we should commonly call a bit of gossip. In a word, it is
a theory. It may be a theory founded on an established
fact or facts. For example : E.F. may have very unkindly
made it widely known that she had refused the offer of A.B.,
and further CD. may have been the kind of woman unlikely
to attract either by charm of person or manner, and un
provided with the goods of this world which sometimes
seem to make up for a total lack of other attractions.
Under these circumstances the gossip or theory in ques
tion may seem quite probable and yet, as we all know very
well, it may be wholly incorrect. No one really could clear
up the matter but A.B. himself, and it may be taken as
unlikely that he will do so. Certainly no man, not even the

FACTS AND THEORIES 83
most experienced of psychologists, can take upon himself
to explain why certain persons attract certain other persons,
and it is consequently impossible to say that A.B. has net
imagined that he has found or actually has found in CD.
charms quite unsuspected by the outer world yet all-
sufficient for himself. This homely parable will, it is hoped.
make the point clear. A provable fact is a fact, but a
theory is a theory, and may never rise to the position or
value of an established fact.
2. There are things which seem to be established facts
and which yet may not be so, such as the old idea respecting
the Chemical Elements. Now let us bear this in mind :
such possibly controvertible facts — if that term may be
employed for a moment — are " facts " of a comprehensive
nature which have passed from the category of hypotheses
into that of facts. Single isolated facts but rarely suffer
such a fate. No doubt Bathybius did, but such facts as
these : — man has a backbone ; gold is heavier than alumin
ium ; the whale is a mammal, and so on — cannot be con
troverted. But the idea of the Chemical Elements, which is a com
prehensive fact — if fact at all — based upon a number of
subsidiary facts and observations, began life as a theory and
won such wide acceptance that it came to be looked upon
as a fact and taught as such, though all the time it was
very largely, though, as we have seen, not completely, false
and unfounded.
3. We must not forget that the inaccurate or imperfectly
accurate theory may have been exceedingly useful in its
time either in explaining matters better than they had
previously been explained, or in promoting work along lines
hitherto unpursued and yet exceedingly fruitful. When
we discuss the theory of Natural Selection in later chapters
of this book we shall learn that but few look upon it new-
adays as more than a very partial explanation of the process
of evolution, though some years ago it held a much stronger
position than that. Yet no one will dispute the fact that
it has made some at least of the operations of nature clearer,
if only by the criticism which it has provoked ; and that in
any case it has stimulated enquiries which have led to the

84 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
vast enrichment of our knowledge of biological facts.
Further — and this is certainly a quite unsuspected conclu
sion — it seems to be clear that the early imperfection of a
theory is actually necessary to its ultimate and complete
comprehension, and that its complete unfolding when first
discovered would, paradoxical as it may seem, interfere
with its capacity for being grasped and utilised by the men
of science of the day.
4. Such being the case, the Catholic can look with
complete religious unconcern on all disputes as to theory,
however much his scientific interest may be awakened
by them. Facts, incontrovertible facts, do not really
conflict with religious questions, and only a false attitude
towards the Bible can cause them to appear to do so. It
can hardly be supposed, to refer to an instance quoted
above, that anyone would be upset if he read in the Bible
or in the works of some justly venerated Father of the
Church, that the whale was " a great fish," when he knows
very well that fish it is not. He knows, or he ought to
know, that the word is used in a popular manner and in a
way with which we are very familiar ourselves. No one
would feel the slightest sensation of surprise if on any
Friday in the year he found himself sitting down to a " fish-
dinner " on the menu of which appeared lobsters and oysters,
neither of which are fish, nor even anatomically as near fish,
as the whale. Similarly, "the sun stood still," hke our
" the sun rises," is a popular method of speaking, and in
volves the fact that in some way or another — and various
ways have been suggested— God Almighty did prolong
the hours of light in the case of Joshua ; certainly does
not necessarily involve inferences which churchmen of
the time of Galileo unwisely read into the statement.
They, as we have seen, were men of their own time and
not in front of it, and they fell into the errors natural to
what figured in those days as science. But we should be
careful to make use of the better guidance which we have
obtained in such utterances as the " Providentissimus Deus "
and avoid the mistakes which we can see our predecessors
have made and which, indeed, it would have been ex
ceedingly difficult for them to have avoided. On the

GOD— THE INSCRUTABLE 85
other hand, our belief in God and in Revelation assures us
that any theory which appears to conflict with either will
only do so in appearance, or will turn out, in so far as it
does so conflict, to have been inaccurate.
5. As regards the various facts and theories which we
have been considering in the preceding pages, it is obvious
to anyone considering them, in the most superficial
manner, that they in no way come into even apparent
conflict with any of the doctrines of the Catholic Church.
Whether everything that has been said respecting the Ether
and the Electrical Theory of Matter be proved truth or utter
misconception, matters, from the point of view of religion,
not one single atom. We have to get further along the
pathways of science before we begin to find even the shadow
of religious contradiction.
What at least we may learn is this : that the incompre
hensible and inscrutable wonders of which so slight a sketch
has been given must, on the purely materialistic explana
tion of things, have all come about by blind chance : and we
ask ourselves in all seriousness whether that is the kind of
explanation which a reasonable man can possibly accept.
There was a time, not so long ago, when people used to be
told, not perhaps by the wisest of men, that they should
not believe anything which they could not understand,
and that as they could not understand God they could not
be expected to believe in Him. Here, perhaps, it may be
parenthetically enquired, what kind of a God would that
be whom His creatures could understand ? But let that
pass.- We are now asked by serious men of science to believe
in an entity, like the Ether, which is full of all sorts of
apparent difficulties and even contradictions. We are told
that it is impossible to believe in God because He could not
be at once absolutely just and all-merciful and omnipotent
and tolerate evil. Yet we must believe in the Ether which
is uncompressible, denser than anything which we can con
ceive and yet through which anything can pass without
friction. This analogy is not mentioned for the purpose of
raising difficulties about the Ether but merely to point out
that if there are difficult mysteries in religion there are
mysteries of science in their own way certainly not less

86 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
difficult to believe. Yet there are those who look upon us
as weak-minded if we ignore or explain the difficulties of
religion, and yet regard us as impertinent if we refuse our
credence, implicit and instant, to the teaching of the
science of to-day. There seems to be a little unfairness
in this distinction.

CHAPTER IX
MATTER AND FORM
1"^HE Church makes but one statement as to the origin
of the universe and of this world, which is a very
small part thereof : " God created them." Beyond this
she does not go, and as was said in the previous chapter,
science and religion are on wholly distinct and not even
adjacent paths so far as concerns the subjects with which
we have been dealing hitherto.
Ninety-nine per cent of the teachings of science are of
no consequence to religion as such. This is the case with
practically all the teachings of Chemistry and Physics. As
to the remaining one per cent of the teachings, they too,
if properly looked at, also have nothing really to do with
religion. It is, however, otherwise with Philosophy, which has a
burning interest of its own in the matters so far under
discussion. To this aspect of the question we must now
turn our attention, devoting some little space to a brief
consideration of the extraordinarily interesting and extra
ordinarily difficult question of the Scholastic Doctrine of
Matter and Form. This can only be touched upon in
these pages so far as to indicate to readers the outlines
of the theory and its relations to some of the more recent
views of men of science as to the nature of Matter.1
1 It is almost impossible to grasp the full significance of the theory
in question without longer study than can be afforded to it by others than
professed philosophers and theologians. Those who desire to make
further acquaintance with it than is possible in the few pages which can
here be devoted to it, may commence by studying the following articles in
the " Catholic Encyclopaedia " : " Matter " — " Form " — " Cosmology "
and other articles mentioned under those headings. They may then
87

88 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
The very first thing which is necessary, in approaching
the Scholastic idea of Matter and Form, is to get rid of all
preconceived ideas respecting both of these words, and
especially all ideas such as those which have been under
consideration in previous chapters. Matter, as we com
monly talk of it and as we have been considering it, is a
real entity—" Matter " in the Scholastic sense is rather a
metaphysical entity than a real physical one, since it can
have and has no existence by itself and apart from Form.
The Matter of the physicists is a thing which in its various
manifestations we can see and handle, the other is a thing
which we cannot see or handle because it cannot exist by
itself. Let us see how this is. It is clear from our own
everyday observations that Matter — as commonly under
stood — presents to us a double series of manifestations — " it
is not only active, but passive ; not only one in its nature,
but manifold in its extended parts ; not only special in
its own nature, but generically common in all natures ;
furthermore, it changes from one nature to another, and that
by way of transformation, not of simple substitution, for
there is something common to it before and after the
change."1 Thus we are led to believe that Matter, as com
monly conceived, is not single but dual in its constitution.
It is held by this theory that there are two opposite prin
ciples required. The first of these is Primordial Matter, the
" Matter " of the Scholastic. Speaking in common terms,
we may think of this as the indispensable basis of all things.
It cannot exist by itself, and we cannot represent it to our
selves any more than we can represent to ourselves sub
stantial form which is its accompaniment. But we can
conceive of each of them. " For St. Thomas, primordial
matter is the common ground of substantial change, the
element of indetermination in corporeal beings. It is a
pure potentiality or determinability, void of substantiality,
of quality, of quantity, and of all the other accidents that
proceed to consolidate their knowledge by studying Fr. John Rickaby's
¦ General Metaphysics " in the Stonyhurst Series. They will then be in a
position, should they so desire, to make a really serious study of the
question in the pages of the learned " Cosmologie " of Professor Nys, of
Louvain, or in those of Fr. Harper's, " Metaphysics of. t^e School/'
\ Jtickaby, op. cit., V: 86,,

MATTER AND FORM 89
determine sensible being. It is not created, neither is it
creatable, but rather concreatable and concreated with
Form, to which it is opposed as a correlate, as one of the
essential ' intrinsic constituents ' of those corporeal beings
in whose existence the act of creation terminates. Similarly
it is not generated, neither does it corrupt in substantial
change, since all generation and corruption is a transition
in which one substance becomes another, and consequently
can only take place in changes of composite subjects. It is
produced out of nothing and can only cease to be by falling
back into nothingness. Its potentiality is not a property
superadded to its essence, for it is a potentiality towards
substantial being."1
Form, on the other hand, is the intrinsic determinant of
anything that is determinable. Form comes and goes, while
the matter with which it co-exists remains as the principle
of unity. " While forms come and go, matter is the same
throughout, not being liable to ' corruption and genera
tion.' "2 After these formal definitions it may be simpler
to put matters in this way. There is a common " matter "
which cannot exist by itself but is always associated with
" form." This common " matter " is the same in gold
and in lead, in the rose and in the rabbit. It is in the
materia prima or prothyle. "Form" is the correlative
matter which makes the gold gold and not lead, the rose
a rose and not a rabbit. This is the " substantial form."
We cannot see it by itself, any more than we can see
" matter " by itself : it is the combination which is evident
to our senses.
Further, the " form " may change though the matter
remains. Thus the rose may and certainly will decay and
cease to be anything which we could call or think of as a
rose. Its " matter " remains, though its " form " has
changed ; the form of a rose having disappeared and that
of a number of other things having taken its place.
Many volumes have been written on this subject, far
exceeding in number the total of the pages which can here
fee devoted to it. Hence many — perhaps most — of the points
1 " Catholic Encyclopaedia," sub voce " Matter."
! Rickaby, nt supra,.

90 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
of interest and controversy must be passed over undiscussed,
nor can any attention be paid to other schools of thought on
the subject. But the following matters must not be passed
over. The kind of " form " may be different, apart from the
differences which -lead to such different manifestations of
matter with form as — say — lead or gold. Gold, for example,
is equivalent to materia prima plus a corporeal and ultimate
form which is inseparable from it. This is a corporeal sub
stantial form. A rabbit is materia prima with a form also,
but a form of a higher order. In the Aristotelian and
Scholastic view the form in a living animal is the vital
principle or actuating energy which unifies and dominates
the material factor constituting with it a living being of a
definite kind. They deemed it incapable of subsisting apart
from the body, but called it an " animal soul."1
Finally, in the common teaching of the Schoolmen, man
is materia prima with a form, but again a form of a totally
different and still higher order. The " form " of man is
his rational soul, and that is a Spiritual or " separated "
form, for it can exist apart from the body which it normally
actuates and for which, as the Schoolmen believed, it
retained a certain aptitude or disposition even when separ
ated at death. On the other hand, the " form " of the
rabbit disappears with the death of the animal.2
1 It will be noticed by those familiar with his work, of which more will
be said in a later chapter, that Driesch, in his theory of the " entelechy,"
has returned to and fully accepted this position, though, of course, in no
sense a follower of the Schoolmen.
2 Though this difficult matter cannot be discussed here with any
fullness, the following points may be added: The " form " of a plant or
animal is not a spiritual or subsistent " form." Spiritual, according to the
scholastics, means capable of acting and subsisting apart from matter.
They deemed the angels purely spiritual or " subsisting " forms — Formes
subsistentes — naturally existing altogether apart from matter. This the
human soul does not, for it retains an aptitude or inclination for its
partner. Also some Schoolmen — the Scotists generally — held that the
human soul did not immediately and directly inform the materia prima ;
that between them there were intermediate subsidiary forms or stages of
actuation, and they used their theory ingeniously to explain the growth
of the hair, nails, etc., after death by the survival or succession of other
forms. The conception has difficulties but is a very useful one for the
neo-scholastic who has to meet the difficulty of the sort of subsidiary life
and individuality assigned to the cell by modern biology. This is more
difficult to harmonize with the doctrine of the soul immediately and
directly informing pure materia prima.

MATERIA PRIMA AND ETHER gl
Of course no attempt can here be made to submit any
proof of these doctrines, nor even to outline the reasons for
them. All that has been attempted is to sketch them out
so that their bearing on what has gone before may be
estimated, and, it may be added, a foundation laid for what
has to be said in subsequent chapters.
Now let us turn to the physical idea of Matter. According
to the idea sketched out in Chapter vii, the ether is the
underlying element of all matter and is always the same.
The various forms of matter presented to our senses are
modifications of that ether or common substructure. They
are, as Sir Oliver Lodge puts it, " like knots in a piece of
string." As all sailors know, there are a variety of knots,
any one of which can be made in a piece of string and again
unmade. The piece of string remains the same, though its
appearance may have been completely modified and again
modified and remodifiedv by the various knots into which
it has been twisted. In all of this there is a certain resem
blance between the two theories, since we may equate
materia prima with the ether and " form " with the kink or
knot which it assumes in any given body. Yet there is a
profound difference between the two in this respect. Matter
according to most of the scholastics, and certainly according
to Aristotle himself, is nothing of itself. Aristotle said that
it has " neither quiddity, nor quantity, nor quality, nor any
of the determinants of Being."1 Ether, on the other hand,
has very marked characters, as we have seen. It is an
entity, if it exists at all, and not an abstraction like materia
prima. Hence according to the pure scholastic doctrine it
would have its own " form " and so be a particular kind of
materia secunda or ordinary matter, and we should have to
get behind that etheric form to arrive at the true materia
prima. In this connection it must not be forgotten that
some of the scholastics have argued that materia prima
has a sort of incomplete entity of its own, which would
bring us at least within measurable distance of the physical
idea of the ether as the basis of all matter.
There are at least two important points to be borne in
1 Rickaby, ut supra.

92 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
mind before we pass away from a subject which has been all
too briefly treated.
In the first place, it will readily be agreed that the theory
of Matter and Form, as thus sketched out, does approximate
to the modern idea of matter far more than it does to the
doctrines of chemistry and physics commonly taught up
to yesterday.
As long as it was held that there were eighty or more
manifestations of matter, all utterly and ab initio different
from one another— fundamentally different — the scholastic
doctrine could find no common ground for discussion with
the rigid supporters of such a doctrine. It is not now
denied that metaphysical chemists may all the time have
admitted the existence of a materia prima ; what is being
discussed now is the commonly accepted idea. Now, how
ever, that chemists, and still more physicists, are more or
less agreed upon the ether as the basis of material objects,
it is clear that we have arrived at a point not far distant
from the conception of the Scholastics. This, at least, may
be said : that the conception which has held from the time
of Aristotle up to the time of Boyle is nearer modern
scientific ideas than the conception ordinarily held by
chemists until within the last few years and from the days
of the Alchemists.
The other point which Catholics should carefully bear
in mind is this :. Religion does not stand or fall by the
Scholastic Philosophy, as many of the opponents of the
Church try to make out. The Scholastic Philosophy, as
pointed out in Chapter iv, is the traditional philosophy
of the Catholic Church. The Church has utilised its
terminology and nomenclature in the definition of her
dogmas. She has employed the conceptions of the Scholastic
Philosophy in the exposition and explanation of these
dogmas ; its principles and arguments in their system-
atisation and justification. In fact, the old philosophy of
the great Greek pagans was adopted by the theological
thinkers of the Middle Ages and developed into an instru
ment of marvellous elasticity, subtilty and precision for
organising, unfolding and harmonising with reason the
whole content of doctrine contained in the Christian Revela-

ARISTOTLE AND CATHOLICISM 93
tion with its logical implications. As a consequence, the
technical theology of the Church and the authoritative
enunciation of her dogmas have become so thoroughly in
corporated in the language of the Scholastic Philosophy,
and so long and so familiarly illustrated by the metaphysical
concepts of that system of thought that it is pretty certain
her teaching will never be divorced from that philosophy
or united with any other. Indeed every attempt to present
important doctrines, such as that of the Eucharist, in the
framework of other metaphysical systems has usually com
pletely failed. Still it must never be imagined that the
Catholic Church is bound to stand or fall with the Scholastic
Philosophy. It existed and spread and taught the world
for a thousand years before that philosophy was heard of.
Its doctrinal teaching is on a different plane and guaranteed
by a different authority from the most unanimously accepted
theses and speculations of the schools.
Neither the metaphysics of Aristotle nor its scholastic
development is any part of the revealed deposit of Faith.
Even at the zenith of his glory no accredited Catholic
theologian taught that Aristotle was inspired — at any rate
by the Holy Ghost. Nay, the great Theological Faculty
of the University of Paris in the thirteenth century
solemnly condemned him as a most dangerous enemy of
the Christian Faith, and several of his works were for a long
time actually on the Roman Index. Nevertheless, all this
being borne in mind, the historical fact remains that the
Catholic Church has approved the Scholastic Philosophy as
she has done none other ; she has adopted it officially in
her schools, and she has again and again commended St.
Thomas, the greatest Master and Doctor of the Scholastic
Philosophy, to all her students throughout the world. And
now, when we turn to consider the trend of the most recent
philosophico-scientific speculation, we find that most impor
tant doctrines of the Schoolmen which had been treated with
the greatest contempt by modern science — the science that
is of but yesterday — and never more so than in the nine
teenth century, prove to be the opposite of the absurd
things which a temporary attitude of science would have
made them out to be.

94 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
In the case of Matter and Form, we have a far-reaching
theory which had been held by all the Schoolmen, indeed
by all learned men for centuries. It conflicts with a novel
theory of science adopted with that ardour with which we
are prone to accept new doctrines of science — the Theory
of the Chemical Elements. As it conflicts with that Theory,
the Theory of " Matter and Form " is not only neglected
but assumed to have been disposed of for ever and to have
become a laughing-stock and a patent evidence of the
foolishness of Catholic Philosophers.
" Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel and lower the proud."
The day arrives when Science changes her mind as to the
Theory of the Chemical Elements and lo ! it becomes
evident to all who take the trouble to study the subject,
that the new standpoint of Science, if not identical with
that of Scholasticism, is at least so close to it as to be in
distinguishable save by the expert ; and even by him ad
mitted as being whole regions closer to it than the view in
favour until recently. It is not now argued that this
proves the Scholastic view to be unassailable, but it at least
shows that it is worthy of serious and respectful attention.
When a Theory — a philosophical theory — shows itself
adaptable to the newest discoveries of science — when, still
more, it may be looked upon without any straining of facts
as having actually predicted those discoveries, or precon
ceived them, if that word is to be preferred — then indeed we
have every reason to feel that our confidence in the accuracy
of that theory is greatly increased, and it is increased
by the remarkable similarity which has been seen to exist
between the theory of " Matter and Form " and the Electri
cal Theory of Matter as now widely taught.
Note to Chapter IX.— It is so exceedingly important for
any person desirous of grasping much of what appears in the
earlier chapters of this book to comprehend the essentials at least
of the Theory of Matter and Form, that I append another state
ment of the various " forms " which has been placed at my
disposal by a learned friend, and which may throw additional
light on the question as dealt with in this chapter.
As to " forms " : There are (i) accidental forms, i.e. determin
ations or qualifications of a being which make it such-and-such
but do not constitute its essence, e.g. colour, size, etc. Some

SUBSTANTIAL FORMS 95
of these may be specific determinants or inseparable properties
of an entity, e.g. yellowness of gold, or the invariable concomi
tants of a zoological species.
There are (2) substantial forms, which constitute the actual
concrete existent substances or are the physical actualities which
make a being be what it is, which, in fact, make it a unitary
entity (e.g. a rabbit).
There are various gradations of substantial forms. To adopt
one simple scheme we may classify them thus :
(1) Mineral or inorganic (e.g. gold). — It is generally held that
this lowest kind of form is extended, i.e. related in a one-to-one
mode with space. Thus the form of a lump of gold can be sub
divided by breaking the lump. Or we might take the molecule to
have the substantial form, the lump being merely an accidental
congeries of substantial forms.
(2) Plant-form (or soul). — Here we have a higher unity than
in (1). We might almost say that we have the beginning of a
conquest over space. The plant is more than a mere collection
of inorganic chemicals. It is an organic unity. It is one in a
sense In which its spatial parts are not one. The functional unity
of a plant argues an ontological unity — as yet, however, im
perfect. (3) Sensitive or animal form (or soul). — Here we have a still
higher unity — the unity of sense-consciousness. It is unthink
able that the percept (e.g. landscape) should be correlated by a
one-to-one process with the percipient's brain. In the end the
percept must be perceived as a whole. (Even K in consciousness
is not the sum of I and <.) Hence it is absurd to seek the
sensitive soul among brain-cells — the soul is the synthesis of
them all; it is present in each and in all. It has a mode of
presentiality of its own. The evidence for the morphological
and physiological unity of an animal also shows that we must
adopt the concept of such an entity.
(4) Spiritual or intellectual form (or soul). — Of this the only
instance is man. Man not only perceives but conceives. Only
to man have things a meaning. It is true that every concept is
accompanied by a percept (and so probably by a physiological
change). But this accompaniment is accidental, i.e. it influences
only the process, not the object. Even to think of God we must
see or pronounce His name or some name. Both reason and
free-will postulate a soul which is not only simple and un-
extended (as is the animal soul) but also spiritual, i.e. a soul
whose existence (esse) is independent of matter. In a word the
human soul not only " informs " (actualises) the human body,
but (as it were) has something left over after so doing. As the
Schoolmen put it, it is " not wholly immersed in matter."

CHAPTER X
THE UNIVERSE
IT is a mere platitude to say that a large book might be
written about the Universe — a library of books — and
yet the subject would in no way be exhausted. In the brief
space which can be allotted to it here, all that can be at
tempted is to give some sort of idea of what is meant by the
term ; of the immensity of the subject dealt with ; of what
has been suggested as to the origin, proximate and ultimate,
of the Universe.
In Chapter iii the controversy usually associated with
the name of Galileo was outlined, and it was then pointed
out that, at his time, there were two views as to the
solar system, that corner of the visible universe best
known to us. There was the geocentric system which made
the earth the centre of all things, and the heliocentric
which made the planets of our system circle around the sun
as their centre. The latter was the theory of Copernicus
and Galileo, and is that which everybody now accepts.
When it was put forward, this explanation, as we have seen,
was only a likely solution of the difficulty. It was not till
Copernicus had been some two hundred years in his grave
that Bradley (in 1726) discovered the aberration of light,
and converted, what had up to then been a more or less
probable theory, into an incontrovertible fact.
We may commence with the solar system, comparatively
small though it is, and work upward from it towards the
immensities of the Universe. Now our solar system con
sists of what we call " the " sun, though it is only one of
many such bodies. Our sun forms the centre of a system of
planets thus arranged :
Mercury, is the nearest to the sun and has no satellite.
96

THE PLANETS 97
Venus, also without a satellite.
The Earth, with one satellite, the Moon.
Mars, with two satellites.
A zone of minor planets or asteroids.
Jupiter, with seven satellites.
Saturn, with ten satellites.
Uranus, with four satellites.
Neptune, with one satellite.
When we come to ask the distances which intervene between
these members of the solar system, and still more between
the solar system and others of the visible bodies in the
universe, we slowly begin to realise that we enter a realm
of numerical relations utterly unlike anything which we
are otherwise acquainted with — a realm having units other
wise unknown and only imperfectly realisable after long
and careful thought has been bestowed upon them.
To begin with, the association of numbers known as a
million miles is to the Universe something like what an inch
is to our ordinary maximum measurements. Yet it is not
easy to grasp what is meant by a million, even in these
days when we read of that figure in connection with the
vast armies of the Continent of Europe or as the cost of
some enormous ship of war. The late A. R. Wallace had a
scheme for supplying every important public school with a
room in which the walls and ceiling were covered with one
million black wafers, the object of the whole being to habitu
ate the mind of the child to the meaning of the word and
to make him understand what is meant in pounds or dollars
of taxation and national expenditure.1 Perhaps it may
assist the imagination of the reader if he is told that all
the words in the present book amount to something con
siderably less than one-fifth of a million : it is possible that
the letters in it may reach the larger total.
At any rate, it is with figures of this size that astronomy
and astronomical calculations have to do, and we must try
to understand what they have to teach us. Let us still
confine ourselves to our own solar system. In the measure
ments of this system the million sinks to the place of an
1 " Man's Place in the Universe," London, Chapman & Hall, 1904,
p. 82. 11

98 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
inch and we have to seek for another unit which we may
find in the distance of the earth from the sun, i.e, 92,830,000
miles. Utilising this unit we can arrange the solar system
thus : —
The Sun.
Mercury . . . TV of a unit.
Venus . a little more than jfo of a unit.
Earth . 1 unit, i.e. 92,830,000 miles.
Mars . . „ . i\ unit.
Jupiter . , . over 5 units.
Saturn . . . • 9\ units.
Uranus . . . .19 units.
Neptune . . .30 units.
So that to obtain the distance from the Sun to Neptune
it is necessary to multiply 92,830,000 miles by 30 : when
the reader has done that and allowed the figures to sink
into his mind, he has next to learn that, comparatively
speaking, they are quite trivial in relation to other measure
ments which have been made between the various observable
objects in the visible universe. In order to study these we
have to abandon even the huge unit with which we have
been dealing and find another in order that our figures may
become at all manageable. To do this we must turn to the
question of light. Light, as we have already learnt, travels
at an absolutely definite and unalterable rate of 186,000
miles per second — thus it takes eight minutes to come from
the Sun to the earth. Some idea of its rapidity may be
formed if we consider that an untiring and everlasting
express train which never required to stop for repairs, coal
or water, but went on and on at the even rate of sixty miles
per hour, would require 175 years to traverse that awful
gap. Or, to take a smaller distance, a beam of light could
do the double journey from London to New York and from
New York to London about thirty times in one second.
Let us leave that point for one moment to grasp the fact
that our sun is only one of many such objects in the universe.
How many such there may be it is hard to say, since each
improvement in astronomical apparatus reveals more and
more to the trained observer. Whether the enormous
telescope of Mount Wilson, with its five foot reflector, is to

LIGHT-YEARS 99
remain the largest thing of the kind time will tell; but
at any rate the mammoth telescope and, above all, the
improvements in celestial photography have greatly ex
tended our knowledge of the heavenly bodies.
As a recent writer1 puts it : " Unlike the eye, the photo
graphic plate never tires, and the longer it is exposed,
provided the telescope can be pointed exactly at the same
celestial object,2 the more it sees. The action of light upon
the silver salts on the plate is in such cases cumulative, and
hence after exposures of nine or ten or more hours the plate
when developed will show structure in a nebula, which the
eye could never have grasped even when aided with the
most powerful optical power as yet available."
Up to the present time the result of all these unwearied
observations has been to show that there are something
like 100,000,000 stars, that is to say suns, visible to the
astronomer by one or other of his methods. Thus our
star, the Sun, which seems, and indeed is, so important to
us, is only one out of an almost inconceivable multitude of
suns in the visible universe.
The nearest neighbouring sun to our system is the star
known as Alpha Centauri, as to the distance of which from
us the following facts may give some idea. We return to
the question of light and its rate of transmission. Light,
travelling at the rate of 186,000 miles per second, takes
Eight minutes to come from the Sun (92,830,000 miles).
Four hours to come from Neptune, the most distant
planet of our system.
Four and a half years to come from Alpha Centauri, the
nearest neighbouring sun to our system.
Here we are introduced to a new unit — that of the " light-
year," which is the distance travelled by a beam of light in
the course of one year. Thus Sirius, the " Dog-Star," the
brightest of what are called the fixed stars, is nearly nine
light-years distant. Any reader of this book can now perform
1 Fr. Cortie. s.j., " The Origin of the Sun and Stars," in " The Month,"
January, 1914. To this article and another on "The System of the
Stars," published in " The Month " for March, 1912, I am indebted for a
number of the facts given in this and the immediately succeeding chapters.
1 As, of course, it can be for any desired length of time with the aid of
modern machinery.

loo THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
a long but simple sum in multiplication in order to afford
himself some idea of what a " light-year " really means.
Let him first of all multiply 186,000 by 60 in order to arrive
at the number of miles per minute. He will find it
comes to quite a respectable total. But this again has to
be multiplied by 60 to account for the miles per hour, and
that sum by 24 so that we may know how many per day.
Finally, the enormous line of figures now arrived at has to be
multiplied by 365 to make up the sum total for a " light-
year." Now if he chooses to do so, he can multiply this by
four and a half and he will have arrived at the distance
which separates us from the nearest sun not that of our
own particular solar system.
But that is the nearest sun, and there are millions further
off. For example, let any reader who is approaching his
fortieth birthday make up his mind on the evening of that
day, if the condition of the sky permits him to do so, to
look at the North or Pole Star. If he does so he may bear
in mind that the beam of light which has that moment
caught his eye started on its mad race of 186,000 miles
per second on the day when he first saw the light of earth.
But this is a mere trifle, if it be true, as Kapteyn, a recent
writer, maintains, that there are stars in the visible universe
which are as much as 30,000 " light-years " off.
It is quite impossible for anyone, even after long medita
tion on the subject, thoroughly to appreciate what all this
really means ; but a couple of illustrations of the subject
may now be set down in the hope that they may in some
measure enable the reader to comprehend something of
the awful distances of the visible universe. One of the most
recent manuals dealing with the subject1 says : " Many
have tried to find some way of picturing the distances which
separate star from star in the sun's neighbourhood. Perhaps
there is no way better than to imagine a model in which
the sun is represented by a grain of sand one hundredth of
an inch in diameter" — (the actual diameter of the sun
being 864,000 miles)—" and the earth "—(actual diameter
at equator 7926 miles)—" by a quite invisible speck one
inch away "—(actual distance of the earth from the sun
1 Hinks, " Astronomy," Home University Library, p. 169.

ASTRONOMICAL DISTANCES 101
92,830,000 miles). " Upon this scale the nearest star will
be another grain of sand some four miles away, and the
other stars will be scattered at somewhat greater distances
apart. To this incredible sparseness are the stars reduced
when we try to look at them in three dimensions."
Or let us look at it in another way.1
Everybody knows that maps are drawn to certain scales.
There is in this country a six-inch scale, i.e. six inches of
map represent one mile of land. That is a large scale and
enables every small road and other details to be delineated,
but it is too large a scale for ordinary use. The one-inch
is the standard ordnance map, and every mile of ground
is there represented by one inch of paper. That again is
far too large a scale to be used for great countries. For
instance, I have just been looking at a map in a school
atlas, which represents the United States on the scale of
250 miles to the inch, making about eleven inches from
San Francisco to a point on the eastern coast. Two hundred
and fifty miles of land represented by one inch of paper :
it is about as small a scale as is compatible with usefulness.
Now, suppose we were to try to plot out the visible universe
to scale on paper, what scale could we employ ? As a matter
of fact we should find the thing quite impossible on any
scale, but let us suppose that we adopted a scale of one-
million-millionth of an inch to the mile, or, in similar terms
to those used above, one mile of space represented by one-
million-millionth of an inch, how large a map should we
require ? We should need a strip of paper two miles and
three-quarters in length to work upon. We may well say
that the task is an impossible one.
Observe that what we have so far been discussing refers
only to the visible universe. In that universe our solar
system is only a very small item. The planets which com
prise it are whirling round the sun, their centre, as we all
know ; but they and the sun are also constantly rushing
through space towards the constellation known as Hercules
at the rate of twelve and a half miles per second, a com
paratively moderate rate in comparison with what we have
1 Suggested to me by my friend Professor Conran who has made the
calculation.

102 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
recently been considering, yet one which makes up quite a
respectable total for a year — to take it no further— if we
make the calculation. Hence the members of our solar
system are constantly altering their positions, as a whole,
with regard to the visible universe. Can we form any con
ception of where we are in respect to its other portions, or
what the general contour of that universe maybe ?
In attempting to answer these questions, we must
first direct our attention to that well-known object in the
heavens, the Milky Way. This object is a ring of clouds of
stars which lies in the central plane of the whole system of
stars. As we approach this ring it is found that the stars
have a greater density, and that this increase in density is
progressively carried on from the poles of the Milky Way
to its circumference. This, and other facts which cannot
here be dealt with, " lead to the conception of the universe
of stars as flattened into a lenticular form, our sun occupying
a position in the median plane and not far removed from
its centre. Ptolemy placed the earth at the centre of the
planetary system, modern astronomers give it a far more
dignified position as near the centre of the whole congeries
of stars."1 Much was made of this point and of the unique
possibilities of this earth as a place of habitation for men
by the late A. R. Wallace in his book " Man's Place in the
Universe." As to this it may be said that, as far as we know,
with the single possible exception of Mars, hfe for men,
constituted as men on this earth are constituted, or indeed
life of any kind recognisable by us as life, would not be
possible upon any other planet of our system — perhaps,
though this is a large assumption, not anywhere else in the
visible universe. This is, of course, very far from saying
that there may not be other forms of existence of which we
can form no notion on other planets, or indeed in other
parts of the vast universe on which we have been bestowing
so cursory a consideration.
Of course we cannot really comprehend all these im
mensities : they terrify the mind which tries to take them
in. Mr. Hardy's astronomer in " Two on a Tower," says :
" There is a size at which dignity begins ; further on there
1 Cortie, " System of Stars," ut supra, p. 248.

SPACE 103
is a size at which grandeur begins ; further on a size at
which awfulness begins ; further on a size at which ghastli-
ness begins. That size faintly approaches the size of the
stellar universe." And then, with that pessimism which is
characteristic of his more thoughtful characters, the author
makes his hero add: "Am I not right in saying that those
minds who exert their imaginative powers to bury them
selves in the depths of that universe merely strain their
faculties to obtain a new horror ? "
So far we have only thought of the visible universe,
but what are we to say about Space, which in one of its
corners, so to speak, contains this vast visible universe.
Space presents itself to us as represented by our possible
or actual forms of motion. Thus we can walk forwards
or backwards or from side to side, and we can jump
into the air or down into a hole. That is to say, we have
experience of a three-dimensional state of things and we
refer this experience to what we call space. But we actually
know of Infusorians which only move backwards and for
wards and which would, therefore, had they any ideas, only
have an idea of a two-dimensional space. We can certainly
conceive a one-dimensional space, and the mathematicians
claim to show us that it may be possible to conceive of space
of four or even more dimensions with results completely
subversive of all our ideas regarding material objects.
This territory is, however, confessedly misty and obscure.1
Unconsciously no doubt in most cases, but none the less
really, we think, so far as we do think at all, of Space on the
lines indicated, that is as three-dimensional. Of course,
the vast majority of people never trouble to think what is
really meant by Space — or by Time either, for the matter of
that, a subject whose problems are closely associated with
those of space. These are metaphysical problems, and it
must be the task of the metaphysician to endeavour to ex
plain to us what reality outside our own minds corresponds
to those two terms " Space " and " Time." Most people
who think about such things at all no doubt envisage the
problem, as many writers have done, as one of an objective
1 On this point see a very interesting article in " Mathematical Essays,"
by Schubert (Trans. McCormack), "Open Court," Chicago, 1898.

104 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
nature. They think of space, as we may think of the ocean,
an infinitely vaster ocean but still a sort of ocean with the
Ether instead of water, an ocean in which the stars and
other heavenly bodies revolve and move. That, however,
is a very inadequate manner of considering the problem,
for it leaves out of account the boundless potential regions
beyond the area, however vast, of space actually occupied
by existing material creations. We cannot think of an
ocean without thinking of its shores, the shores of Europe
or America or Asia or whatever they may be ; but Space,
looked at objectively, has no boundaries.1 Immense and
awful as are the distances involved in our visible universe,
there is no valid reason why there might not be a million,
even a million million such universes in illimitable space.
Hence the ocean simile breaks down in connection with
Space, just as the river simile breaks down in connection
with Time, of which Newton spoke as something which
" in itself and from its nature flows equally." But the
flowing thing must have a beginning and an end, not to
speak of boundaries, none of which things can we predicate
concerning Time.
The opposite way of looking at it is the subjective, by
which Space and Time are explained as real only to our
minds. The high-water mark of this method may be
found in the transcendental ideas of Kant, who taught
that Space and Time are conditions of all our experience,
not gained from it ; that is, that they are a priori ideas
supplied by the mind from its own resources. They
are attached to things-as-we-know-them or Phenomena,
not to the ding-an-sich, the thing-in -itself. Kant de
scribed these two ideas by saying that Space is the form
of outer sense, Time of inner sense. Now in the case of
Space this extreme view breaks down. Astronomy and
astro-physics assume an objective space of three dimensions
corresponding to our conception of it, and are unintelligible
in any theory which denies the external validity of that
1 We must always bear in mind, in dealing with these topics, that
there is only one ens reale vel actuate — one Infinite Reality, namely God.
Similarly there never can be actualised an infinite number. On the other
hand, possibilities of all sorts are infinite, but they are enfia rationis with
a foundation in God's omnipotence.

SPACE AND GOD 105
conception. There is a via media. If Space is not an
independent entity or real thing-in-itself and yet is not
purely subjective — since it is relative to our sensuous powers
of perception, and since our spatial perceptions and con
ceptions do enable us to deal successfully with objects — it is
clear that the objective universe has an arrangement which
corresponds in some way to what we call spatial arrange
ment, even though we may be unable to explain what that
may be.
Of course, the plain fact is that we can neither perfectly
nor adequately conceive what is meant by Space any more
than we can feel that we have a full comprehension of the
Universe. Yet there are persons who admit all these facts
and limitations ; who credit all that is told them about
the Universe and its composition ; who admit that they
can form no idea of what is meant by Space, though they
agree that it is there : but who yet refuse to believe in God
because they cannot understand Him, or understand how
He can never have had any beginning nor will ever have any
end. Of course, it is no argument to say that because we
have one thing which we cannot understand we may try
to explain it by something else which we do not fully com
prehend. To that we may agree and on this point we base
no argument on behalf of the existence of God. But what
we may fairly claim is this : the contented acceptance of
one problem, admitted by materialists to be incomprehen
sible, does take away from them the right to use that most
foolish argument, which one used to hear so often and still
hears from time to time, that we ought not to believe any
thing which we cannot understand. It is absurd to suppose
that we ought to be able to understand God : He would
not be God if we could.
But we may gain a useful lesson in spiritual humility by
making a meditation on Space and Time, when we shall be
bound to come to the conclusion that we can form only the
feeblest and most inadequate conception of what is meant
by these terms, and recognize that the mind is in no way
capable of defining or explaining them. Yet in a sense they
are only the outskirts of the One Eternal Being who created
the Universe and all that it contains.

106 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
Perhaps to one who views man as a mere cog in a gigantic
machine, or a speck in an ocean of dust, the impression
most forcibly brought before the mind may be their ghastli-
ness, when he ponders on such things as Space, the Universe,
the inconceivable distances which it involves, the immense
areas of space empty, so far as we can tell, of everything
but the Ether.
But in the mind of the believer in a Creator the idea
would be dispelled, even were it ever to be formed, by the
thought of the gloriousness of the whole conception, its
majesty, its incomprehensibility, its fitness, so far as any
thing is fit, to serve, as the half-visible garment of that
Being whose greatness and attributes we can only represent
to ourselves by the incomplete and ineffective figures which
are all that are possible to our finite minds.1
1 For Kant two things are " sublime " : the starry heavens above and
the moral law within. Similarly, St. Ignatius Loyola, who loved to meditate
on the sky : his favourite exclamation was, " Quam sordet tellus quando
coelum aspicio ! " [How mean the earth seems when I look at the
heavens 1]

CHAPTER XI
THE ORIGIN OF THE UNIVERSE
THE topics discussed in the last chapter have been
included in this book with a dual object. In the
first place it is important, that the immensity and difficulty
of the problems connected with our conception of the
Universe and the fundamental character of considerations
relating to Space and Time should be realised by those
who have not previously been brought in contact with
them. Such considerations, when rightly meditated upon, form
no inconsiderable part of the argument for the existence
of a Supreme Being, which will be dealt with in the next
chapter. Again, the subject of the present chapter, which is of
importance from quite another point of view, would have
been unintelligible without the preliminary statements
considered in the immediately preceding pages.
So far then we have discovered that the theory of scientific
men is that the Space of the entire physical universe —
whatever arrangement of things that may really mean — is
occupied by the Ether which is the continuum by which
action at a distance, otherwise inexplicable, is explained.
Further, that the visible universe consists of a vast col
lection of stars and other bodies ; that this collection taken
generally is lenticular in shape and that it has our Earth
somewhere about its centre.
We have now to see what theories have been put forward
to account for this arrangement of the universe and we may
commence with the best known and most widely held which
is called the Nebular Theory or Hypothesis.
107

108 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
The telescope reveals to us a large number of what are
called nebulae, though only two of these are even faintly
visible to the naked eye, the least invisible being that which
can be seen in the sword-handle of the constellation of Orion.
Subject to the further explanation which has yet to be given,
it may be said that a nebula, as indeed its name indicates,
is a kind of cloud — an incandescent cloud emitting a more or
less faint light, which retains its relative position to the
other heavenly bodies. In this respect, as in others, a nebula
differs from a comet, with which it must not be confused.
A comet is not in permanent relation of position, so far as
we can tell, to any other heavenly bodies, nor do we know
whether comets " are really indigenous to the solar system
or whether they may not be merely imported into the
system from the depths of space."1 When we come to ask
what is the nature or structure or composition of nebulas
we are told that in some cases at least they can be shown
by very high-powered telescopes to be made up of an in
numerable multitude of small stars. In other cases no
telescope constructed up to the present has been able to
resolve the nebula in such a manner, and so far as our
knowledge goes such nebulae would seem to consist of an
incandescent gas. That nebulae are incandescent is clear;
and this is a point of great importance in connection with
a matter to be dealt with in a subsequent chapter. They
emit a light of their own, white in most cases but of a
bluish green in those of the planetary and irregular varieties.
We do not as yet know how these nebulae are kept in a
state of incandescence. According to the hypothesis put
forward by Sir Norman Lockyer, the light is to be attri
buted " to collisions between numbers of small discrete
solid particles, these being vaporised and made luminous
owing to the heat developed by their impacts."2
By calling in the aid of the spectroscope we are able to
tell something about the composition of these nebulae, as
we are about that of the stars themselves. For the sake of
those who are unfamiliar with the nature of the spectro-
1 " Encyclopaedia Britannica," ed. xi, sub voce " Nebular Theory."
* " Encyclopaedia Britannica," sub voce " Nebula."

STELLAR SPECTROSCOPY 169
scope it may be said at once that what it tells us about in
the case of the star is the character of its thin outer en
velope and not strictly speaking the character of the star
itself.1 In spite of this limitation it is conceded that the spectro
scopic method does afford us information of incalculable
value as to the composition of the heavenly bodies. As
far as regards the stars we learn that their chemical com
position is very similar to that of our sun, and that the sun
itself presents a range of chemical components similar to
those of which our Earth is made up. Owing to the very
feeble light which they emit, the spectra of nebulae are very
difficult of observation : still many of them have been
spectroscopically examined, and the result has been to show
that most of them reveal by their spectra a chemical com
position indistinguishable from that of the stars. Some,
however, whilst presenting in their spectra lines familiar to
us and recognisable as those of elements with which we are
well acquainted, also present other lines which have so far
not been recognised as related to any elements existing on
this earth.2 These two unknown lines are always found
together, have always the same relative intensity and have
been attributed to an unknown element which has been
called " nebulium." With this apparent but perhaps not

1 Any manual of spectroscopy will explain the instrument and make
clear the point just alluded to, which cannot here be further dealt with.
For a brief but admirable account of this and other matters referred to in
this chapter the reader may be directed to " The Making of the Earth," by
J. W. Gregory, Home University Library.
* It is quite possible that we are not acquainted with all the elements
which exist in the earth itself. Tie interior of the earth, which from its
weight is called the barysphere, must be much heavier than the crust or
lithosphere. This last is only two and a half times as heavy as an equal
bulk of water, whilst the entire globe is five and a half times that weight.
There are facts which point to the conclusion that the barysphere is com
posed of nickel-iron, but the truth is that we do not know and are never
likely to know what it consists of. This matter is mentioned in order to
show that the fact that the lines of nebulium have not as yet been associ
ated with anything on this earth does not prove that there is nothing in
the earth which is associated with them.
Apropos of this matter it may be mentioned that helium, as indeed its
name implies, was first discovered in the sun, as long ago as 1868, by
means of its characteristic bright yellow spectrum-line. It was only in
1895 that it was identified in this earth, when Sir William Ramsay found
it in certain minerals. It has since become famous as the constituent of
the " alpha-rays " of radio-active substances.

no THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
real exception, the spectroscope teaches us that we may
look upon stars, nebulae, and our own solar system as con
sisting of the same chemical substances. If they are
identical in character, may they not be also identical in
origin ? Is not that the simplest and most satisfying
solution of the question as to how the universe conies
to be as it is ? This identity of composition is indeed one of
the most important arguments in favour of the Nebular
Hypothesis. As put forward originally by Laplace, this theory sup
posed that the position now occupied by our solar system —
to confine ourselves to the consideration of that which we
know most about — was once occupied by a vast, perhaps
lenticular nebula, the centre of which occupied the position
now filled by our sun.
This nebula was in a condition of incandescence and was,
therefore, emitting light. Further, it had a rotatory move
ment and was whirling round at a rapid rate on its own
axis. We may pause for one moment to remember that the
theory postulates, but does not account for, the nebula,
its incandescence, and its motion.
What follows explains, or may explain, what happens in
such a system, but it neither explains nor pretends to ex
plain the system itself. To return to the theory. This
heated, whirling nebula would by slow degrees become
cooler, and as it became cooler it must contract towards
its centre. Further, the more it contracted the more rapidly
it must have rotated. All these things follow upon what we
know as the laws of nature and need not be delayed over.
In such a system as this there must be two conflicting forces.
First of all there is the centrifugal force, which tends to tear
the periphery from the centre, the kind of force which we
see in action when a mop full of water is " trundled."
Secondly, there is the force of attraction, which holds the
periphery to the centre. Now as the contraction and the
rapidity of rotation of the system increase, the time must
come when the centrifugal force at the periphery must over
come the attractive force towards the centre. Any person
who thinks for a moment will see that the result of this
must be the splitting off of the periphery of the nebula as a

THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS ill
kind of ring. A repetition of the events thus described,
followed by still further repetitions of this process of split
ting, would lead to the formation, first of all, of a second
ring within the first, and then of other such concentric
rings, all of which would have been formed from the original
nebula. In the centre or focus would be what remained of
the nebula after the successive rings had been split off it.
And, just as the original nebula was whirling round in a
certain direction, so the nucleus and the rings which had
split off it would continue whirling round in the same
direction as the original nebula and, therefore, in the same
direction as each other. Let us now return to the rings
which we have supposed to have been split off and consider
what their fate may have been. In either case, in the
process of cooling, the rings must have passed from the
state of an incandescent gas to one of a liquid character
before they could settle down as solids.1 If, in this process,
consolidation were to take place with something like uni
formity, a great number of small planets would be formed.
This is actually what we find in the interval between the
orbits of Mars and Jupiter (see Chapter x). The more likely
condition seems to have been one of non-uniform consolida
tion, for the ring is not likely often to have been quite
uniform in all its circumference. But, if it were not thus
uniform, it would consolidate more rapidly in one part
than it would in others, with the result that a single planet
would be formed. Further, just as the planets, under this
theory, have split off from the mass which ultimately
remains as the sun, so the satellites, such as our moon, have
in a secondary manner split off from the various rings or
spheres. Primary or secondary in their manner of splitting
off, all these bodies, being parts of the original nebula,
would retain their motion and the direction of that motion
which the nebula itself possessed. As a matter of fact, of

1 From the point of view of this book it is merely necessary to show
that the Nebular Hypothesis, if true, does not in any way conflict with
religious opinions. At the same time, for the sake of accuracy, it may be
noted that a ring of matter can only concentrate around its centre and
this would mean that the ring would return to its parent nucleus. Hence
it is better to regard the detacned portions as initially more or less globular
rather than ring-shaped.

112 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
course this is what we find to be the case in regard to the
sun and the planets, including our earth : —
" This world was once a fluid haze of light
Till towards the centre set the starry tides,
And eddied into suns, that wheeling cast
The planets."
Thus the poet sums up, not inaptly, the Nebular Hypo
thesis as generally received. Fascinating as it is we must
remember that it is only a hypothesis and one which may —
almost certainly must — receive profound modification. For
example, the lenticular mass of vapour which Laplace
posited may very probably have to be abandoned in favour
of the spiral or corkscrew form, which has been shown to
characterise so many nebulae. It is also questionable
whether any nebula is hot enough to be incandescent. In
fact some think that nebulae are cold, with the intense cold
of space, and that their luminosity is due to a rain of elec
trons. That they are luminous is, of course, undoubted.
This, however, may be said, that the views which have just
been briefly sketched afford a very complete explanation of
the facts of the solar system, and, being free from incon
sistency with at least most known facts, have long been
accepted as at least a very useful working hypothesis. In
connection with it let us look for a moment at the problem
of the continuance of the radiation of its heat by the sun,
on which matter a few moments may now profitably be
spent. In the first place, let us consider the enormous
output of energy of which the sun is agent. The noontide
heat which falls upon this county of Cork, in which I am
now writing, would be more than sufficient to drive all the
steam engines of the world. Yet the whole earth only
receives one 2,200,000,000th of the sun's radiance. The
sun's radiated energy amounts to about 14,000 horse-power
per square foot of the solar surface. Every one has heard
or read the statement that our coal fields are " bottled
sunlight," for the energy which we obtain from the com
bustion of coal is only that which was gathered from the
sun by the forests of the Carboniferous Period and stored
up for our use. If it be true, as seems undoubtedly to be
the case, that this bottled energy will be exhausted within

THE METEORIC HYPOTHESIS 113
a measurable period of time, it is clear that the best hope
for the future is that science will discover some method of
harnessing the sunlight itself in and for the service of man
kind. It is clear that this vast amount of radiation must be
explicable in some way or another : what is that way and
what the explanation ?
The first explanation that would occur to anyone is that
the radiation is due to a simple process of cooling down.
This, however, is an impossible explanation. Had radiation
been due to a- cooling process, then, at the rate at which it is
going, the sun would have cooled very appreciably even
during historic times, which is not the case. In fact, if the
sun's specific heat were that of the substances composing
the great bulk of the earth, the annual fall in its temperature
would be nearly io° F.
This explanation having proved to be faulty we may turn
to the next simplest : the sun is a fire, i.e. in a state of
combustion. This also is untenable. The sun is, in fact,
above the temperature at which we believe chemical com
bination to be possible. But, even if the sun had been a
solid mass of the best Kilkenny anthracite, burning swiftly
enough to produce the known heat-supply, less than 6000
years would have been required for its complete consump
tion. These two simple explanations having utterly failed we
may turn to another which would not suggest itself to the
ordinary thinker, namely, the so-called Meteoric Hypo
thesis. We know that if we hammer a piece of iron it will become
very hot and we can understand from that, what is also
true, viz. that the impact of a cannon-ball upon a sheet of
armour-plate engenders great heat. In the same way a
fall of comets or meteorites or cosmical matter into the
sun might, it has been suggested, keep up its incandescence.
To this explanation also there are insuperable objections.
In the first place, the sun's mass would by this means be
increased by an annual layer of twenty metres of asteroids.
. This would produce very remarkable effects, amongst
which this may be mentioned, that since the dawn of
the Christian era the year would have been shortened

114 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
by six weeks. Further, if the sun were thus a target
for such a battery, so also must the earth be, though
necessarily to a feebler degree. Nevertheless, if such were
the case, calculation shows that, on this theory, each square
mile of the earth's surface would be bombarded by fifty
tons of missiles every day.
The only theory, in fact, which holds the field is
that of Helmholtz, namely, the theory of Gravitational
Shrinkage. Just as a stone on a height, or an avalanche,
or a stream, can do work and generate heat by its descent
to earth, so the contraction of the sun's materials can
convert their previously existing potential energy into
kinetic energy and so into heat. Further, it must not be
forgotten that gravity on the sun's surface is twenty-eight
times what it is on earth.
If we assume the sun to be of uniform density in its
interior and that it contracts uniformly, the contraction
necessary to generate an energy equal to that radiated is
about 225 feet a year, or four and a half miles in a century.
This would amount to about a second of arc in 10,000 years,
so that we can hardly hope as yet to obtain direct evidence
for the contraction. Of course, if the sun's radiance is due
to progressive shrinking, it is clear that a time existed when
it was much larger and more diffuse than it is now, which
in itself supports the nebular hypothesis. " It has been
estimated," says the writer in the last edition of the " En
cyclopaedia Britannica,"1 "that the sun is at present con
tracting, so that its diameter diminishes ten metres every
century ; there is, however, now reason to think that the
rate of contraction is by no means so rapid as this would
indicate. This is an inappreciable distance when compared
with the diameter of the sun, which is nearly a million of
miles, but the significance for our present purpose depends
upon the fact that this contraction is always taking place.
Assuming the accuracy of the estimate just made, we see that
a thousand years ago the sun must have had a diameter a
hundred metres greater than at present ; ten thousand
years ago that diameter must have been one thousand metres
more than it is now, and so on. We cannot, perhaps., assert

THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS 115
that the same rate is to be continued for very many centuries,
but it is plain that the further we look back into the past
time the greater must the sun have been. Dealing, then,
simply with the laws of nature as we know them, we can
see no limit to the increasing size of the sun as we look back.
We must conceive a time when the sun was swollen to such
an extent that it filled up the entire space girdled by the
orbit of Mercury. Earlier still the sun must have reached
to the Earth. Earlier still the sun* must have reached
to where Neptune now revolves on the confines of our
system, but the mass of the sun could not undergo an ex
pansion so prodigious without being made vastly more
rarefied than at present, and hence we are led by this mode
of reasoning to the conception of the primaeval nebula
from which our system has originated."1
Laplace's theory, with which we have been dealing up to
now, postulates the original nebula as gaseous in its com
position — gaseous and luminous. It may now be well to
deal very briefly with another theory which differs some
what from that already under consideration, and in this
way. According to Laplace's view, as we have seen, the
planets in the course of their formation pass through the
stage of being each of them in a gaseous ring. According
to the Meteoric Theory the nebula v consists not of an
incandescent gas, which may afterwards cool down first
into a liquid and then into a solid, but of a huge
collection of solid meteorites. Everybody has seen a
" shooting star." Each of these is a solid meteorite which
enters our atmosphere cold and dark ; which there, by
friction, becomes heated and luminous for the short time
which generally intervenes before it is reduced to powder
and becomes a trail of incandescent dust. The collection
of solid meteorites above spoken of, whirling round as
the nebula whirls, must come into constant collision
with one another and thus develop heat and incandes-
1 It is only fair to add that the exploits of radium have lately thrown
some doubt on this theory. The presence of about 3J grams in each
cubic metre of the sun's mass would be sufficient to account for the
present radiation. But it must be confessed that up to the present moment
there is absolutely no evidence entitling us to assume the existence of
solar radium.

116 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
cence.1 It is possible that the collection of solid meteorites
may have first of all been a nebula composed of incandescent
gas but broken up into meteorites not contracted into a
planet. There is this to be said about this theory, that it seems
to explain the ancient climates of the earth better than
the other. In the most ancient times, long ages before
man was there to make observations, and when life was
only beginning its first struggles with its environment, we
should have expected to find that on account of the greater
heat of the crust of the earth climates and climatic con
ditions were very different from what they are now. It
may well be asked how we can possibly know anything
about them. Well, the surfaces of some of these ancient
plains of the archaeozoic era have actually been preserved
for us under blown sand, which has formed sandstone, and
this when removed has exposed the ancient land-surface
to our observation. With this result : that we know that
the prevalent wind in Scotland, for example, was then, as
it is now, from the. south-west, that the raindrops were of
the same size and fell with the same force as to-day, in a
word, that there was no very material difference between
the conditions millions of years ago and to-day. It is urged
that all this concurs better with the meteoritic or plane-
tesimal theory than with that of Laplace, and it is certain
that the earth which has unquestionably been hotter than
it is, would take a shorter time to cool down from the
condition of a group of consolidated meteorites, heated by
mutual collisions, than it would have done in cooling down
from the condition of an incandescent gas, or a superheated
liquid. The fact is that there are difficulties of various kinds,
some of them mathematical in their nature, in connection
with either explanation, but the facts seem to point
to some such theory as that with [which we have been con
cerning ourselves, eventually emerging as the accepted ex
planation of the condition of the solar system. It need
hardly be said that neither of these theories is a complete
1 Of course, some of these meteors do actually reach the earth ; far
more than is generally imagined. See " The Making of the Earth "
pp. 33 seq.

"IN THE BEGINNING" 117
or final explanation, and that neither of them in any way
conflicts with any dogma of religion, which insists on only
one point, that " in the beginning God created the heaven
and the earth." How He chose to do this is only indicated
in outline, and in no way contradicts or raises any difficulty
in connection with the nebular hypothesis or its variants.

CHAPTER XII
THE ORIGIN OF THE UNIVERSE— continued
SO far as we have gone we have under our consideration :
Space, whatever that may really be ; Luminiferous
Ether, whatever again that may be ; Heavenly Bodies of
various kinds, some of them incandescent gas, some of them
superheated molten masses ; some of them, like our Earth,
warm ; some of them, like our Moon, cold extinct masses.
We have all these various forms of Matter and we have all
this Matter in Motion. We can form some idea of how this
may have come about, given Matter and that in Motion.
Can we form any idea of how Matter and Matter in Motion
first came into existence, that being the underlying fact of
the scheme of the Universe ?
There are, as we shall see, two and two only explanations
possible. They must be considered separately, and will
be discussed in this chapter. But before attacking them a
word must be said as to another attitude towards this ques
tion common enough to-day and perhaps still more common
some twenty-five years ago.
It is the attitude which Huxley named Agnosticism, and
from the rigidly scientific point of view it is a perfectly
reasonable attitude. Du Bois Reymond, one of Johannes
Muller's most brilliant pupils, laid it down that there were
Seven Enigmas confronting the scientific enquirer which
were : — (i.) The nature of Matter and Force.
(ii.) The origin of Motion.
(iii.) The origin of Life.
(iv.) The apparently designed order of Nature.
(v.) The origin of sensation and consciousness.
(vi.) The origin of rational thought and speech.
(vii.) Free-will. 118

THE DICHOTOMY ng
The first, second, and fifth of these he described as
" transcendental " and insoluble — ignoramus et ignorabimus.
He thought that the same would probably have to be said
about the seventh. As to the others, they were probably
solvable, but were still unsolved. Now with regard to this
attitude it may rightly be said that science cannot solve any
of the great fundamental questions, though science can
supply any number of invaluable facts which at any rate
enable philosophy to offer some explanation of these funda
mental matters. The Agnostic attitude has sometimes been
rather severely criticised, but surely if a man of science keeps
within his own territory it is better for him honestly to con
fess that he does not know than to spin the scientific cob
webs of explanation which we come across in the writings
of Haeckel and of Weismann, explanations avowedly in
vented lest we should accept that Christian explanation
which still holds the field for so many who do not even
claim to be called Theists.
Let us turn from the attitude of pure Agnosticism
as to the origin of Matter and Motion, to the explanations
of those phenomena of which, as we have said, there are
in the last analysis only two, for we arrive here at what
logicians call a Dichotomy.
Either Matter was created or it is self-existing, and
further, it must be alive.1 If we sift out the meaning of
Pantheism, the Anima Mundi and conceptions of that kind ;
if we apply ourselves to the consideration of Bergson's
Creative Evolution, — his blind deity ever impelling matter
onward to an unknown goal, — all these conceptions really
resolve themselves into that of Matter, alive and eternal.
To this conclusion came the authors of " The Unseen
Universe " ; indeed, it is the conclusion to which all who
1 St. Thomas discusses the possibility of a creation from all eternity.
Aristotle had held the eternity of the world, or at least of matter, in some
sense. St. Thomas teaches (by reason) that motion cannot be eternal and
that, consequently, a world with any change in it cannot be eternal. He
holds, however, that reason cannot disprove the possibility of the creation
by God from all eternity of some sort of matter with no motion in or
attached to it. No motion, for motion originates time. Of course, he
teaches that according to Christian Revelation neither the Angelic nor
the Material Universe was created from Eternity. In any case, matter
or any finite or imperfect reality could not be self -existing. The self-
existing must be perfect, infinite and, therefore, one or unique.

120 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
consider the question must come.1 These men had made a
very special study of matter and their fame is likely long
to survive. Their object was to show that the materialistic
views, rampant and apparently victorious all along the line
at the time that the book was published, i.e. in the early
seventies, were no solution of the difficulties which they
purported to explain. In the preface to the second edition,
which also appears in later editions, the authors say : " To
reduce matters to order, we may confidently assert that
the only reasonable and defensible alternative to our
hypothesis (or, at least, something similar to it) is the
stupendous pair of assumptions that visible matter is eternal,
and that it is alive." And they continue : " If anyone can
be found to uphold notions like these (from a scientific point
of view), we shall be most happy to enter the lists with him."
Yet Haeckel's so-called Law of Substance — unaccepted
by any physicists so far as the present writer is aware —
practically amounts to the very thing which these two
eminent physicists ridicule, that Matter is eternal and
alive. In fact, so it must be, twist the explanation how one
will, unless it was created and is directed. In the body of
their book the authors consider this question of the living
atom, and though opinions as to the position and character
of the atom have undergone a considerable change since
the book was written, such changes of opinion have rather
tended to confirm than to weaken the views which are now
about to be quoted. The materialists or pantheists, or
whatever we may choose to call those who contend for a
living and eternal atom, as against one which has come into
existence at the fiat of the Creator, maintain that the atom
— or, perhaps it would now be said, the electron — is the
true abode of immortal life in the universe and that its life
is a very simple one. Such in a condensed form is the
attitude. In reply the authors of the book we are consider
ing ask what all this may imply. " It implies, in the first
1 The authors of " The Unseen Universe," at first issued anonymously
were Professors Balfour Stewart and P. G. Tait, two of the most dis
tinguished physicists of their day. This book has undeservedly rather
passed out of mind but it is well worth reading. The quotations given
here are taken from the 7th ed. published in 1878 and the italics and
capitals are those of the authors themselves.

BELIEF IN A CREATOR 121
place, that the atom is eternal, and to this we object. It
implies, in the next place, that the atom is extremely
simple in its constitution, and to this we object." It may
be said that modern views decidedly support both these
objections, and more especially the second of them. Then
they proceed : " It implies, thirdly, that for the antecedents
of the motions of the atom it is unnecessary to resort to
anything beyond the atom itself, and to this we object."
In connection with this last objection they claim " that in
order to conceive the nature of the forces by which atoms
act upon each other we are driven at once . . . to something
which implies the existence and the agency of the Unseen
Universe." Finally, " We maintain that what we are driven
to is not an under-life resident in the atom, but rather, to adopt
the words of a recent writer, a Divine over-life in which we
live and move and have our being."1
Here, then, we see science brought to the brink of the
question as regards matter, is it created or is it eternally self-
existing and alive ? The two physicists in question declare
that it is not eternal and not alive. Either, then, we must
admit that it was created and that there is a Creator, or
we must content ourselves by saying " Ignoramus el ignor-
abimus," with Du Bois Reymond. Our authors do not
hesitate to accept the former alternative and to proclaim
their belief in a Creator of the Universe. The same con
clusion was arrived at by one who was an even more dis
tinguished physicist than either of the two just mentioned,
distinguished as they were. Lord Kelvin can hardly be
said to have had a superior or even an equal save Newton
alone, and Lord Kelvin declared in an address to the
Students of University College, London, in 1903, that
Science positively affirms creative power.*
Let us now, however, turn our attention to the Universe
as a whole. Have we any reason to suppose that it has
always been as it is, or that it will always remain as it is ?
On the contrary, we have every reason to believe that it is
1 Op. cit., pp. 241 seq. Italics here and previously as in original.
* " I cannot admit that, with regard to the origin of life, science neither
affirms nor denies creative power. Science positively affirms creative
power . . . which [she] compels us to accept as an article of belief "
(" Nineteenth Century," June, 1903).

122 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
in a constant state of flux. There is no doubt in anyone's
mind that the earth was once a mass of exceedingly hot, if
not absolutely molten, material and that it has gradually
cooled down to the condition in which we now know it. If
the nebular theory is true there was an even earlier period
when it was a glowing gas, or something nearly as attenu
ated. Not long ago it was thought that it would gradually
cool down, until, like the moon, it became a cold, dead
world, a " has-been " of the skies, incapable of supporting
life of any kind, or at least anything which we could now
recognise as life.
Nowadays some hold a different view, believing that the
temperature of the earth is slowly but certainly rising
and that it will continue to rise until it reaches the bursting
point, when it will explode and blow into atoms, becoming
" cosmic dust " or a mass of fragments which might con
ceivably be consolidated into a new planet or become a
group of asteroids.1 What, for our purposes, is important
about these theories is that they show that it is not expected
that the world will go on for ever as it now is. The Universe,
as we know it, must have an end, and we may fairly claim
that it must have had a beginning for reasons that will yet
appear. Of course, the reply may be made that this is true
of the Universe, as we know it, that it must have had a
beginning and will have an end, but that this is true only
in a certain sense. In other words, it may be argued that
this world was once no doubt a molten mass ; we know that
it is now inhabitable, which it cannot have been for long
ages of time ; we can well believe that there will be an end
to it as it is now ; all this may be accepted. But what is there
to prove that it will not be reconstructed in the manner
suggested from a group of planetesimals formed by the
disruption of the earth into a new planet, perhaps in time
itself to become the fruitful mother of life ? This is Haeckel's
argument in relation to his " theory of substance." Thus
it has been stated that the nebular theory confirms the view
that the cosmogonic process has not simply taken place
1 Incidentally it may be remarked that these theories need not cause
any alarm since in neither case is the end dated for less than several
million years ahead.

DEGRADATION OF ENERGY 123
once but is periodically repeated. That whilst in some parts
of the universe new cosmic bodies arise and develop out of
rotating masses of nebulae ; in other parts old, extinct,
frigid suns come into collision, and are once more reduced
by the heat generated to the condition of nebulae. Now,
in the first place, it may be remarked with regard to this
theory, that whether probable or not matters but little
from our present "point of view, since it does not help us to
solve the question as to who made the machine, wound it
up and set it going. We are still reduced to the matter-
alive theory which we have seen is rejected by the physicists
whose speciality matter is. But apart from that there is a
serious difficulty in the way of this phcenix-like- production
of new worlds from old, and that difficulty lies in the un
doubted fact of the degradation of energy. The question
of the Law of the Conservation of Energy will have to be
considered more fully when we come to close quarters with
the Vitalistic controversy, but for the moment we may say
that it teaches that in a closed system there is a certain
amount of energy capable of manifesting itself in various
ways but remaining the same in amount through all its
changes of character. It appears, for example, as heat, as
motion, as strain, and so on, but the amount does not
differ : the sum adds up the same at the end whatever the
factors may be. Now, as far as we are concerned, the uni
verse is our closed system. The solar system is not, for
there is radiation from it into space, which radiation means
dissipation of energy. Of course there is an enormous amount
of energy in the solar system, not to speak of the universe,
but we must not forget that a great deal of this might as
well not be there for all practical purposes, because it is
unavailable, that is, incapable of transformations. All the
activities of actual matter, as we know it, are accompanied
by a degradation of energy, i.e. there is less available at the
end of the process than there was at the beginning. Thus
every stroke of a steam-engine means a transference of
heat from a hotter to a cooler body ; hence at the end we
are left with two bodies whose temperatures are closer than
at the start. We may regard the universe as a steam-
engine — but without any outside supplies of fuel. Every

124 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
change, every motion, brings nearer the day when all its
portions will have been reduced to the same dead level of
temperature. Heat is the final stable form of all these
energies, and every exercise of power pays a toll to that
great reservoir of uniformly distributed heat which is slowly
but surely ushering in " the night when no man can
work." Thus, to turn to our own universe and the earth upon
which we have our temporary habitat, the rotation of
the earth round the sun and of the moon round the earth
cause tides in the sea and in the atmosphere around the
earth, which tides produce friction. It is known that the
period of the rotation of the earth is gradually growing
greater and it can be calculated that the time will come
when the earth will rotate on its own axis in the same period
as it rotates round the sun, that is, in a year. In other
words, the year and the day will coincide. Under these
circumstances the kinetic, or we may here call it actual
and available energy of the earth, will be less than it now
is. How are we to account for the balance ? It has become
friction of the tides against the earth, and this friction
has been transformed into low-temperature heat, and that
again has been radiated into space and has become non-
available. And so with steam and internal-combustion
engines, and in fact all exhibitions of energy there is a
certain loss of available energy or degradation thereof.
Now let us apply this knowledge to the theory that the
universe is cyclically renewing itself in the manner indicated
above. The whole question is fully considered in a recent
book from which we may quote.1 The author in question
points out that our closed system is the universe, which
from the physical point of view we must look upon as
finite, for if infinite all our speculations become meaningless,
and he continues : " The universe therefore is a system in
which energy tends continually towards degradation. In
every process that occurs in it — that is to say, every purely
physical process — heat is evolved, and this heat is distributed
by conduction and radiation, and tends to become uni-
1 Johnstone, " The Philosophy of Biology," Camb. Univ. Press 1914
p. 63.

WHO WOUND THE CLOCK? 125
versally diffused throughout all its parts. When this ulti
mate, uniform distribution of energy will have been attained
all physical phenomena will have ceased. It is useless to
argue that universal phenomena are cyclical. We vainly
invoke the speculations (founded on rather prematurely
developed cosmical physics) of stellar collisions, light-
radiation pressure, the distribution of cosmic dust, etc.,
to support our notions of alternate phases of dissipation
and concentration of energy ; close analysis will show
that all these processes must be irreversible. The picture
physics exhibits to us is that of the universe as a clock
running down ; of an ultimate extinction of all becoming ;
an universal physical death. In this conclusion there is
nothing that is speculative. It is the least metaphysical of
the great generalisations of science. It represents simply
our experience of the direction in which physical changes
are proceeding. Based upon the most exact methods of
science known to us, nothing seems more certain and more
capable of rigorous mathematical investigation."
Science, then, teaches us that the clock is inevitably, if
slowly running down and that in time it must come to a stop,
like any other clock, if unwound. Surely we could hardly
want better proof that there must have been a time when
there was no clock, or no clock wound up and going. 1 If that
were not so, we should be presented with the impossible
paradox of a universe which had no beginning but is bound
to have an end. And yet, in face of his statements as to
the certainty of the data on which the conclusion at which he
has arrived is based, and the infallibility of that conclusion —
and indeed he has not spoken in any way too strongly about
it — the author from whom I have been quoting proceeds :
" And yet we are certain that it is not universally true.
For there must always have been an universe — at least our
1 " If we accept the theory that the heat of the stars is kept up by
their slow contraction, we must think of the universe of stars as of a
clock which is running down. As we can see by the eye of reason that
the weight of the clock was higher yesterday than it is to-day, so we can
compute that the stars must have been larger in former times, and that
there must have been some finite and computable period when they were
all nebulae. Not even a nebula can give light without a progressive change
of some sort. Hence within a certain finite period the nebulae themselves
must have begun to shine. How did they begin ? This is the unsolvable
question." Simon Newcomb, " The Stars : a Study of the Universe," p. 219.

126 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
intellect is incapable of conceiving beginning. If we sup
pose a beginning, an unconditioned creation, at once we
leap from science into the rankest of metaphysics." What
all this means is that if we hold that the universe is eternal
and that degradation of energy is still going on, the time
when all energy had been degraded and things had come to
a standstill must long have been past. But we still find
energy available. Therefore there must be some means —
though science cannot point to it — whereby the degraded
energy can be once more restored. Now the weak point
of this syllogism is that the major premise is in dispute.
The writer in question says that we cannot imagine a time
when there was no universe. Well, this is precisely what
all Catholic, indeed one may say all Christian, philosophy
does quite calmly and quite easily envisage. It thus offers
a reply to the difficulty under consideration which, though
some may call it " rank metaphysics," at least to men like
Lord Kelvin, and to others is a satisfactory solution of the
question. Let us now state the Catholic solution, which is at any rate
simple and definite and is summed up in the statement
that " In the beginning God created the heavens and the
earth." According to the Catholic belief God alone has
existed from all eternity and it was at His fiat that the
universe came into existence. There was a time when
there was no universe ; when there was nothing but God.
This solution of the difficulty presented a still further diffi
culty of a purely philosophical character to Herbert Spencer
and others, who were driven to the belief that there must be
something more at the back of things than mere blind powers.
This great and over-mastering difficulty was that if God — or
the Great Unknowable or any other periphrase which may be
used by philosophers desirous of avoiding the stigma of old-
fashionedness, — if God existed alone and self-sufficient, then
we seem to be obliged to contemplate the existence of a
subject unprovided with any object, which would be an
almost impossible state of affairs. This book is in no sense
a manual of theology, nor is it any part of its scope to deal
with such mysteries as that of the Blessed Trinity as held
by Christians. But this at least may be said, that this

A FREE CAUSE 127
doctrine, as we understand it, does away with the difficulty
just raised, since it shows us in the doctrine of the Trinity
in Unity that the highest form of existence in the universe
is a social form " in which thought is for ever communi
cated with unbroken harmony of feeling and will."1
Another argument which is urged against the Christian
idea is that the postulation of a Divine Creator depends
upon man's craving for a knowledge of causality. Since
everything must have a cause there must be a First Cause.
This seems a fair argument, but is countered by the ques
tion " What was the cause of the First Cause ? " Here we
are back again at our old dichotomy : Creator (First Cause)
or Self -Existing Matter, eternal and alive.
It is „ clear that if we adopt the first solution we must
at the same time see that we are dealing with a Cause
wholly unlike any other of the secondary and tertiary
causes which must all be traceable back to it. Catholic
Philosophy teaches that when we speak of a First Cause we
speak of a Cause which is different from every other cause
in that it is a Free Cause, moved only by Itself and un
moved by anything else. Thus it differs from all the unfree
causes which we know in nature, which are themselves
effects of other natural causes, and these again of others
and so on. It is only in connection with a Free Cause that
we reach finality.
This is, of course, the barest possible statement of an
argument whose full development must be sought in manuals
of Natural Theology. It is outlined here in order that
readers may be aware that the difficulty has been met and
considered and that there is an answer which will seem
satisfactory to all but two classes of mind. The first class
is that which refuses to believe that any truth can be reached
in connection with these ultimate matters and declines to
consider anything which can be said about them, in other
words, the pure Agnostic.
The other class of mind is that of the man whose
first principle it is that there is nothing higher than
Matter. Well, if that is an established major premise, as it
certainly is in some minds, then clearly there is no such
1 Robinson, " God and the World," London, S.P.C.K., 1913, p. 49.

128 < THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
thing as a God or a First Cause and Matter is Eternal and
it is Alive. We have seen that this theory gets us into
trouble with the physicists, and when we come to consider
the question of man's higher part we shall see that it gets
us into great difficulties there also. But there is no doubt
that there are minds which refuse utterly to believe in any
thing which they would call "mystical," which believe
themselves degraded by any such idea and look upon those
persons, including Lord Kelvin, Stokes, Pasteur, and other
like men of science, who do hold this idea, as " senile "
or otherwise deluded. To such persons arguments of the
kind now offered will be quite useless. " Everything shows
that energy is being degraded." " I know, but since the
Universe must have existed from all eternity it cannot be
true that energy is really being degraded or there must be
some method of reversal." " How do you know that the
Universe is eternal ? " " Because I cannot imagine a time
when it did not exist." " But I can imagine and I believe
in a period1 when there was nothing but the Triune God."
" Oh, but you are; a mystic ! " And then there is no more
to be said. Well, the " mystic " ideas are set down
here and it may once more be added that they have ap
proved themselves to some at least who were not merely
" mystics," but were also recognized leaders of science.
Note to Chapter XII. — My friend Mr. A. J. Rahilly, whose
kindness I have already acknowledged, has been good enough
to favour me with the following note which may be read in con
nection with the facts alluded to in the chapters immediately
preceding. It deals with the inability of Science to account for
the present configuration of the Universe.
Father Secchi's spectroscopic classification of the stars shows
us vividly the various stages through which a sun (our own
included) must pass in its appointed course. At one end we have
1 " Period." — It is difficult to find a word comprehensible to the
ordinary reader yet one which will not cause the philosophical critic
to tear his hair. " Period," of course, generally means a certain section
of time — the Victorian Period, i.e. the time during which Queen Victoria
reigned over Great Britain. In the sense in which it is used above it means
nothing of the kind. For the scholastics time implies change. Before the
Creation, therefore, there was no time but eternity, that is duration of an
unchanging Existence — the " everlasting now." It will be understood,
then, that in using the word " period " here it is in no relation to what we
think of as " time."

NATURAL HISTORY OF STARS 129
those vast stretches of nebulosity (to be seen, for example, in the
constellations of Orion and Andromeda) that seem to be slowly
settling into stellar nuclei. Next we have youthful stars (such as
Sirius and Vega) which are white or slightly bluish, surrounded
by atmospheres principally composed of helium and hydrogen.
Stars in their prime (like our own sun or Arcturus) are somewhat
yellowish and are swathed in glowing robes of metallic vapour.
Stars in their decline (e.g. Alpha Herculis) are of a reddish hue
and have banded spectra. Lastly, we have faint dark-red stars,
whose spectra are crossed by wide absorption bands probably
due to carbon. The final stage of a sun seems to be represented
by those dead dark companions of some double stars. We can
thus form a very clear idea of the " natural history " of a star.
The heavens present us with stars in every stage of their life-
history from embryonic nebulosity to dark decline. In this way
we arrive at a tolerably vivid conception of the meaning of
stellar evolution. The life-period of a star, vast and limitless as
it appears to beings whose span is but threescore years and ten,
is seen to be merely a momentary scintillation across the dark
night of eternity. The suns scattered through space are as fires
which light up for a moment and then sink into the gloom. Even
the mightiest star delays but little behind its lesser fellows ; all
alike are hastening to extinction. Some of the stars which we
see are just lit ; some are expiring. But such differences of age —
what are they compared to the ocean of a limitless past ? It is as
if we compared the different ages of men now on earth with the
past epochs revealed by geology. Undoubtedly the stars are
contemporaries, their lives overlap ; they are a conflagration lit
up almost simultaneously in the heavens.
This conclusion is one of far-reaching significance. We know
that each star is but a fire of brief duration ; we know too that
all these millions of glittering stars are now lit up simultaneously
throughout the vast regions of space ; we know that a time will
come when all these fitful gleams will be quenched. Did the lives
of only two stars overlap, were there only two stars shining in
the sky, we might conceivably attribute the coincidence to
chance ; though indeed, when we think of chance-tossed atoms
scattered haphazard through infinite space for all eternity, the
probability that two stars would be shining simultaneously is
well-nigh infinitesimal. But it is utterly beyond our powers of
credulity to believe that myriads of comparatively transient
stars should by mere chance light up together throughout space.
The more one thinks of this astounding simultaneity of our
universe, the more does one become convinced that its gradual
evolution from chance-strewn nebulosity is an impossibility.
Chance encounters of particles scattered through infinite space
could never produce such a contemporaneous illumination. And,
even if we draw upon the resources of eternity, we are merely

130 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
raising the further difficulty : If the present configuration of the
universe is merely one stage in an infinite evolution, why is not
the present stage long past and gone ? But the present stage is
really unique, such a universal conflagration can never again
recur, it began once and it will end. The stars are the chrono
meters of the Creator. By their simultaneous radiance they are
always reminding us of the day when God's creative energy
started them on their course, " when all the morning-stars sang
together and all the sons of God shouted for joy."

CHAPTER XIII
LAWS OF NATURE: PRAYER
IN the processes of Nature, as we observe them, certain
orderly series of occurrences take place : certain results
follow upon certain causes, and these things we commonly
speak of as occurring according to what we call " Laws of
Nature." It may be well to devote a little consideration to
this matter, since it is one respecting which there is cer
tainly an ambiguity in speech and writing and not infre
quently also an ambiguity in people's minds. We speak
of a Law in one sense when we allude to the act of a com
petent legislature. That is a Law which, whether just or
unjust, must be obeyed, unless its infringer is prepared to
submit to such painful consequences as may follow upon
breaking it. Then again there are the Moral Precepts which
are not purely penal prescriptions nor man-made ordinances.
There are certain things which we need not do but which
we " ought " to do. There are also the Laws of Revelation,
such as the Ten Commandments, many of which are pre
scribed by the " natural law " quite independently of any
promulgation through Moses.
But when we speak of such a " Law " as the Law of
Gravitation or the Law of the Conservation of Energy, we
are dealing with a very different matter. Here we are
speaking of an arrangement which we have discovered,
though our discovery may be imperfect enough and may
only partially take count of the factors of the case.1
The arrangement in question seems at any rate to be an
invariable one as, for example, we have seen that the
1 No penalty would be exacted nor would anyone be ethically shocked
if a stone, thrown up into the air, did not return to the earth in the orthodox
fashion. Those who witnessed the occurrence would be merely surprised.
131

132 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
transmission of light through the luminiferous ether is.
Then we may speak of the Law of the Transmission of Light.
At any rate it will now be clear what is meant by a " Law
of Nature " and in what way it differs from an ordinary
law dealing with tariffs or what not, which may be here
to-day and gone to-morrow. There is at least one point
which the two kinds of laws would seem to possess in
common. No one can conceive the first form of Law
alluded to above coming into existence fortuitously or
enacting itself. The Ten Commandments were given to
Moses by God Himself, and all the laws of ^civilised countries
have been made by monarchs or parliaments or senates, or
such-like bodies. Even the rigid laws of many uncivilised
races have been made at some time and by some person or
persons and are kept in being by the consent, whether the
result of fear or love is of no consequence, of those who live
under them.
In other words, it is impossible for us to conceive of laws
of this kind which had no law-giver. The idea is grotesque.
Yet it is quite certainly true that there are people who
firmly believe in what all agree to call " Laws of Nature,"
who are yet able to persuade themselves that these laws
have come into existence by mere chance — that is to say,
that they have had no law-giver.
In the preceding chapter we saw that, apart from the
Agnostic attitude, there were only two possible views of the
Universe in the last analysis : — namely, that it was created
by an eternal God, or that it was itself eternal and alive ;
and we discussed some of the difficulties which attended the
latter conclusion. We may now return to the same con
sideration in face of the fact that, as is admitted by all,
there are certain series of orderly occurrences which we agree
to name " Laws of Nature," and that the common experi
ence of mankind is that where there is a law there must
also have been a law-giver. Let us first of all look at what
is involved in the theory that though there are laws there
is no law-giver.1 " The world, so science assures us, at a
1 The following passage is, with slight modifications, taken from an
essay published in my volume, " A Century of Scientific Thought," p. 28.
Burns and Oates, London, 1915.

CHANCE MEDLEY 133
certain date in the past, was a mass of nebulous matter at
a terrifically high temperature. Slowly and with vast con
vulsions and cataclysms, it cooled down. Then by some
chance mixing together of some nitrogen, hydrogen,
oxygen, carbon, and other elements, in some manner un-
discoverable by and even unimaginable by modern chemists,
the lowest form of living organism emerged — the offspring
of the blindest chance, yet endowed somehow or another
with the marvellous power of propagating its kind, and
more, with the tendency to vary fortuitously in all direc
tions. Then the Law of Natural Selection, not to speak of
a host of other so-called laws of Nature, all of them ex
hypothesi the result of blind chance, sprang into existence
and by marvellously complex co-operations effected the
most ingenious and elaborate products without any Law
giver to lay them down or direct their actions. By the
simple process of extinguishing the disadvantageous varia
tions, Natural Selection developed out of the come-by-
chance Protozoan, all the forms of animal and vegetable
life which have flourished on this earth or which now
astonish us by their multitude and variety. Finally it
brought forth Man — the head and crown of things. And
more, far more, the Brain of Man. And what does that
mean ? Hamlet, Paradise Lost, the Differential Calculus,
the music of Handel, the paintings of Botticelli, internal
combustion engines, wireless telegraphy, all the poetry of a
Wordsworth, all the wonderful inventions of a Kelvin — all
these things and a thousand more as wonderful — the Law
of Natural Selection, without a spark of intelligence behind
it — this perfectly aimless action of physical forces has
accomplished all these things. This is the demand which
is made upon our powers of belief by those who deny the
existence of an Intelligent Author of the Universe and
attempt to put forward an explanation of the existence of
things as they are. Natural Selection, Conservation of
Forces, Propagation of Light, all these so-called laws and
all the other so-called laws must be one of two things.
They must be the products of mechanical forces acting at
random, or they must be the ordinances of an Intelligent
Law-Giver. There is no middle term since, as we have seen,

134 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
there is in the last abstraction nothing between believing in
a Being — a Law-Giver — who is something in Himself, apart
from the universe, and believing in a mere abstraction from
or generalisation of natural laws or processes, and that, as
apart from a Law-Giver, means nothing more than Blind
Chance." Or, again, we may regard the question from a slightly
different angle. It is quite clear that an infinite number of
different universes are logically conceivable. Yet only one
is actually realised. Why ? The question has at least a
meaning — in spite of the assertion of monists. We could
quite easily conceive gravitation to act according to the
inverse-cube of the distance, or we could imagine light
travelling twice as fast as it does. The fact that things are
what they are, when logically they might be otherwise, is
the fundamental fact which we have to face. The real
concrete world is all around us and is clamant for an explana
tion. The attempt of philosophers to explain it logically
is a hopeless failure. No amount of a priori thought will
determine the colour of gold or the boiling-point of water.
The various orderly modes in which the actual world is
found to act are, as we have already seen, termed " laws
of nature." These are the " orderly modes " which actually
exist but they are not inevitable a priori, in fact one can
conceive a universe in which they were all replaced by
different modes. Reason imperatively demands some real
principle of selection (i.e. creation), some actual pre-existent
factor which out of the infinity of possible worlds selected
and actualised the world as we know it. The popular
materialistic view accepts a nebulous congeries of chemical
elements as a primary datum and tries to see the world of
life and intelligence latent therein. To accept, without
explanation, the existence of hydrogen atoms — each a com
plicated world in itself — all perfectly similar and vibrating
in perfect unison across the measureless distances of inter
stellar space — surely this is an enormous demand on our
faith. Having ence posited an inorganic world of marvel
lous mechanisms and complex affinities, it is quite easy to
smuggle in a few protozoa. Having swallowed a camel, it
is not worth while straining at a gnat I

THE LAW AND THE LAW-GIVER 135
Faced by the actual world of chemistry and biology, we
must choose one of two courses. Either the Laws of Nature
are ultimate inscrutable data impervious to logic and amen
able to no explanation, or else they are the laws of a Law
giver, the orderly modes in which the creative Mind of God
expresses Itself.
The matter which we are now considering is so well
illustrated by a portion of the discussion between Fr. Was-
mann and certain materialistic champions which excited
so much interest some years ago in Berlin, that I shall give
some account of that part of the proceedings which concerns
us at the moment.1 In his speech Professor Plate, a leading
exponent of materialistic views, lays down his position, and
it is that of many others, very candidly and very clearly.
He says :2 " The monist asserts nothing about the nature
of God, but limits himself to the laws of nature. These
laws are, indeed, the only things that we can establish with
certainty ; with regard to what underlies them there are
many different opinions, and we monists are not all agreed
on the subject. Personally, I always maintain that, if there
are laws of nature, it is only logical to admit that there is a law
giver. But of this law-giver we can give no account, and
any attempt to give one would lead us into unfounded
speculations. It is there that faith begins," he continues,
" and many of us have given Tip all faith."
One initial criticism must be made on this important
remark — the monist here described is not what we should
understand by that term. A monist to English-speaking
persons is one who believes in some shape or form in matter
alive and sentient, whether under Haeckel's so-called Law of
Substance or otherwise. Such a person scoffs at, or at least
utterly denies, the idea of a God, in any proper sense of the
term. The kind of person for whom Professor Plate is speak
ing is one who would with us be styled an Agnostic, to
use the now commonly received term originally invented
by Huxley. But the really important point is that this
champion of monism, as he calls himself, freely admits that
1 A full account of the discussion, with comments by Fr. Wasmann,
will be found in his " Problem of Evolution," London. Kegan Paul, 1909.
* P. 108. Italics here and elsewhere as in original.

136 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
if there is a Law there must be a Law-Giver. This would
seem a logical necessity were it not clear that it does not
appear to be so to all persons. Fr. Wasmann remarks on
the statement : " Plate's own confession that where there are
natural laws, there must be a law-giver, is one of the utmost im
portance. A law-giver underlying the laws which He has
made, cannot be identified with those laws, for otherwise
He would be superfluous, as the laws of nature would suffice
independently of Him. Therefore the originator of the laws
of nature must be an- exalted and intelligent being, in fact,
the personal Creator recognised by theism."
We saw the difficulty that three was to account for Matter,
and that in motion, and the alternatives offered for our
choice. The same alternatives are before us in considering
the maintenance of the Universe, for that is the question
now before us, the Laws of Nature being merely our descrip
tion of the plan by which the Universe is maintained. Of
course, there is the objection, not very profound it will be
granted, yet often made : " You say that God created Matter
and set it in motion : How did God come to be or who
created Him ? " Here it is not possible to undertake the
full discussion of this question, but this may briefly be
said : —
Matter is limited in all sorts of ways. It has not in itself
any reason for its motion, much less has it any reason for
its existence. It is difficult to imagine a thing so limited
being the sum of things. The theist postulates an infinitely
perfect Being containing in Himself the reason of His
existence and therefore eternal, and maintains that only
an infinitely perfect being, could contain in Himself the
reason of His existence. Having postulated such a Being,
he proceeds to show that his explanation coincides with the
facts and explains them. As the Church teaches, it is
possible to arrive at a knowledge of God from natural
argument, therefore the theist reaches it. Having reached it
he may consider and attain to a belief in Revelation — a
matter with which we have nothing to do at the moment —
which will enlarge his ideas of the Deity and throw light
upon His providences.
This preliminary discussion on the manner in which the

PRAYER 137
Universe is maintained will lighten very greatly the task
which has to be essayed in the remainder of this chapter
and the next, namely, the discussion of the relation of
Prayer and of Miracles to the Laws of Nature with which
we have been dealing. Let us first deal with the question
of Prayer. And to begin with, let us dispose of the shallow
argument that this question may be approached, as mere
scientific questions are, by means of experiment. Experi
mentally no doubt Christians are aware of many graces,
temporal as well as spiritual, which have been obtained as
the result of prayer ; but to argue, as some have tried to do,
that we may make an experiment in this matter, with the
ordinary controls, is to suppose that material and spiritual
things are of a like character, a common but most funda
mental mistake. Even in this world it would be an
injudicious, not to say dangerous, thing to let the person
from whom we are seeking an exceptional favour suppose
that we were making him the subject of an experiment.
It would not be tactful, neither would it be respectful, and
it would be most unlikely to be attended by any favourable
result to our request.
Those who are opposed to our ideas on this matter must
allow us to lay down certain fundamental propositions
which, of course, we must eventually prove, but on which
we found our argument.
In the first place we postulate a personal God and we
believe Him to be omnipotent and the Creator and Main-
tainer of the Universe. From this it follows that He is
Himself the formulator of what we call the Laws of Nature,
in other words, He is the Law-Giver of whom we have been
speaking. He does not " break " His laws because what
people sometimes maintain are breaches are matters which
were provided for when the laws were first conceived. If
there be a God, nothing is more sure than that He has told
those who believe in Him to approach Him in their need
by prayer, and, according to our view, the fact that such
prayer may, if the gift be to our eternal benefit, be granted,
is as much a Law of Nature, that is a Law of God, as any of
the other laws we have been speaking of. But it is a law
in the spiritual world first of all and not, like the other laws,

138 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
first of all in the physical world. And that being the case, it
relates first of all to our spiritual nature as to which the
law is unvarying. It is in its secondary or natural aspect
that it seems to vary. Let us look at this a little more
closely. No one who studies revelation even in a cursory
manner can doubt that it teaches us that if we approach
our Maker in the way which He has laid down for us, we
shall receive an answer to our prayers, for it is by prayer
that we have been instructed to approach Him. Further,
it is a very remarkable thing that, apart from Revelation,
the instinct of prayer is found to exist in all races and in
all ages. It seems to be — can there be any doubt that it
is ? — a fundamental part of human nature as much as
any of the natural needs of food and sleep. It may be said
that there are many highly cultured persons who get on
without it. That this is so would certainly appear to be
the case, but it may at least be argued that as the body
can be made to do with very little food and dies if it is
entirely deprived of it, so the invisible soul, which is deprived
of its proper nutriment, may be in a very parlous condition
and one which would excite our sincerest sympathy were it
visible. This, however, is a subject for a treatise on Moral
Theology and is out of place here. There are two points
briefly to be considered.
Can prayer alter the ordinary course of nature ? Is it
any good praying for fine weather, for example ? What is
the nature of God's special dealings with natural phenomena
which we commonly ask for in prayer ? God's ordinary
co-operation is not enough, for this is essential quite apart
from prayer. Of His extraordinary or special providence
there would seem to be three possible explanations, which
can, of course, all operate together.
(i.) There is the significant fact that human wills can alter
and direct the operations of nature. No amount of meta
physical quibbling or scientific theorising can alter our
intense conviction that we have an initiative of our own, a
power of controlling our actions.
So long as this fact of human freedom remains to baffle
psychologist and physiologist alike, it is absurd to seek an
impossible clarity concerning God's direction of nature.

DETERMINISM 139
Does it not seem clear that our scientific analysis of nature
is incomplete and imperfect ? And is not this proved by
the simple fact that science is utterly at a loss to account
or allow for Free Will and its operations ? This is the funda
mental contention of Bergson's philosophy and, however
disputable the details of his theory may be, the widespread
popularity of his system is a sign that men are growing
tired of the narrow pretentious claims of a scientific scheme
which is baffled by the really vital factors of existence.
This being so, can we wonder that God's Will also eludes
our scientific scheme ? We must have patience. Science
is as yet in the go-cart. It cannot explain the free action
of men, much less those mysterious psychic phenomena
which (in spite of the opposition of science) have of recent
years come more and more into prominence. One thing is
certain : human minds provide centres of action, open
windows for God's light and influence. Just as our souls
can act on matter and yet somehow not break " natural
laws," so surely God can act on our souls and thus indirectly
influence the course of earthly events. Thus when we pray
for the conversion of a friend, it does not follow that our
request in any way involves an abrogation of the laws
known to science.
(ii.) It is a prejudice of mechanistic science to regard the
universe en bloc as a rigidly connected system. Were we to
interpret physics with minute literalness we should be
compelled to admit that a man taking off his hat in London
physically disturbs me writing here in Cork. Yet that is
literally what determinism amounts to : everything is deter
mined by everything else. Further, the taking off of his
hat by the man in London was predetermined by the
peculiarities of the nebula of which this earth was originally
composed ; nor could he have acted otherwise than take it
off and thus incidentally and unknowingly produce a
physical disturbance in Cork and elsewhere, however
desirous he might have been of leaving his headgear undis
turbed. Physics, like other domains of science, must be
accepted as a first clumsy approximation to reality. The
ordinary mathematical treatment of light, for instance,
always presupposes that the light-source has been shining

140 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
for all eternity ! The ordinary student, conscious that the
light has just been started in the laboratory, does not per
ceive this assumption. But it is there nevertheless, and
similar artificial simplifications occur everywhere in science
for him who looks below the surface. The assumption
that the effect of every new event — whether it be the shuffling
of our feet or the switching on of the electric light — is pro
pagated everywhere in space and upsets the universe, is
merely a naive interpretation which is unavoidable in the
present state of scientific methodology. In reality events
happen in causal chains. One set of events takes place
without the slightest influence on another set. In fact,
when two such disconnected streams of events cross, we
regard the occurrence as a fortuitous coincidence. When a
man is accidentally run over by a motor-car there is no
causal nexus between the histories of the motor-car and the
human being. The motor and the man, each moving on
its own course of action, happened to arrive at the same
point of space at the same instant of time. That is all.
If we now regard the physical world as a network of more
or less discontinuous causal threads, it is obvious that the
crossing or intertwining of such threads is not predetermined
by the threads themselves. The resultant pattern which
they weave is either due to what we call chance or else is
intelligently directed. Chance, however, is not an ultimate
explanation ; and inevitably our analysis travels back to
the initial conditions, i.e. unless Free Will intervenes. In
the case of intelligent beings, we can only say that choice
is the determinant. It was the man's free decision to cross
the road which brought him within the physical range of
the motor-car.
This discussion, however cursory, is sufficient to make
us realise that the world is by no means so rigidly pre
determined as many enthusiastic votaries of science would
have us believe. There is room for free play ; chance
has a real objective significance, viz. the intercrossing of
independent causal chains, and is not a mere cloak for
ignorance. Not alone is a large part of natural occurrences
within our own control, but there is opportunity for God's
special direction of events without any contravention of

MIRACLE 141
the laws of science. We cannot see far ahead ; for aught
we know, a small change of present plans may result in far-
reaching future consequences. And many present realities
were once frail possibilities hanging on slender causal
threads ; did not England's present mineral wealth and
insular position originate in some chance-formed hetero
geneity in a nebula ? All these life-histories of countries
and individuals stand spread out to God's eternal gaze.
At each stage He sees the possibilities foreclosed or initiated ;
He influences development by the primal distribution in
the past and by direction and inspiration in the present.
(iii.) Laws are but the ordinary modes of God's action
laboriously inferred by us from slow and patient observation
of nature. To erect these laws into final boundaries of
thought is to deify our own puny discoveries. The question
as to whether breaches of these laws occur is entirely one
of patient investigation. That miracles do occur will be
shown later on. At present miracles are presented simply
as a third possible mode of God's answer to prayer.
It is only fair to admit that, with the advance of science,
men have become more chary in asking for miracles. When
meteorites, comets, animal monstrosities and such-like
were regarded as prodigies, when physical and chemical
phenomena were as yet vague and uncertain, it was but
natural for men to enlarge unduly the sphere of God's
miraculous intervention. It is worth noting, however,
that men were never so foolish and credulous as to pray for
the miracle of " a centaur."1 They merely asked for God's
miraculous succour in circumstances where we should now
rely more on God's ordinary providence. It may be true
that nowadays the outbreak of pestilence sends men to
the drains ; but even apart from the question of miracles,
it would be well if it also sent them to the churches.2
1 See p. 147.
* For a very interesting and suggestive discussion of the subject of
prayer the reader may be referred to the Rev. Ronald Knox's little book
" Bread or Stone," published by the Society of SS. Peter and Paul,
London, 191 5.

CHAPTER XIV
MIRACLES
WE have now to pass to the consideration of the sub
ject of Miracles, and with certain points in respect
to those occurrences we must now proceed to deal, referring
readers desirous of following the question further to the
various Catholic treatises on the subject.1
First of all, what is a Miracle ? St. Thomas Aquinas says
that " miracles are effects wrought by the power of God
alone in things which have a natural tendency to a contrary
effect, or to a contrary way of producing it." And again,
" Those effects are rightly to be termed miracles which are
wrought by divine power apart from the order usually
observed in nature."
It takes place by the power of God : no doubt, but so do
all positive effects come about. That is true, but in the case
of the miracle the effect is one " which, considered in the
concrete with all its circumstances, is manifestly propor
tioned to the Divine Power alone. ... By the words ' in
things which have a natural tendency to a contrary effect,
or to a contrary way of producing it,' St. Thomas implies
that the effect of a miracle is either something which in the
ordinary course of nature never happens, or something
which in the ordinary course of nature does not happen in
this way. Of the first kind is the raising of a dead man to
life again, of the second kind the cure of a very serious
disease by a simple command,"2 or, it may be added,
1 Those who desire to find the matter briefly but fully discussed may
be referred to the article " Miracles " in the Catholic Encyclopaedia, to
which the present writer acknowledges his indebtedness. The reader may
also be referred to Fr. Joyce's excellent little book " The Question of
Miracles," Manresa Press, London, 1914.
* Boedder, " Natural Theology," p. 414, 5.
14a

MIRACLES 143
suddenly instead of slowly as would be the normal
method of cure. Or again, it is defined by theologians
as Opus sensible, divinitus factum, insolitum, super
natural ; a sensible, unusual, divine, and supernatural
work. It is sensible : appreciable by the senses, therefore does
not extend to matters like the creation of the human soul
or the Blessed Sacrament.
It is unusual : because it is opposed to the ordinary
course of nature.
It is divine : because it is the special work of God. We
hear and speak of the miracles of the Saints, but that is a
loose way of putting the matter. What is really meant is
a miracle worked by God at the intercession of or by the
instrumentality or ministrations of a Saint.
It is supernatural as well as divine : because it is not
one of those works of God, such as the creation of an in
dividual soul which completes the natural existence of
corporeal things in the case of man.
At this point it may be well to take notice of the very
loose way in which the term " miracle " is used, not only in
common speech but even in what are supposed to be grave
discussions on this question. We are all accustomed to
hearing such and such an object spoken of as a " miracle
of beauty," or a " miracle of ingenuity," and we under
stand such phrases in the sense in which they are meant,
namely, as very outstanding examples of beauty or in
genuity. No real confusion arises here, but it may do so in
the case of what would be more properly called a " special
grace," though often loosely spoken of as a " miracle." A
very remarkable and a very sudden cure of a disease may
not be in any kind of way a miracle in the strict sense
of that word, yet it may be a very special grace and one
given in direct answer to prayer.
There is a further matter which may perhaps be noted
at this point and that is the curious frame of mind of many
outside the Church, yet sincere Christians according to
their lights, who, whilst accepting the miracles recounted
in the Bible, completely refuse to believe in any of a later
date than those of which we read in the Acts of the Apostles.

144 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
This frame of mind is perhaps rarer than it was a few
years ago. So also — and with thankfulness we may admit it
— is the often associated frame of mind which did not
hesitate to assert that Catholic ecclesiastics had invented
these stories, and disseminated them to delude the un
fortunate dupes who formed their flocks. This dreadful
accusation, once common in the mouths of really respectable
persons, is now confined,- so far as public utterance at any
rate is concerned, to individuals whose opinion on any
subject is worthy of but little attention.1 Yet there are
others outside our body who in increasing numbers do not
hesitate to give in their adhesion to the truth of miracles
which were laughed to scorn but a few years ago, such as
the stigmata of St. Francis. We must distinguish from
those whose view about the matter in question in no way
differs from our own, those who, convinced by evidence
which it is admitted cannot be gainsaid, that St. Francis
really had the stigmata, explain the fact by " suggestion "
or "hysteria," or some solution making out the occurrence
to be purely natural in its character. As an example of the
former class, a recent writer2 does not hesitate to say, " We
believe that it was Jesus Christ who gave St. Francis the
stigmata, because we are Christians. If we were not Chris
tians, we might equally well attribute it to Allah, or to
Zeus, or to any conceivable agency — beneficent, malevolent,
or merely neutral — which may exist in the unknown
world that lies behind and beyond material phenomena."
1 A good example of the change of opinion in this direction may be
found in the treatment of the question in the book entitled " Medicine and
the Church [of England] — Being a Series of Studies on the Relationship
between the Practice of Medicine and the Church's Ministry to the Sick,"
London, Kegan Paul, 1910. In this inter alia are quoted the remarkable
utterances of the late Henry Butlin, an ex-President of the Royal College
of Surgeons, in which he rebukes those who would impute wilful deceit
to the clergy and others associated with the manifestations which take
place at Lourdes. See also " British Medical Journal " for June 18, 1910,
and " The Corner of Harley Street." Unquestionably the general attitude
of Christians outside the Catholic Church towards post-Apostolic miracles
is one of complete incredulity. This is the attitude, for example, of Colonel
Turton in his very interesting and valuable book " The Truth of Chris
tianity," of which mention has already been made. See also " Medicine
and the Church," p. 202. To what this leads will appear in the course
of this chapter.
* The Rev. R. A. Knox, Fellow and Chaplain of Trinity College,
Oxford, in " Some Loose Stones," Longmans, 1914, p. 183.

LOURDES 145
These Very striking changes of opinion are in large part
due to the remarkable occurrences associated with Lourdes
and elsewhere during late years, and the careful study which
has been devoted to them and, it may be added, to various
nervous conditions which cannot be left out of count when
we are investigating the truth of a given miracle. From
all this study certain very definite facts appear to emerge
which will be dealt with as occasion arises in this chapter
The first of these is that a number of very remarkable things
do occur at Lourdes and that they are honest occurrences—
not, as would have been asserted at one time, " faked " by
artful and designing clerics. Further that similar things
happen at other places under religious influences and that
all these things must be accounted for in some way or
another, since their occurrence can no longer be disputed
nor can they be summed up as frauds. How are they to be
accounted for ? The Catholic attitude is that they, or some
of them, are, or may be, those direct operations of Divine
Omnipotence which may properly be called miracles. " May
be " ; it is necessary to repeat and to accentuate these
words ; for nothing is more remarkable than the ignorance
of persons outside the Catholic Church as to the atti
tude of that Church with regard to this very matter of
miracles. The common idea is that the Church is ready to claim any
triviality, one might even say any absurdity, as a miracle,
whereas the real truth is that when it comes to making a
pronouncement on such a matter — and how rarely is any
pronouncement made ! — the evidence required must be
overwhelming and conclusive. Further, it is commonly
believed that priests and bishops welcome the news of
supposed apparitions, such as that of Our Lady at Lourdes,
because of the vast sums of money which they expect will
follow to the favoured spot ; whereas nothing is clearer than
the fact that Bernadette and other seers have had to submit
to the most severe examination, not to say snubbing, on
the part of their ecclesiastical superiors before even a
mitigated credence was given to the occurrences which they
professed to have witnessed. The direct opposite to our
position is the strange and unphilosophical view that miracles

146 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
do not occur.1 Such, it seems, was the attitude of Zola,
who visited Lourdes, made a study of what occurred there,
and then wrote what cannot be considered other than a
very dishonest book upon the subject. In the book in
question there is, for example, a character named La
Grivotte, who, it is generally admitted, was intended for a
real person still alive, or alive until recently, named Marie
Lebranchu. Marie Lebranchu was diagnosed as suffering
from an advanced condition of pulmonary tuberculosis and,
as far as the present writer is aware, the diagnosis has never
been disputed. She was cured at Lourdes, subsequently
married, became a widow and lived for many years — may
even be alive to-day — without any relapse, a sufficiently
remarkable cure to put it at its lowest. Now mark what
Zola makes of it. La Grivotte is permitted to be miracu
lously cured at Lourdes, but on her return home relapses
and not long afterwards dies of the same disease.2 There
is no doubt that Zola took the trouble, when writing the book,
to hunt up the prototype of La Grivotte, and that he found
her alive and well, as she remained for many years after the
novelist's dreadful end. When taxed by Dr. Boissarie — the
chief physician at Lourdes, who had been Zola's host at
that place and had given him every opportunity for making
a complete examination into the events taking place there,
with his treatment of this case — the novelist cried out in
tones of annoyance, " I suppose I am master of the persons
in my own books, and can let them live or die as I choose."
And then he added these words, " And besides, I don't
believe in miracles : even if all the sick in Lourdes were
cured in one moment I would not believe in them ! "
Midway between these two views is the view which would
perhaps be described by its holders as the " common-
sense attitude " of Hume and Huxley, men too philo
sophically minded to adopt the attitude of Zola, yet far too
materialistic to credit anything of a supernatural character.

1 Some of the pages which follow have been taken, in large part
verbatim, from an article on this subject by the present writer which
appeared in the Jubilee Number of the " Catholic World," April, 1915.
a See " Lourdes," by J. Jorgensen, Longmans, Green & Co., 1914,
p. 179. Also R. H. Benson, " Lourdes," London, Herder, 1914.

HUXLEY'S CENTAUR 147
This view may be roughly summed up as stating that
of course, if there be a God, there may be miracles, but that
the amount of evidence which would be required to establish
a miracle is so great that it is never likely to be reached and
certainly has never yet been reached. This attitude really
amounts to this : "lam so certain that there are no such
things as miracles, that I cannot conceive of such evidence
being brought before me as would convince me that I am
wrong in this conviction." Huxley in his work on Hume,1
for example, discusses what amount of evidence would
induce him to believe that a live centaur had recently been
seen. If Johannes Muller, whom he describes as "the
greatest anatomist and physiologist among my contem
poraries,"2 were to assert that he had seen a centaur,
Huxley admits he would have felt staggered and would have
suspended judgement. Nothing less, however, than a care
ful monograph from a noted anatomist, with full descrip
tion and plates, would suffice to make him believe in a
centaur. Mutato nomine, the Catholic would and will
thoroughly agree with Huxley, however much it might have
surprised that eminent man to hear it, with regard to
miracles. No Catholic would for a moment deny that the
most rigid and irrefragable proof should be, as it is, required
by the Church before any event is finally and definitely
declared to be miraculous. Hume's attitude to the question
is exhibited by the following well-known passage : " There
is not to be found in all history any miracle attested by a
sufficient number of men, of such unquestioned goodness,
education, and learning as to secure us against all delusion
in themselves ; of such undoubted integrity as to place
them beyond all suspicion of any design to deceive others ;
of such credit and reputation in the eyes of mankind as to
have a great deal to lose in case of their being detected in
any falsehood ; and at the same time attesting facts, per
formed in the public manner, and in so celebrated a part of
the world, as to render the detection unavoidable : all
which circumstances are requisite to give us a full assurance
of the testimony of men."
1 Great Writers Series, New York, The Macmillan Co., 1881.
* Who, by the way, was a Catholic. See his life published in " Twelve
Catholic Men of Science " by the Catholic Truth Society.

148 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
We may freely admit that with regard to a number of
" miracles " related by the earlier and less responsible
hagiologists — miracles on which the Church has never set
her seal — there is no real proof forthcoming, nor is any
likely to be produced. But much evidence of occurrences
claimed to be miraculous has been forthcoming, and has
been carefully sifted, since the time of Huxley, not to say
that of Hume ; and it would be difficult to show that some
at least of this evidence does not comply with Hume's re
quirements. The result of all this has been to cause the
sceptic to shift his ground and, instead of denying, as
Hume would have done, the occurrence of the events, to
state that they occur but are not miraculous. In this, as
in other matters, we have to come back to human testi
mony. The solipsist denies any importance to anything
not appreciated by his own sense, and thus commits in
tellectual suicide. The world at large judges otherwise,
and it would be difficult to find more water-tight evidence
than is available in connection with certain modern occur
rences claimed to be miracles, explain them how we may.
It is not too much to say that evidence equally strong, but
in another direction, would certainly send the most re
spected of the Archbishops of Canterbury to the gallows
for murder.
If miraculous occurrences take place, they must be
explained. Our explanation is well known : some of them
are miracles, some of them are, at least, very special graces.
The other explanation is that they are the result of " sugges
tion." Suggestion no doubt may and perhaps does account
for many occurrences which, in a less critical age, might
have been claimed as miraculous, but which would not
be so thought to-day by educated Catholics. Of course it
may be said that the still more critical to-morrow may
dispose of things which to-day we suppose to be miraculous.
To which it may be replied that such an upheaval of all
our medical ideas, even the most fundamental, as this would
require is absolutely unthinkable, as will appear later.
Whilst admitting all that may be said as to the efficacy of
" suggestion " in a considerable number of cases, it is at
least permissible to ask why only, or almost only, at Lourdes

" SUGGESTION " 149
is the result of self-suggestion available ? Mr. Belloc1
asks : " If what happens at Lourdes is the result of self-
suggestion, why cannot men, though exceptionally, yet in
similar great numbers, suggest themselves into health in
Pimlico or the Isle of Man ? It is no answer to say that
here and there such marvels are to be found. The point is
that men go to Lourdes in every frame of mind, and are
in an astonishing number cured." Of course we may be
met with the argument that the religious form of suggestion
is the strongest known ; but the materialist who ventures' on
that argument is on very dangerous ground for himself, as
a very little consideration will show.
But over and above all this, the fact remains that there
are certain cases cured, or reported to be cured, at Lourdes
and elsewhere, into which it is quite impossible to suppose
that the element of suggestion can enter, and of which it
may be said that if, per impossibile, it were to be proved
that it did enter, the whole edifice of medical and surgical
science would have to be reconstructed. Such are cases
of broken and ununited bones, cancers, large destructions of
tissue by lupus, and other such conditions not of a nervous
origin, or to any extent capable of being influenced by the
nervous system. Every medical man knows the protean
character of the manifestations of hysteria, and can make a
guess at least as to the vagaries of which its victims are
capable. But no medical man will argue that suggestion
will instantaneously cure a broken limb even in an hysterical
person. Further, with such a condition, or with cancer, or any
other grave organic disease, nature seems to be too suffi
ciently occupied to couple with it an hysterical condition.
Lastly, hysteria, though not wholly unknown, is rare in men,
amongst whom a great number of the cures at Lourdes
take place. In fact, the cases of the most remarkable
character are just those in which the hysterical element is
least, if at all in evidence. Take, for example, the case of
Gargam,2 seriously injured, almost unto death, by a railway
accident. His spine was dislocated, as the Rontgen rays
1 In his preface to Jqrgensen's " Lourdes."
» See Jorgensen's " Lourdes," p. 161,

150 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
proved ; he was paralysed, and his limbs in places gan
grenous. He was declared by many doctors to be incur
able, and on that account was awarded a life annuity by
the law courts. He had abandoned his religion, but, to
please his mother, and apparently without any expectation
of a cure, he went to Lourdes, and was instantaneously
cured of all his ailments. Or take the case of Marie Le-
marchand,1 who was cured, also instantaneously, of a most
severe form of lupus which had converted her countenance
into a thing of repulsive monstrosity. Sixteen years after
the cure, which is the last account of her, she had suffered
from no recurrence of the disease. These are but samples
of the more serious cases which have been cured at Lourdes,
and the difficulty of explaining them on the " suggestion "
hypothesis is intensified by their number.
The last-named case was admittedly the original of
Zola's Elise Roquet, of whom the novelist asserted that she
suffered from " an unknown formation of ulcers of hysterical
origin." Now apart from the two important facts that
lupus is as well known a form of disease as any that ever
comes before a medical man, and that it has nothing
whatever to do with hysteria, so far as anyone knows or
has ever to my knowledge suggested, the line of argument
pursued in this matter by Zola, when placed in the form of
a syllogism, would not deceive a babe in logic. His major
premise is that there are no ailments cured at Lourdes
which are not hysterical in their character. But Marie
Lemarchand was cured there of lupus. Therefore the disease
of which she was cured was hysterical in its origin, and as
lupus is not that, we will call the condition one of ulcera
tion (which it was) and of unknown origin (which, by the
way, it was not).
Finally, let us glance at the very remarkable case of Pierre
de Rudder, cured not at Lourdes, but at Oostacker in Bel
gium.2 His leg had been broken by the fall of a tree, and
the fragments of bone remained ununited, in spite of surgical
1 See Jorgensen's " Lourdes," p. 175.
2 As this place and the village where de Rudder lived were in
the centre of the hottest fighting for some months, it is to be feared that
no trace of the shrine or of either village now exists.

DE RUDDER'S CASE 151
efforts, for eight years. His condition was known to all his
neighbours and to medical men in the district around. Yet
he was instantaneously cured after praying at the shrine.1
There can be no kind of doubt that the limb was broken, and
the fragments ununited prior to the cure : that rests on evi
dence which cannot be gainsaid. Nor can there be any doubt
that the bones did reunite, for they are to be seen to-day,2
and bear unmistakable evidence of having been fractured
and reunited. For the instantaneous character of the cure
there also appears to be abundant evidence. Suppose that
the cure had, after eight years of suffering, occurred very
slowly and without surgical aid. That would be almost
incredible to any medical man. But that it should have
been instantaneous takes it out of the category of natural
possibilities, unless, as I have said, the whole foundation
of our medical knowledge is inaccurate.
Too much stress in this and other cases can hardly be
laid upon the instantaneous nature of the cures. Nature
does sometimes cure patients suffering from tuberculous
and other usually incurable diseases, but never long un
united fractures, nor, I think it may be said, true cancers
nor various other things of a severe and chronic character.
The cure, however, is slow ; never, I think it may be fear
lessly asserted, instantaneous, as is so often the case at
Lourdes and elsewhere.
What we have to ask ourselves in face of any alleged
miracle which comes under our notice, is what the authorities
of the Church have to ask themselves when called upon to
pronounce judicially in such cases : Did things happen as
they are said to have happened ? Can the thing which
happened be explained upon natural lines ? Both of these
things are matters of evidence, and the proofs which will
1 Numerous accounts of this remarkable cure have been published.
The best known to me is " A Modern Miracle," from the French of Alfred
Deschamps, s.j., m.d., scd., published by the Catholic Truth Society
(id.), in which a very full account, with illustrations of de Rudder
and the bones of his legs which were removed after his .death, is
given. Another account in a book entitled " Heaven's Recent Wonders,"
is vitiated by the fact that the cut of the sound leg is described in the text
as that of the injured and healed member.
* If they have escaped the peril of war. At any rate, they were removed
and placed in a museum after de Rudder's death.

152 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
convince one man will perhaps not suffice for another. No
one, however, who is not totally deaf and blind to all evi
dence, can deny that the evidence in quite a number of
cases is uncommonly hard to get over. In fact, it is only
to be got over by the subterfuge of assuming that there
are no miracles, and that what seem to be such are occur
rences under laws of which we are still in ignorance.
But see what comes of this. In a non-critical age it
was still possible to sneer at post -Apostolic or " Church "
miracles, and to retain an undiluted belief in those narrated
in the Bible. But that cannot be done nowadays : so we
find the Bible miracles naturally explained, or explained
in accordance with Dr. Sanday's statement,1 that a " miracle
is not really a breach of the order of nature ; it is only an
apparent breach of laws that we know, in obedience to other
and higher laws that we do not know." In a sense this
statement is quite correct, and its author may be perfectly
orthodox in his meaning; but no one doubts that, in the
minds of many, such an explanation is equivalent to a state
ment that miracles act according to or under natural laws.
After all, the essential element in the notion of miracle is
exception to, or derogation from, the laws of nature.
Whether this be effected by God's ordinary concurrence or
co-operation with secondary causes or by His introduction
of some higher agency, His action must be really an inter
ference with the general order of nature. But nothing is
gained by ascribing this event to a " law." Indeed it is
precisely in this fact of individual intervention that the
supernatural revelation of God is manifested, and just in
this lies the probative force of the Gospel miracles to which
Christ so frequently appealed.2 Moreover, when it has
once been admitted that the free-will of man can intervene
and alter the current of physical causation in his own
organism and immediate environment, it is not easy to see
why any theist should find insuperable difficulties in believ
ing that a Personal God may, in analogous manner, inter
vene and modify the general order of nature.
Here we may revert to what has already been alluded to,
\ " life of Christ," viii, teste " Medicine and the Church," p. joa,
? g.g., Ma,tt. xi. $ ; ]ohnv.3§, .>..-.,, f - -

SPINOZA'S "UNKNOWN" LAW 153
viz. the " unknown " law of Spinoza, who held that the
term miracle should be understood with reference to the
opinions of men, and that it means an event which we
cannot explain by means of the experience which we have
at hand but which may be explained when further experience
has been gained by the race. Thus the things that we are
enabled to see by the. aid of the Rontgen rays would have
been thought to have been miraculously seen until the
discovery of the actual modus operandi was made. Up to
a point all must admit the truth of this observation ; yet
there remains a residuum of things which, as has been
suggested, it seems impossible that anything but the theory
of a miracle can account for. Again, it seems perfectly
clear that, if God is infinitely powerful and infinitely free,
as of course He must be, miracles are possible. But then,
it is argued, God cannot contradict Himself, as He would
be doing if He permitted the laws which He Himself had
set up to be contravened upon any occasion. This argu
ment is forcibly put by Spinoza :x "If miracles are, strictly
speaking, all above nature, then you must admit a break in
the necessary and immutable course of nature ; which is
absurd. It would follow also that the principles of reason
are violable, for after all they are but laws of nature. In
that case we are unable to trust them, unable to prove the
existence of God ; and thus miracles, far from being a help
to the knowledge of God, prove a total impediment to that
knowledge." Here, however, Spinoza confuses two things,
viz. principles of nature and principles of reason.2 No
miracle could alter the equation 2x2=4 because that is a
principle of reason, an enunciation of an inviolable truth.
But no principle of reason is infringed by the instantaneous
cure of a broken leg. It is only the instantaneous part of
the thing which is claimed as miraculous3 and, as we have
often to be reminded, the element of time is not one which
comes into operation in connection with the Eternal Being.
1 For the full discussion of this question see Boedder, op. cit., p. 425.
* Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, " De Potentia," q. 6, art. i, obj. n.
* The distinction between the two classes is very humorously brought
out in Mr. Chesterton's " Innocence of Father Brown," where the thief
posing as a priest is detected by just such false theology. As the genuine
priest \| rfta4e to. say-^' Reason and, justice grip the remotest and loneliest

154 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
Lastly, we have to see what is the natural corollary
of trying to explain away the numerous post-Apostolic
miracles which seem to attach themselves so closely to the
Catholic Church and which have been so forcibly repudiated
by other Christian denominations as well as by unbelievers.
If we must and can explain away the " Church " miracles,
why may not a similar method be pursued with the
Bible miracles — indeed, must we not in common honesty
pursue it ? But what comes of this ? First, that there was
no Virgin Birth, though it is difficult to see how any other
theory tallies with the age-long belief that Our Lady was the
flower of all virginity and of all womanhood, or is com
patible with the view, which surely is not too high an
estimate, that she was an ordinarily good and modest woman.
Second, that the miracles of Our Lord were worked on per
fectly natural lines, that He knew this, yet appealed to
them as proofs of His mission ; and, in spite of this deceit, He
is to be looked upon as at least the best of men, and a model
for us all. Again, either the Resurrection never took place
at all, or a very different interpretation must be put upon
it from that taught by the Church through the centuries.
Yet the Church in her corporate capacity was there to see
it, and the evidence of eyewitnesses in its favour is at least
as strong as that brought forward in verification of any other
historical event. And so on, and so on.
In all this we trace the corrosive effect of a general revolt
from authority. It eats away first one thing, then another,
until nothing is left but a few useless and apparently un
related fragments. This is not a work on inter-credal
polemics, so that this matter will not be pursued any further,
nor would it have been introduced at all had it not been
necessary to show that a distorted view of the question of
miracles, such as is held by many outside the Church,
logically leads up to a renunciation of those miraculous

star. Look at those stars. Don't they look as if they were single diamonds
and sapphires ? Well, you can imagine any mad botany or geology you
please. Think of forests of adamant with leaves of brilliants. Think the
moon is a blue moon, a single elephantine sapphire. But don't fancy that
all that frantic astronomy would make the smallest difference to the
reason and justice of conduct. . On plains of opal, under cliffs cut out of
pearl, you would still find a notice-board, ' Thou shalt not steal.' "

NON-BIBLICAL MIRACLES 155
events which others than Catholics hold sacred. This does
not prove their truth. That can be attempted and with
success, as we believe, on different lines. What it does
show is that the doubt as to the possibility of occurrence
of one kind of miracle and the belief in that of the other is
not a very logical position for anyone to occupy.
Note. — It is interesting to note that Sir William Barrett, f.r.s., a
very distinguished physicist who is not a member of our Church, in his
recent book "On the Threshold of the Unseen" (London, Kegan Paul,
1917) states it as his opinion that the common Protestant belief that
miracles, using this term in its widest sense, are credible in Scripture
but incredible out of it, is out of court.

CHAPTER XV
GEOLOGY
WE learnt in connection with the Nebular Theory
that the earth on which we live may very probably
have consisted originally of a whirling mass of nebular sub
stance abstracted, so to speak, from a much larger and
equally whirling mass from which our solar system has
taken its origin. As this nebula revolved, it gradually con
tracted and became a spherical mass of molten substance
from which at some period or another it would appear that
the moon may have been thrown off. Still revolving and
slowly cooling, the earth gradually consolidated and became
what it is to-day. The science which reveals to us the
occurrences of the long-drawn ages, since the earth can be
said to have deserved that name, is known as geology.
Here we begin to come into contact with subjects with
which religion is closely associated, and hence it will be
necessary briefly to describe the scope of geological con
siderations and to deal with the points where religious
interests are engaged. This will be the task of the present
and of succeeding chapters.
In the first place, then, it may be said that there are
at least three aspects of geology with which we are funda
mentally concerned. First of all, enquiry must be made
into the agencies by which the earth has come to be as it
is. It is the task of Dynamical Geology to deal with this
part of the question. By it we are taught that, whilst vast
cataclysms must have taken place in the past, the agencies
of rain and wind and sun and ice and the like which we see
at work to-day, are responsible for many, perhaps even
most, o( the changes which we have to study. Indeed
i§6

DYNAMICAL GEOLOGY 157
even now cataclysms occur — on a smaller scale, no doubt,
than many of those in past ages, yet of great severity —
such as volcanic eruptions, shocks of earthquake, landslips,
and the like. Thus we have to take into account both
great and sudden changes and those other changes which
depend upon the slow day-after-day operations of the
ordinary forces of nature. It is neither possible nor in
any way necessary to devote much space to a detailed
account of the processes dealt with by Dynamical Geology.
The ordinary text -books on geology will give sufficient in
formation and will supplement the few observations which
follow. Anyone who has ever watched a boiling pot of porridge .
will hardly have failed to notice that, under the influence
of the heat and even after it is taken off the fire, the
contents undergo great convulsions. Such, on a much
vaster scale, must have been what took place in the cooling
down of the molten mass from which the earth has been
formed. Further, as this cooling process went on — with
different rapidities in different places and in different con
stituents — the varying tensions of different parts must have
caused the surface to be thrown into folds just as an apple
is as it dries and becomes shrivelled. Hence depressions
and elevations, primitive valleys, seas, lakes, and moun
tains^ — waterless seas and lakes until the condensation of
the vapours around the earth filled them with fluid. At the
same time we may imagine that pent-up accumulations of
gas and steam in the interior of the crust would at times, as
they still do, burst forth in eruptions and lava-flows and
cause earthquakes and other phenomena with which we
are all familiar. But there was and there is a second
class of movements which are even more important to under
stand if we are to comprehend the next chapter of geological
research, namely, stratigraphy. These are the slow, gradual
movements of depression or elevation which are always
going on, though not perceived by the inhabitants of the
earth until their results are pointed out by geologists. As
a result of these movements in the past there are parts
of the earth on which men walk about daily which were
once covered by the waves of the sea, and places once

158 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
habitable, once even inhabited by men, now covered by
the ocean.
" There rolls the deep where grew the tree.
O earth, what changes hast thou seen !
There where the long street roars hath been
The stillness of the central sea." 1
Hence, during a period of elevation, a given tract of earth
may acquire no addition of material save perhaps blown
sand : nay, will suffer denudation by rain and wind, whilst,
during a period of depression, it may, as a sea-bottom, be
covered thickly with the rich deposits carried down by some
mighty river. Thus the see-saw motion of alternate eleva
tion and depression, with its necessary corollaries, will
account for the fact that the surface of the earth is not homo
geneous and uniform, but consists, as even the most careless
observer can hardly fail to notice, of different materials
often arranged on top of one another — like " streaky bacon,"
to use a homely simile. Sometimes these layers stand side
by side like books on a shelf, or side by side yet obliquely,
like books on a half-empty shelf : sometimes they are con
torted and twisted. To study these strata is the task of
Stratigraphical Geology — the second of the three divisions
to which allusion has been made. Not that these two are
not closely interlocked with one another, for it is Dynamical
Geology which must explain to its stratigraphical sister
why it is that the strata do not always lie evenly on top of
one another but assume the diverse positions just indicated.
We shall perhaps understand all this better if we suppose
for a moment that the Sahara were to be so much depressed
and the bed of the Mediterranean so much elevated that
where the desert now is there were to be a sea, and where
the sea is, dry land were to exist. Fresh deposits would be
laid down by the sea on what is now a sandy desert, whilst
what had formerly been the bed of the Mediterranean, now
dry land, would be exposed to all the processes of alteration
associated with terrestrial conditions. A further process of
depression in the Sahara might convert it into a brackish
inland lagoon, wherein a deposit of the character associated
1 " In Memoriam," cxxiii. This passage is said to refer to Cheltenham,
once part of the bed of the " Severn Sea."

STRATIGRAPHICAL GEOLOGY 159
with that kind of water would be laid down. Now let us
suppose that, after long ages, during which the deposits we
have been speaking of had hardened into rock, the Sahara
is once more subjected to elevation and becomes dry land
and is exposed to the examination of geologists. In the
section which they might make for the purposes of examina
tion, they would first cut through a rock formed of the
deposits laid down in the brackish lagoon. Then they would
cut through the old bed of the sea. Finally, they would
arrive at the sandy surface of what was the Sahara — finally,
that is, so far as the stages which we have been considering,
for further down there would doubtless be other stories to
be unfolded. Under the conditions which we have been
considering, all these strata would lie evenly and flatly upon
one another just as we might lay a plank of oak on one of
deal and add a third of mahogany to the pile. But now let
us suppose that a violent eruption takes place through the
centre of these deposits. Its force will disturb their even
position, tilt them up — perhaps even to a position at right
angles to that which they originally occupied — and by its
terrific heat will so alter their appearance as to mask the
fact that they were originally deposited in water. Hence
arise what are called " metamorphic rocks."
So much, then, for the connection of Stratigraphical and
Dynamical Geology. We have still to glance at the constant
forces which are effecting the apparently unchanging surface
of the earth every moment of every day. Of these, of course,
the most potent is water in one or other of its manifesta
tions. There are the waters of the sea constantly carving
away at the shores which they surround, here encroaching,
there receding, as the land undergoes the slow processes of
depression and elevation of which we have been speaking,
but always in either case gradually eroding the apparently
unalterable rocks. Then there are the running waters —
rivers and streams — carving out valleys and clefts in rocks,
carrying down to the sea vast quantities of deposits which
may accumulate at the mouths of rivers to form bars or
deltas, and in any case must be spread in large sheets over
the bed of the sea. As this matter will assume great im
portance in connection with the question of man's period of

160 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
occupation of the earth it may be well to pause for a moment
and consider this matter of water-formed valleys.
Everyone who has ever looked at a river will be well
aware that in certain parts of its course it will be found to
be fringed by beds of gravel, high and dry when the river
is low, submerged when it is in flood. The pebbles, sand,
and gravel making up these banks have been brought down
by the river, sometimes from a considerable distance. It
is the same agency which has converted them from rough
fragments into the well-known " water-worn " rounded
stones of greater or lesser size. Now in the case of the
river Thames and indeed of many, if not of all rivers, similar
banks of gravel in the form of terraces will be found lying in
tiers, one above the other, but all of them far above any point
now ever reached by the waters of the stream. Each such
terrace marks the position of the river at a former era ; and
what we learn from them is that the river has been busily
engaged in cutting its way deeper and deeper into its bed
and removing a large part of the " chippings," which it
makes during its work, to the floor of the sea. Some people
have thought that by ascertaining the rate of denudation
by a river to-day and by then measuring the amount of
denudation which has taken place since the stream began
its work, a kind of calendar of its existence might be con
structed. Obviously, if this could be done, and if we could
fix a spot at which a human skeleton had been laid down
by some flood in the stream, we could also fix or very nearly
fix the date at which this occurrence had taken place, which
would be a most valuable piece of information for anthro
pologists. Unfortunately there are so many factors to be
taken into consideration in this matter — notably differences
in the supply and flow of water — that the timing of events
by the means of river-erosion has come to be considered
an inaccurate method of calculation, at least in the great
majority of cases. There are cases — such, for example,
apparently is Niagara — where an approximation to accuracy
may be arrived at ; but such is certainly not the case with
the Thames, nor probably with the majority of rivers.
However, of this more must be said in succeeding chapters.
We must next consider water in the shape of ice, an agent

AGENCY OF WATER 161
of the greatest potency. It acts as a rending force by
creeping inta cracks as water ; and then, after freezing, it
exhibits that bursting power which we are painfully aware
of from time to time in our water-pipes. Then, as glacier
or river of ice, it has exercised an enormous influence upon
the surface of the earth notably in the northern parts of
Europe and America, as will be seen in the account of the
Glacial Epoch which will be given in a later chapter. The
full story of the work of the glaciers is much too long to
narrate here, and those who would study it may be referred
to the list of books given on p. 240. Here it will only be
possible to say that the effects of these ancient glaciers are
to be seen in the valleys which they have carved out, in
the rounded and scored rocks on which they have written
their signature, in the moraines or " spoil-banks " which
strew the countries where they have had former existence,
in the boulders or " erratics " often carried miles from their
original home and left in a distant country by the melting
ice, in the glacial lakes, and in many other objects which
cannot here be dealt with. Finally, whilst dealing with
the subject of water, one must not forget the influence of
the rain, not to speak of the wind which so often accom
panies it, in shaping the contour of what we poetically call
the " eternal hills," forgetting or not knowing that the
greater hills are often if not usually amongst the youngest
features of the landscape.
By degrees the earth in the process of its cooling down
became capable of supporting life and life arose. Some at
least of its manifestations — when everything is considered,
a surprising number of its manifestations — managed to write
in one way or another their autographs on the book of
stone which forms the crust of the earth. Sometimes the
actual object itself remains, sometimes the object has been
petrified or converted into stone, sometimes it has left a
cast of itself, sometimes a footprint is all that remains to
show that it was once there. But in virtue of these various
kinds of evidences the third division of Geology — Palaeonto
logy — exists : this is divided into Pakeozoology, which deals
with animals, and Paleobotany, which has its domain in
the kingdom of plants. These remains of former living things
M

162 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
are of course for the most part associated with what are
called aqueous rocks— formations laid down by water either
running, brackish and stagnant, or sea. It will be under
stood that a dead animal or part of one, say, the skull of
an ox, falling to the bottom of the sea or a river on to a bed
of mud, will gradually be covered by the same material,
and when that material turns to rock will be encased in it
and become what we call a fossil. Such aqueous rocks will
have, of course, a totally different kind of bedding from
igneous rocks which were once molten — in which one would
not expect to find, and does not find, anything in the
nature of life — and from metamorphic rocks in which the
heat has produced profound alterations. Granite, for
example, is an igneous rock and sandstone is of an aqueous
character. There are many others belonging to either class,
but those mentioned will be familiar to most and will serve
the purpose of examples.
After this exceedingly brief sketch of the general features
of geology — the chief object of which has been to impress
upon the reader the immense variety of operations to which
the earth, and particularly its crust, has been subjected,
and the immense period of time which these operations
must have occupied — we may endeavour to combine the
information derived from Stratigraphical Geology and
Palaeontology by giving a very brief account in very general
terms of the chief systems of strata recognised by geologists,
with a note of the chief kinds of fossils, if any, belonging
to each. For it will be found that there is a gradual develop
ment of life, not a sudden commencement with all the
varieties which we see around us or can study in museums.
One form succeeds another; one dies out, another survives.
All these facts will assume importance from our point of
view when we come to consider the question of the Days
of the Creation.
As a preface to this brief sketch of the strata it is neces
sary to say that the dispositions differ in different parts
of the world, as will very naturally be understood, and that
the names by which they are known also differ. All that
can be here attempted is to give a general idea of the main
outlines of the systems as they exist in Great Britain, with

PALEOZOIC ROCKS 163
an occasional note of American conditions. Such a sketch
will suffice to explain the purport of later chapters, and
those interested in the subject can pursue it further in
text-books relating to their own countries. In considering
the different strata it is obvious that one can commence
with the more recent formations and work downwards to
the older — the plan most commonly adopted in manuals of
Geology ; or one can reverse the method and start with the
most ancient rocks, working upwards from them to the
most recent strata. For the purposes of this book the
latter method will be followed as the more useful: the
facts laid down will be those given in the latest edition
of the " Encyclopaedia Britannica."
The Archaean or Eozoic or Pre-Cambrian consists of
very ancient strata underlying the oldest Palaeozoic rocks.
There is a vast succession of these in Canada and the Lake
Superior region of the United States which have been
carefully studied. The lowest of these strata is known as
Laurentian. In the eastern part of Canada and in other
parts, sedimentary formations, below the Cambrian, have
been found to contain some obscure organisms. Archaean
rocks have also been studied in Scotland and in various
parts of Europe.
The Paleozoic or Primary rocks are divided into six
groups : — Cambrian
The rocks belonging to this series display a marked
uniformity all over the world and consist chiefly of muds,
sands, grits, and conglomerates. There is abundant evi
dence of the many movements of the earth which have
inclined, folded and faulted most of these rocks during the
long period which has elapsed since they were deposited.
They invariably retain their sedimentary characteristics,
muds becoming shales and slates ; sands and conglomerates,
quartzites and greywackes.1 In Britain the Cambrian rocks,
as indeed their name implies, are chiefly met with in Wales.
1 With every desire to be as little technical as possible, the use of
terms hardly likely to be familiar to all cannot always be avoided
nor can explanations always be given. .Any text-book will clear up
difficulties which are not elucidated in the account given here.

164 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
In North America there are Potsdam, Acadian, and Georgian
series. The Life of this period is interesting because the rocks
belonging to it are the oldest which, so far as we know at
present, contain definite and indisputable remains of living
organisms. With the exception of vertebrates all the great
classes of animals are represented. There was no plant
life except seaweeds, and the animal remains indicate that
these beds were deposited in more or less deep seas. Pro
tozoa (the simplest forms of life), sponges, and Graptolites1
were plentiful, but by far the most important animals were
the Trilobites, which belong to an extinct order of Crus
tacea some species of which are as much as three feet in
length.2 Ordovician
This group of strata, found in Wales and in North America
in Utica, Cincinnati, and Trenton, includes rocks of all
types of sedimentation, greywackes, grits, shales, con
glomerates, and limestones. It was a period of remarkable
volcanic activity in the British Isles, where masses of con
temporaneous igneous rocks, lavas, ashes and tuffs were
laid down, giving rise to local upheavals of the sea-floor
which resulted in shallow-water conditions.
The Life includes examples of all the sub-kingdoms of
Invertebrates. Brachiopods (the lamp-shells of to-day)
were abundant and Crinoids (or sea-lilies), and Corals occur
in calcareous deposits. Trilobites now take a secondary
place and Graptolites become the most characteristic fossils.
The earliest indications of vertebrate life have been found
in the Ordovician beds of Colorado.
Silurian
These beds — found largely in Shropshire in England, in
South Wales and in North America, for example, in the
Niagara Shales — are almost entirely of marine origin and
1 Living creatures- resembling the colonial zoophytes of to-day, such
as the " sea-mats " found on the beach at low tide.
2 The Crustacea include Crabs, Lobsters, and Shrimps with other like
forms, and the Trilobite, thus named from its three-sectioned body, is most
nearly allied, amongst living things of to-day, with the so-called Kine-
Crab.

THE COAL MEASURES 165
consist of shales, marls, limestones, sandstones, and grits.
They were mostly deposited in comparatively shallow waters
and there do not appear to have been any contemporaneous
igneous rocks.
The Life is marked by the fact that Graptolites appear
to have become extinct during this period, whilst Brachio-
pods are perhaps the most characteristic fossils. It is
interesting to note that these exceedingly ancient shelled
creatures still exist, and in forms but little if at all differing
from those of their far-off predecessors. Corals flourished
during the Silurian period and often formed reefs. Organic
remains belonging to the great group of fishes become
abundant, the most conspicuous fish-like forms belonging
to the Ostracodermi or shell-skinned fishes. Seaweeds occur
occasionally.
Devonian or Old Red Sandstone
The strata of this series are of great thickness and appear
to have been laid down in fresh-water lakes or lagoons.
The typical rocks are sandstones alternating with layers of
sandy shales and beds of concretionary limestone, all more
or less coloured by peroxide of iron. In North America the
Onondaga limestones are examples of the lower strata of
this period and the Catskills red sandstones of the upper.
The Life presents to us as its most typical feature a
variety of fishes, associated with which are giant crustaceans
and an abundance of corals. Brachiopods attained their
maximum development. The lake deposits furnish us with
the earliest well-defined marsh-plants such as lycopods and
ferns. Carboniferous
The abundance of vegetable remains, of which carbon is
the chief element, has given its name to this system. It is
from the remains of the abundant vegetation of this period
that almost all the seams of coal in all parts of the world
have been derived. In addition to these seams the strata
include limestones, sheets of hard gritstone, sandstones,
and shales. The limestones were deposited in open seas,
the grits and sandstones in the mouths of rivers, the coals
and ironstones in estuaries and swamps.

166 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
The Life of the carboniferous period, as already stated, is
mainly characterised by the abundant vegetation, and
amongst the cryptogams (or non-flowering plants) were
ferns, horsetails, and conifers. The carboniferous limestones
are rich in marine fossils, such as corals, brachiopods,
encrinites (sea-lilies), sponges, and protozoa.
Permian
The strata include volcanic and limestone breccias, con
glomerates, red sandstones, limestones, shales, and marls.
There are occasional boulder beds which are of very great
interest, as they prove to us that during the period in ques
tion there must have been a glacial epoch.
In the Life of this period we find reptiles for the first
time, though fishes and amphibians are the most important
vertebrates. The invertebrates include Brachiopods and
other molluscs, and the plants are closely allied to those of
the Coal Measures.
The Mesozoic or Secondary rocks next succeed : the
lowest of these are known as
Triassic
The rocks of this system vary in different parts of the
world, being either Bunter Sandstones, Muschelkalk Lime
stones or the marls and gypsum-bearing rocks of the Keuper
series. For example, in North America in New York,
Connecticut, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia a series of
red sandstone (Newark series) contains land-plants and
Labyrinthodonts (a huge form .of reptile) like the lagoon
type of central and western Europe. On the Pacific slope,
however, marine equivalents occur, representing the pelagic
type of south-eastern Europe.1 Economically these strata
are of great interest and importance as the salt-bearing
portions of the earth's crust.
The Life so far as fossils go, for they are scarce, is not a
strong feature of this series, since it only includes a few
plants, fishes, crustaceans, and reptiles, but the Ichthyo
saurus existed and there were massive forms of Dinosaurs
or bird-like lizards, very largely known by the footprints
1 " Encyc. Brit.," art. " Geology."

MESOZOIC ROCKS 167
which they left upon the wet sands and muds : these are
very abundant. The most important groups of the In
vertebrates are represented, such as molluscs and cuttle
fish. Perhaps most interesting of all, tiny mammals of the
marsupial branch make their appearance for the first time.
Jurassic
In this system there are two marked groups of strata,
Lias and Oolite. The Lias consists of thin beds of a marine
formation of blue and grey limestone and dark-coloured
argillaceous shales. The Oolite has alternating masses of
calcareous rocks with thick beds of soft clays and marls
partly estuarine, partly marine.
The Life of this period is very remarkable since there is
a great abundance and variety of organic remains. All
groups of plants are represented, but Cycads (allied to
palms) are specially typical of this period. Stumps of trees
have been found three to seven feet in height. Sponges
and Foraminifers1 are abundant as are corals and crinoids.
Fishes include Elasmobranchs and Ganoids, two classes
existing at the present day. The reptiles were many and
remarkable, including the Ichthyosaurus, Plesiosaurus, and
Teleosaurus, with the Pterodactyle, a flying form, and the
Megalosaurus. Skeletons of these great creatures so long
extinct are amongst the most interesting objects in geo
logical museums.
The first examples of birds are found in the Oolitic series.
Small marsupial mammals existed.
Cretaceous
This owes its name to the chalk beds which, often with
flints, form one of its most characteristic features. The
flints are siliceous concretions, often around sponges, sea-
urchins, and the like. These and the chalk itself were laid
down in quiet waters. There are also sandstones, marls,
limestones, and clays.
The Life of this period is in many ways a continuation of
that of the last, for we still find the. gigantic reptiles and
1 Creatures constructing microscopic shells, still in existence in almost
incredible numbers in deep parts of the sea.

168 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
flying lizards, though they are on the wane. Crocodiles and
fishes of many kinds, crustaceans, ammonites, nautili, the
usual brachiopods, and many other invertebrates, corals,
and sponges all flourish. Birds, chiefly water birds, are to
be found : they are more bird-like and less lizard-like. The
vegetable life is also like that of the Jurassic, and there are
Sequoias with oaks in places. Insects appear, and there are
still marsupial mammals, but, like their precursors, all of
small size.
The Cainozoic or Tertiary rocks include subdivisions
known as
Eocene,
Oligocene,Miocene,Pliocene,
which may be dealt with together to save space. The period
of deposition of strata which followed upon the Cretaceous
and terminated with the Glacial Epoch was one during
which the earth's surface was steadily approaching the
appearance of the present day. The strata are of great
lithological variety, most of the deposits being of marine,
estuarine or fluviatile origin. Volcanic and other disturb
ances of the earth's crust gave rise to the great existing
mountain chains.
The Life of this period presents two important features
to us. In the first place, we see the disappearance of a very
large number of the older forms which marked the fauna of
earlier systems ; whilst on the other hand, there came into
existence many of the forms which we find around us to-day.
The birds include many forms which have now disappeared,
and so of course do the mammals which marked this period
and of which more will have to be said in connection with
the next.
Amongst plants, Monocotyledons and Dicotyledons now
take a position of pre-eminence over Cryptogams, as is the
case to-day. The climate appears to have been at first
warm, but in northern latitudes gave place, towards the
end of the period, to colder temperatures which led up to
the Great Ice Age.

POST-TERTIARY PERIOD l6g
The Quaternary or Post-Tertiary period subdivided
into Pleistocene or Glacial and
Recent, Post-Glacial or Human
must be separately discussed, and with it must be con
sidered certain points omitted in the above brief sketch of
geological conditions. But the account of the Glacial
Period and a number of other matters closely connected
with geological considerations must be postponed to a later
part of the book, and for this reason. As has often been
said in these pages the object of this book is not to teach
science to its readers, but to explain the bearing of present-
day science upon religious teaching. Hence the question
of Man and hfe existence upon the earth, which is a very
small item in the geological story, is to us by far its most im
portant portion. It follows that the question of Man and
his appearance on the earth must receive very much more
consideration than all the other facts of Geology, which
indeed have only been so far considered as was necessary
for the comprehension of those matters which are of primary
interest to us here.
And so, after considering the Days of Creation and the
bearing of Holy Scripture and scientific knowledge upon
this matter, we shall turn our attention to what we have
learnt and what we surmise about the earliest men who
are known to have existed upon this earth.
Having studied this section of our subject, we may then
revert to geological considerations and examine the present
state of scientific opinion on the Glacial Period and on
man's relationship thereto. We shall then be in a position
to investigate the question of the age of the earth and the
far more interesting question — to us in this book — of the
age of man upon the earth.
But, it may be said, you are discussing the question of
Man before you have dealt with such matters as Life and
how it came into existence, of the relations of animals
and of plants, of evolution and of a number of other
matters of that kind. No doubt this is perfectly true, but
in a general account such as this it is by no means easy to

170 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
adopt that simple and straightforward order which is natural
when only geology, for example, is under discussion. It
is thought that by disposing of all the geological topics,
amongst which is included the advent of Man, before
taking up those of a biological nature, the clearest view of
the questions with which we have to deal will be afforded
to the general reader, for whom these pages are intended.

CHAPTER XVI
THE SEVEN DAYS OF CREATION
THERE is perhaps hardly any subject amongst those
under discussion in this book around which greater
strife has raged than that which has to be touched upon
in this chapter. The present writer, having no claims to
be regarded either as a theologian or as one skilled in
Biblical Criticism, can, of course, only deal at second
hand with these topics. He has, therefore, contented him
self with paraphrasing or quoting from other authors, and
especially from the writings of the Rev. Dr. Hugh Pope, from
whose pen the Catholic reader receives much assistance.1
In discussing the relations between the account which
which we find in the Book of Genesis and what we learn
from Science it is in the first place necessary to be quite
clear as to what was the intention of the writer of the
Sacred Record. The primary intention was obviously not to
give a scientific description of the origin of the Universe.
The primary intention was to give an account which should
clearly bring out God's plan for the redemption of the human
race. Hence it tells of the creation of the Universe but
specially — one might almost say only — as it relates to the
creation of the world, and to that again chiefly as it relates
to the creation of Man. Further, for the History of Man
we may substitute the History of the Chosen Race, for
that is what the remainder of the Old Testament deals
with and that is what the Book of Genesis leads up to. We
must take it as it was intended and must not forget for whom
it was intended — namely, for a race in a primitive, pastoral
1 The arguments and quotations are taken from his work " The
Catholic Student's ' Aids ' to the Bible," Old Testament. London, Wash-
bourne, 1913. 171

172 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
condition who could not have comprehended a scientific
account if it had been laid before them, but who were
quite capable of gathering, as the simple of to-day can
gather, all the information necessary for the comprehension
of the scheme of Redemption with which the Bible is con
cerned. Dr. Pope says (p. 192) that an examination of the account
given in Genesis shows us " (a) that creation was conceived
of as consisting in a definite series of operations ; (b) that it
is given in a more or less poetical form ; thus we note the
recurring formula ' and there was evening and morning,
one day,' etc.; (c) though it is the creation of the universe
which is treated of, it is yet clear that all is told from the
standpoint of the earth, in other words, we are not told
the story for its own intrinsic interest, nor from a purely
scientific point of view — we have not a cosmogony so much
as a geogony ; (d) the account is essentially anthropomor
phic, i.e. God is depicted as a man, He acts, plans, and
speaks like a man; (e) the whole account is essentially
popular, i.e. it is expressed in popular language and accord
ing to appearances ; e.g. the description of the firmament.
If we ask what precise doctrinal teaching is to be gathered
from the account, it will seem that nothing explicitly is
taught us in the first chapter beyond the fact that God created
all, and that He rested on the Sabbath day."
This not being a theological treatise it is unnecessary
to discuss at any length the findings of the Pontifical Com
mission for Biblical Studies, which may be studied by those
desirous of so doing in Dr. Pope's work already mentioned.
Here it may briefly be said that we are directed not to
call in question the literal and historical meaning of facts
touching the foundations of the Christian religion — such, for
example, as the unity of the human race.
We are not bound to interpret everything in these chapters
literally where it is obvious that the words were not used
in the strict sense or that reason or necessity compel us to
give up the literal sense. Even an allegorical and prophetic
interpretation may at times be prudently applied.
Nor need we seek for scientific exactitude of expression,
since it was not the intention of the writer of the first

THE "DAYS" OF CREATION 173
chapter of Genesis to teach us the innermost nature of
visible things, nor to present the complete order of creation
in a scientific manner, but rather to furnish his readers with
a popular account, such as the common parlance of that
age allowed : one, namely, adapted to the senses and to
man's intelligence. Thus the word yom (day) which is used
in the first chapter of Genesis for describing and distinguish
ing the six days may be taken either in its strict sense as
the natural day or in the less strict sense as signifying a
certain space of time.
With these directions before us we may now turn to
consider two points which especially arise — points which
have been urged as obstacles to the acceptance of the
Christian religion.
The first of these will not require much consideration*
since it is dealt with in the last of the citations from the
findings of the Biblical Commission — that is, the question of
the meaning of the term " days." As long as it was held
that this signified actual terms of twenty-four hours it was
difficult to understand how matters were to be explained.
Of course no believer in a Creator doubts that God Almighty
could, had He thought fit to do so, have created the world
just as it is, fossil remains and all, in six literal days of
twenty-four hours each. It need not be said that no one
believes this to be the case, since such an operation would
have involved the wasteful if not absurd corollary of the
production of the apparent remains of millions upon millions
of living creatures which in fact had never been alive.
In an unscientific age, when the words of the Bible
were accepted as literally true, the first discovery of fossils
did indeed produce, and very naturally produced, great
difficulties in the minds of men who reverenced their religious
beliefs; nor is it in any way wonderful that what we now
feel to have been ridiculous explanations should have been
put forward to account for what was to them a very real
if only apparent difficulty. Unworthy sneers have been
uttered against really great observers like Gabriel Fallopius,
who committed themselves, as was observed in an earlier
chapter, to what we now all recognise as a far-fetched and
ridiculous explanation.

174 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
As we have seen, the absurd insinuation that this explana
tion was one intended purposely to deceive in the supposed
interests of the Church is sufficiently disposed of by the fact,
usually suppressed by disseminators of the Fallopius fable,
that the real character and significance of fossils were first
made known to the world by a Catholic Bishop, Nicolaus
Stensen, who is justly regarded by the scientific world as
the Father of Modern Geology.1
As a matter of fact we are quite familiar with the use
of the word " day " in the Bible in a figurative sense : we
have the " day of the Lord," for example, which no one
ever supposed to refer to a period of twenty-four hours.
Then further there is this cardinal point of importance
which we must ever keep before our minds when we are
considering this matter of Creation — a point which will
receive further consideration when we are dealing with the
question of Evolution. This most important point is that
when we are speaking of the Creator we are speaking of a
Being with whom all is present and for whom there is
neither past nor future. We have already discussed the
difficult questions of Time and Space to some extent in
Chapter X and have seen how impossible it is to form
any proper conception of either of them. The late Oliver
Wendell Holmes says in one of his books : " Curious en
tities, or non-entities, space and time ! When you see a
metaphysician trying to wash his hands of them and- get
rid of these accidents, so as to lay his dry, clean palm on
the absolute, does it not remind you of the hopeless task of
changing the blackamoor by a similar proceeding ? For
space is the fluid in which he is washing and time is the
soap which he is using up in the process, and he cannot
get free from them until he can wash himself in a mental
vacuum." We cannot think or speak of God except in a more or
less anthropomorphic manner, and that for the excellent
reason that we are men ourselves. Nor can we think out
side the " entities or non-entities " of Time and Space.
But just as we can recognise that our anthropomorphic con-
1 See his life in " Twelve Catholic Men of Science," published bv the
Catholic Truth Society. '

THE "DAYS OF MAN" 175
ceptlon of the Deity, though the highest and best that we
can form, is hopelessly incorrect and inadequate, so also
though we cannot understand the condition, we can fully,
realise that an Infinite and All-sufficient Being must neces
sarily be untrammelled by Space and Time. And thus we
realise that to talk of " days " in connection with such a
Being, and to suppose that for Him they resemble our suc
cessive periods of twenty-four hours each, is to talk of two
wholly different things under the same name. We do not
mistake the meaning of the words " God rested," nor sup
pose that the same meaning attaches to them as would
attach to the same words if said about any of us.
" Hast thou eyes of flesh : or shalt thou see as man
seeth ? Are thy days as the days of man, and are thy years
as the times of man ? " says the Book of Job. This seems to
sum the matter up, for as God certainly has not eyes after
the manner of a man, neither are we to suppose that the
" days " with which we are now concerned, whether men
tioned in the first chapters of Genesis or in the Ten Com
mandments, are other than figurative terms expressive of
periods which might be well thought of under the idea of
days. " Any contradiction, then, between Genesis and
geology as to the time of creation is plainly impossible, for
their teaching is of a different kind. The one tells us, or
may tell us, the time of creation in regard to man as measured
by years and centuries ; the other tells us the insignificance
of this time in regard to God. And therefore, as has been
well said, there is only one way in which the discoveries of
science can affect this subject. By the help of science we
may obtain a truer idea of the real dimensions and mar
vellous constitution of the universe, a truer idea of the
enormous length of time during which it was being brought
to its present perfection ; thus obtaining also a truer idea
of the eternal greatness of Him to whom the whole of this
vast work seemed but the labour of a few days."1
And now for the second point, which relates to the actual
process as described in Genesis.
In the first place, the- Scriptural account is plainly and
1 Turton, " The Truth of Christianity," London, Wells Gardner,
8th ed., p. 142.

176 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
distinctly monotheistic, and in this respect it differs from
some of the other ancient mythologies, which are poly
theistic. The Assyro-Babylonian accounts " are frankly,
nay grossly, polytheistic," says Dr. Pope, "whereas the
Biblical account is purely monotheistic. Again, the Assyrian
account does not seem to involve a creative act ; the light,
for instance, is rather the result of a conflict between two
powers, an evolution rather than a creation, and we are
reminded of the dualism of the Persian Zoroastrianism. It
is particularly noticeable how the Assyrian story personifies
the Chaos of the Bible ; Tiamat is a deity, or at least a
principle of evil. This is part of that metaphorical presenta
tion of things which we indicated above when treating of
myths ; but the Biblical account is absolutely free from it.
Once more, as Prof. Sayce has well remarked, ' between
Bel-Merodach and the Hebrew God there is an impassable
gulf.' 'fl
In the next place, it is very distinctly stated that the
process was gradual. The account might very well have
stated that God created the universe and all that was and
is in it and have ended with that statement. It would
have been a perfectly correct statement, so all Christians
believe ; but that which is given to us is more detailed, for
it informs us that first one and then another thing happened,
and the sequence of these events is sketched for us in the
form of days. There is a sequence : that is clear, and we
have now to see how far it fits in with what science tells us
on the subject.2
(i.) " In the beginning God created heaven and earth "
(Gen. i. 1). We have already discussed the question of
Matter and shall again have to touch upon some of the
views which are held about it, and we have seen that in
the opinion of eminent physicists there is no alternative
between the two theories — that Matter was created and
endowed with its powers by God or that it is eternal and
alive. The former is the view which the late Lord Kelvin
1 Pope, op. cit., p. 197.
8 Though it is useful to commence the consideration of the " Seven
Days " with the chronological discussion now to be undertaken, it must
be taken in very strict relation with the statements contained in the next
chapter.

LIGHT BEFORE THE SUN 177
stated to be that demanded by science. It is certainly
that which all Christians hold, and we shall venture to argue
that from the standpoint of mere reason it is infinitely more
credible than the other. If that be so it is obvious that,
since all things are formed from matter, it would be the
first thing to come into existence and from it would be
formed the heavens and the earth, that is the universe.
(ii.) " And the earth was void and empty, and darkness
was upon the face of the deep " (Gen. i. 2). Here again
the account exactly tallies with what science tells us to
have been the case. The earth having been formed from
a nebula in a state of intense heat and requiring a long time
in order to cool down to the point at which living matter
could exist upon it must, during that time, have been void
and empty of living things. Moreover, everything seems
to point to the fact that during this period it must have
been surrounded by dense clouds of vapour, afterwards to
condense into the seas and waters of our planet, vapours
which would cut off from the earth, as it then was, any
rays of light which it might otherwise have received from
the glowing nebular masses of the universe.
(iii.) " And God said : Be light made. And light was
made " (Gen. i. 3). This is a point as to which some remarks
must be set down. In the first place it' may be pointed out
once more that the whole account of the Creation centres
round this earth of ours and is not necessarily or reasonably
to be expected to contain a minute narrative of the universe
and its formation. The statement as to the darkness in
the previous verse certainly and admittedly relates to the
condition of the earth. It would appear that the state
ment as to the light does the same and that it gives us to
understand that the next stage in the proceedings was the
letting in of the light upon the previously dark earth, which
would occur when a condensation and precipitation of the
dense vapours surrounding the earth had taken place.
But where was this light derived from, since we are told
that the sun and moon and stars were not yet in existence ?
This is a very remarkable point and one which bears out
the accuracy of the Biblical account in a very striking and
unexpected manner. At the time that it was written, and

178' THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
for many hundreds of years afterwards, no one knew any
thing about the Nebular Theory, and it might have been
argued that it was patently absurd td suppose that light
could have existed before the existence of those bodies
from which we now receive it. The Nebular Theory,
however, clears up this difficulty, for it teaches that
our solar system, which is all that the Biblical account is
directly concerned with, at the period in question, was
composed of whirling and as yet imperfectly condensed
masses of nebular substance. In the case of the sun, on
account of its size, the condensation would take longer
than in the case of the earth. It would still be incorrect
perhaps to speak of it as a sun, but it was a source of light,
as were any other nebular masses which might have been
in existence. It is certainly remarkable, as far as we have
got, that the Biblical account and that of science present
no contradictions. That is what we, as believers in Revela
tion, would expect, but we may reasonably ask of those
who do not believe how they account for the fact that such
a near approximation to what science believes to have
occurred should have been reached, seeing that no human
eye saw, nor could any human mind, one would imagine,
guess at these far-off occurrences.
(iv.) " And God said : Let there be a firmament made
amidst the waters : and let it divide the waters from the
waters " (Gen. i. 6). The note in the Douay version very
clearly explains what is meant by this saying, for it runs :
" A firmament. By this name is here understood the whole
space between the earth and the highest stars. The lower
part of which divideth the waters that are upon the earth,
from those that are above in the clouds." We have already
seen that the process of condensation, by which the waters
around the earth in a state of dense mist were deposited on
the cooling globe to become its seas and lakes, was one
which would take place when the earth had sufficiently
cooled and would be accompanied by the falling of light
upon the hitherto dark surface of the planet.
(v.) " God also said : Let the waters that are under the
heaven be gathered together into one place : and let the
dry land appear " (Gen. i. 9). From this we learn that at

APPEARANCE OF LIFE 179
one time there was no such thing as a patch of dry land
on the surface of the earth, but that all was water — a thing
which no one would have been likely to have guessed or
even expected but which science is very far from denying.
On the contrary, it seems at least quite possible, from what
science infers, that this was exactly what did happen :
that the earth was at one time completely covered with
water and that subsequent elevations of parts of its sur
face, accompanied by depressions of others, led to the col
lection of the waters into isolated localities forming the
seas and lakes of the primitive world, with dry land now
emerging from them.
(vi.) " And He said : Let the earth bring forth the
green herb and such as may seed, and the fruit tree
yielding fruit after its kind " (Gen. i. 11). Here we have
the appearance of vegetation and in its right place, for
though low forms of invertebrata seem to accompany the
earlier forms of vegetation known to us, no one denies that
the vegetable kingdom is more primitive than the animal,
nor that in the process of evolution one would expect plants
to appear before animals. Here again, however, it is fair
to ask how an uninspired writer was likely to have made
the lucky guess that plants came before animals.
There is, of course, a point which must not be passed over
here without comment. The Scripture clearly alludes to
all kinds of plants and makes very special mention of
Phanerogams or flowering plants which, as we have seen,
did not come into existence until long after other and, in
the Biblical account, later events. Here again we must
revert to the principles laid down that the account is an
outline, mainly intended to represent the work of the
Creator in His creation and is singularly abbreviated.
From the evolutionary point of view the account is remark
ably correct, for ex hypothesi plants having first arisen as
very lowly Protophytes, passed through Cryptogams into
Phanerogams and, since the higher were involved in the
lower forms, may all have been said to have been created
at the same time. This is a matter which will have further
to be dealt with when the question of Evolution comes
under discussion and it may be left where it is for the

l8o THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
moment with the remark that the Scriptural account,
properly understood, does not contradict in any way what
science believes to have been the case as to the order of
the appearance of living things. We note, however, that we
have arrived at a very important milestone in the history
of the world, that of the introduction of life, a new principle
which in its higher manifestations was profoundly to modify
the world of inanimate matter.
(vii.) " And God said : Let there be lights made in the
firmament of heaven. . . . And God made two great lights :
a greater light to rule the day ; and a lesser light to rule
the night : and the stars " (Gen. i. 14-16).
Reference has already been made to the question of the
appearance of light before there is any mention of the sun,
and on this matter a quotation from a work already referred
to may be permitted. After speaking of the Nebular Theory
and the removal of the obstacles to the permeation of light
presented by the thick vapours which surround the earth
Col. Turton continues1 : " If it be urged that on this
view the sun was not actually created on the fourth
day, but had merely by that time sufficiently contracted
to become a great light, and that Genesis ought to have
implied this, the answer is obvious. It is precisely what
Genesis has done. The original creation of the sun is de
scribed in verse 1 under the term Heaven ; and when we
are told later on that God made two great lights, the other
word is used, which as before said, means evolved or
fashioned, and which would be quite suitable for the gradual
formation of a sun from a nebula.
" Two objections have now to be considered. The first
refers to the moon, which must have been thrown off from
the earth long before the dry land and the vegetation ap
peared ; and being so small, would have consolidated
sooner. But when considered only as lights, as they are in
the narrative, it is quite correct to place the moon with
the sun ; since moonlight is merely reflected sunlight.
And, therefore, before the sun contracted so as to give out
a powerful light, the moon could not have shone very
brightly either. ' " The Truth of Christianity," p. 154.

APPEARANCE OF ANIMAL LIFE 181
" The second objection is, that according to Genesis, the
earth seems to be the centre of everything, and even the
sun, or at all events its light, exists solely for the sake of
lighting the earth. Now no doubt the writer takes for
granted the great importance of the earth ; but as far as
man is concerned — and the narrative was written for him
alone — it is quite correct to do so. And as to the object
of sunlight : we know that it is of use to the inhabitants
of this planet, and we do not know that it serves any other
useful purpose whatever.
" These, however, are but minor matters ; the important
point, as before said, is that the writer of Genesis places
the formation of the sun after that of light. This must
have appeared when it was written, and for thousands of
years afterwards, an obvious absurdity, since everyone
could see that the sun was the source of light. We now
know that it is correct. But is it likely that the writer of
Genesis had any human means of knowing this ; or is it
likely that, without such means, he should have made
such a wonderfully lucky guess ? Either alternative seems
most improbable, and yet there is no other, unless we admit
that the knowledge was divinely revealed."
(viii.) " God also said : Let the waters bring forth the
creeping creature having life, and the fowl that may fly
over the earth under the firmament of heaven. And God
created the great whales and every living and moving
creature which the waters brought forth, according to their
kinds, and every winged fowl according to its kind " (Gen.
i. 20, 2I>.
Here we arrive at the second milestone in the path of
progress, for not only do we find ourselves confronted by
life but for the first time with sentient life, and, as already
said, it is described at the place where science tells us that
it might be looked for. Now here we have another agree
ment between the Scriptural and the scientific accounts,
for the evolutionist will certainly not deny that zoological
life seems first of all to have originated in the sea ; that it
was preceded by the appearance of vegetable life ; that
fishes did come before birds and that the gigantic saurians —
which it is suggested may have been intended by the

182 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
Hebrew word commonly but probably incorrectly trans
lated " whales " — were a very remarkable feature of the
period of geological time at which we have now arrived,
since some of them attained a length of at least fifty feet.
It has also been pointed out that it is somewhat remarkable
that the writer, of course unfamiliar with science, should
have grouped birds with fishes and not with mammals,
which would have seemed much more natural. Yet in
doing so he is acting quite correctly.
It cannot, however, be concealed that the narrative at
the point at which we have arrived leaves one difficulty to be
cleared up. In our sixth sub-division we arrived at veget able
life and now in our eighth for the first time we come upon
animal life. Yet, on the other hand, as far as we know,
invertebrate life, of a low form no doubt, has existed upon
the earth as long as life of a purely vegetable character.
According to the evolutionist — though this is a theory, not
an established or perhaps even an establishable fact — life
appeared as a single-celled organism of an indefinite char
acter which diverged on the one hand, into protophytes,
or early vegetables, and on the other into protozoans or
early animals. This surmise, even if correct (which is quite
unproved) would still, from the philosophical point of view,
leave the plant form the earlier of the two. For the essence
of the animal form is that it has something more than the
plant form, namely, sentience of some kind or another.
The indifferent form, if we can conceive of such a thing,
cannot have possessed sentience, therefore it was not an
animal. But if it did not possess sentience and yet was
alive it must have been a plant. This argument would
lead us to believe, on the evolutionary hypothesis, that
animals had been derived from vegetables and that the
latter were, as the Scriptural account makes them, the older
of the two.
Still the animal kingdom is apparently placed at a
greater distance from the vegetable than one would expect,
and perhaps the explanation is that the account does not
trouble itself with what would, to those for whom it was
intended, seem quite insignificant creatures and makes
straight for those forms of animal life which would seem

APPEARANCE OF MAN 183
to be and really are of first importance as factors amongst
the fauna of the earth. One always has to bear in mind
the compressed nature of the account and the purpose for
which it was written. When these are allowed for there
certainly is nothing very wonderful in the omission,
if omission there be, of any notice of the invertebrate
animals. (ix.) " And God said : Let the earth bring forth the
living creature in its kind, cattle and creeping things, and
beasts of the earth according to their kinds " (Gen. i. 24).
Here again we find the land-animals placed in their
proper position, for they certainly came into existence after
fishes and birds and before man — that is, taking them as a
whole. There were a few marsupials as early as birds,
but mammals only come into real importance in the Tertiary
period, so that the statement is quite correct in a com
pendious manner.
(x.) " And He said : Let us make man to our image
and likeness " (Gen. i. 26). Last of all man appears, and
last of all he is described as appearing. Much consideration
will be given to the time and manner of his appearance
in later chapters : here we need only advert to the fact
that he is found in the place where science tells us that he
should be found.
And now, having considered the account in Genesis, we
may pause to consider whether on general lines and apart
from the question of Revelation, there is not a remarkable
similarity and agreement between the Scriptural narrative
and the findings of science. Romanes once wrote,1 " The
order in which the flora and fauna are said, by the Mosaic
account, to have appeared upon the earth corresponds with
that which the theory of Evolution requires and the evidence
of geology proves." This statement cannot be gainsaid,
and we may usefully bear in mind that " the points of
agreement between Genesis and science are far too many
and far too unlikely to be due to accident. They are far
too many ; for the chances against even eight events being
put down in their correct order by guesswork is 40,310,
toj^— And they are far too unlikely ; for what could have
» " Nature," nth August, 1881.

184 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
induced an ignorant man to say that light came before
the sun, or that the earth once existed without any dry
land ? M1
On this matter Dr. Pope (op cit., pp. 196, 7) says : " Primi
tive nations must necessarily have attempted to give some
explanation, however unsatisfactory, of their own existence.
It is hardly to be supposed that different nations would
have lit upon the same metaphorical way of expressing their
ideas on this subject.2 And it seems perfectly legitimate
to argue that the universal witness of the world, especially
as concretised in the records which we have been examining,
bears witness to a primitive revelation on the subject of
the origins of mankind and the world in general. At the
same time this revelation, while coming from God to man,
must necessarily have been expressed in language suitable
to man's comprehension, and he, in handing down to
his sons the revelation received in the beginning, must
needs have expressed things which, save in the case of
Adam himself, were beyond his power to understand, and
indeed altogether beyond his experience, in terms, too,
which were often little better than metaphors, and which
as such were only to a small extent capable of giving ex
pression to man's ideas on the subject ; it is in this sense
that we can speak of the stories in Genesis as myths or
legends, and in no other. In doing so we do not cease to
remember their divine origin ; we look rather at the halting
way in which, from the necessities of the case, they must
have been expressed. . . . What, then, are the relations
between these Assyrian and pre-Semitic accounts and the
Biblical narrative ? It must be remembered that the
Assyrians, Babylonians, and Hebrews, were, all alike,
Semites ; further, that the parent of the Hebrew race, viz.
Abraham, had come out of Chaldea, and that at the Exile
the Hebrews had returned thither. The advanced Ration
alistic School would argue that since the Pentateuch, ac
cording to their ideas, is only to be referred in its present
form to the period succeeding the Exile, i.e. to about
1 Turton, op. cit., p. 163.
• He has just been discussing the Assyrian and the Babylonian accounts
01 creation and showing their relationship to that of Genesis.

THE CHOSEN RACE 185
400 B.C., we must see in the account of the Creation pre
served in Genesis nothing more than a myth derived from
Babylonia during the time of the Captivity. Others, how
ever, would hold that the Hebrews derived it from Chaldea,
in the period preceding the departure of Thare from Ur of
the Chaldees, and that they preserved the original story in
its monotheistic form, free from the accretions we now find
in the Chaldean tablets. It is, however, a striking fact
that the Bible represents to us Thare and Abraham as
believers in the One True God, and it would seem as though,
from the days of Noe, God had preserved for Himself a
portion of the human race untainted by the prevailing
idolatry. He had revealed Himself to Adam and again to
Noe ; yet it is implied all through this early period of the
history, that in spite of the defection of the vast majority
of mankind, there was always a chosen seed which did not
stand in need of new revelation of what had once been
declared, though it did at all times call for drastic purifica
tion from the errors which had inevitably crept in through
contact with the unbelievers in whose midst they lived. It
would seem, then, more in accordance with the facts to
suppose that all along the course of the history the true
account of God's dealings with man and of His formation
of the world and of the human race had been preserved
undiluted and was handed down from century to century.
Indeed, when we come to reflect upon it, a purification of
the Chaldean account of the Creation or of the Flood would
have involved an almost radical change of the accounts."

CHAPTER XVII
THE SEVEN DAYS OF CREATION— continued
IN the foregoing chapter we have sought to indicate
the striking concordance which exists, even chrono
logically, between the Biblical sketch of the creation of
the world, considered as a statement for the people,
and the teachings of the most modern science as to
its origin. But since it is unhappily most true that a
widespread ignorance as to the true attitude of the Church
on such matters prevails, it becomes of the first importance
to emphasise the fact that the propositions laid down in
the foregoing chapter are by no means the only view set
forth by Catholic authorities on this difficult question.1
That the ignorance just alluded to exists, and exists even in
places where it should not, and where it would scarcely
be suspected to exist, is exemplified by the fact that Renan,
who ought to have known better, wrote : 2 "To deny that
several portions of Genesis have a mythic character, obliges
me to explain as real, accounts such as that of the terrestrial
paradise, the forbidden fruit, Noah's ark. Now one is not
a Catholic if on a single one of these points one departs
from the traditional thesis." On which Mgr. Vigouroux
remarks,3 " M. Renan is more exacting than the Church,
for it is false to assert that a person ceases to be a Catholic
if on a single one of these points he departs from the tradi
tional thesis. For example, it is not of faith that we must
understand in its literal sense all that which is contained
t
1 It is only fair to say that for the opinions set forth in this chapter I
am indebted to the kind assistance of the friends whose names have been
mentioned in my preface.
2 In his " Souvenirs d'enfance," p. 293.
• " Melanges Bibliques : La Cosmogonie Mosai'que," 1880 ed 2
p. 517, n. a. 1 • v. «. *,
186

THE "SEVEN DAYS" 187
in the first chapter of Genesis, whatever may be the
universal opinion of theologians. Some commentators,
among others Cardinal Cajetan, interpreted allegorically
the beginning • of Genesis, and the Church has not
condemned them but has continued to regard them as
Catholics." There has always been a great diversity in the Church
as to the interpretation of the first chapter of Genesis,
over a dozen methods having at one time or another been
suggested by different Catholic theologians without any
disapproval from the Church. From the very start there
was a strong exegetical school which refused to take the
account of creation with chronological strictness. The
Jewish commentators Aristobulus and Philo, the Christian
Fathers Theophilus and Justin, and most of the Alexandrian
Fathers upheld a simultaneous creation and interpreted
the six days as an allegorical description of the order and
development of the universe. In other words, these Fathers
explained Genesis in accordance with the then current
philosophical and scientific views. Later on the Syrian
School of exegesis arose in opposition to the excesses of
Origenian allegorism ; these exegetes, less deeply versed
in the natural sciences, took a more literal view of Genesis.
But neither interpretation has been canonised, and at the
present day many different views prevail. For instance,
there are Catholics who hold that the " seven days " are
merely an arrangement of the creation for purposes of
liturgical recitation.1 There are many Catholics (notably
Hummelauer, Hoberg, Schopfer) who interpret the " days "
as stages of a vision. According to this view, Moses had a
vision of God's creative power, a series of dissolving views
in which the pictures succeeded one another, so that dark
ness closed in on one, and then the next brightened up
before the seer's gaze.
This form of allegorical or ideal explanation is, indeed,
perhaps the most common at the present day. It starts
from the suggestions of St. Augustine and abandons all
effort at the periodistic harmonising, since, according to
such views, the Scriptural account is not to be deemed at
1 Bishop Clifford, " Dublin Review," April, 1881.

188 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
all a chronological account of successive events, even in
the roughest outline.
Another form of explanation is that the Scriptural account
is an allegorical drama in six acts in which the religious
duty of worship of One God who has created the world and
gratitude for the magnificent bounty of that creation are
inculcated. By others again it is conceived as an Epic or grand moral
narrative, presenting picturesquely facts and events grouped
in categories convenient for the ethical purpose of its author.
Thus the story of the Victorian Era might be given as
" The Days of Victoria " in six cantos or chapters. These
might each narrate in detail the events of successive decades
of that prolonged reign. Or the separate sections might
be allotted to groups of kindred facts, as Foreign Wars,
Constitutional Changes, Social Development, Progress of
the Nation in Wealth, Art, Literature and the like. Or
successive chapters might describe features of her domestic
life, her public life, her relations with British Statesmen,
with Foreign Monarchs, her tastes and habits and so on.
Any of these or other methods might be followed according
to the purpose of the author and the work might be truthful,
logical, and historical, although the chronological presenta
tion of the subject matter would vary indefinitely.
The work must be understood according to the object of
the writer.
It is not intended here to argue for or against any or all
of the methods of interpretation set forth in this and the
preceding chapters. The diversity of views is emphasised
to guard against any undue dogmatism or any attempt at
a premature " reconciliation " of Genesis and Science. Our
present geological notions are as different as can be from the
Neoplatonism of the early Fathers, or from the cosmogony
of the mediaeval Schoolmen. Yet Genesis has been " re
conciled " with each of these systems. It is certainly a
laudable effort to show that the Mosaic account tallies with
the chronological development of the earth as we now
conceive it. Yet I wish to make it clear that in commencing
— as one must commence somewhere — by discussing that
method of apologetic I by no manner of means desire to

PREMATURE "RECONCILIATION" 189
press it too far. There are many warnings against such
a policy. " It has seemed to me," writes Cardinal Newman,
in his " Apologia," " to be very undignified for a Catholic to
commit himself to the work of chasing what might turn
out to be phantoms, and, in behalf of some special objec
tions, to be ingenious in devising a theory, which, before
it was completed might have to give place to some
theory newer still, from the fact that those former objec
tions had already come to nought under the uprising of
others." This is the opinion of a theologian, to which it may be
well to add that of an eminent man of science. Bishop
Ellicott wrote in 1876 to Clerk Maxwell (who, be it remem
bered, was the originator of the electro-magnetic theory of
light), to consult him concerning the apparent creation of
light before the sun. This was his reply,1 " I should be very
sorry if an interpretation founded on a most conjectural
scientific hypothesis were to get fastened to the text in
Genesis, even if, by so doing, it got rid of the old statement
of the commentators which has long ceased to be intelligible.
The rate of change of scientific hypotheses is naturally
much more rapid than that of Biblical interpretations, so
that if an interpretation is founded on such an hypothesis,
it may help to keep the hypothesis above ground long after
it ought to be buried and forgotten."
In the light of these remarks it is well not to build too
exclusively on the interpretation of Yom (day) as a geological
period. There are many difficulties in such a view, not
the least being the appearance of plants before the sun.
And, even if this exegesis be correct, we must never forget
the plain meaning of a text written for a primitive people.
The author of Genesis wished to enumerate God's creative
activity in some orderly framework, and the week naturally
presented itself as a ready-made and sacred standard of
enumeration. We have already seen that it is not neces
sary to regard the scheme of sub-division as chronological.
Perhaps an even simpler and more likely scheme is sug
gested by Genesis ii. 1 : "So the heavens and the earth
were finished and all the furniture of them." The funda-
» " Life of Clerk Maxwell," p. 394.

Regions.

190 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
mental idea of the word tsebhaam (which St. Jerome should
have translated not by ornatus but by exercitus as elsewhere)
is motion or movement. According to this the six days are
occupied with : —
(i.) Regional preparation.
(ii.) The corresponding moving or living inhabitants (" all
their armies.")
Then the scheme of days would stand thus : —
1. General preparation — light.
2. Expanse (for stars) and air (for birds).
3. Land and plants (for animals) and sea
(for fish).
(4. Stars.
5. Birds and Fish.
6. Animals and Man.
The ancients considered light as independent of material
radiators. This is why light is described before the stars ;
this also explains how Job (xxxviii. 19) could ask in what
hidden place light dwelt.
The plants are described on the third day and no blessing
was given to them such as was given to fish and animals.
To antiquity the life of plants did not seem at all compar
able with that of animals ; generation too seemed very
mysterious, but it appeared much less surprising that
plants should produce seeds.1
When we thus examine the account of Genesis in its
pristine historical setting, its true beauty and truth stand
out quite independently of any preoccupation with con
temporary science.
The details are those of any primitive people with a naive
outlook upon nature ; for instance, the firmament (raqia)
was conceived as a solid support for the upper reservoir
of waters.2 But, as we have already stated, the real lesson
of Genesis was religious ; it teaches a pure and uncom
promising monotheism. The sun and moon are not deities
(as with the Babylonians and others) but simply lights
(meoroth). The primitive void and waste was not caused by
1 Compare St. Thomas, " Summa Theol.," i., q. 69. a2, ad. 1.
i Compare Exodus xxiv. 10 ; Job xxxvii. 18 ; Psalm cxlviii. 4.

THE CHURCH AND GENESIS 191
demons ; chaos (tehom) is itself God's creature, unlike the
Babylonian Tiamat which was a dragon.
" In the beginning God created heaven and earth/'
" Many," says St. Augustine,1 " dispute much about those
things which with greater prudence the sacred authors
omitted. . . . The Spirit of God who spoke through them
did not wish to teach men those things which were of
no avail for salvation." This advice is still opportune
to-day, and so is that contained in the following passage
by the same Father :2 " In things that are obscure and re
mote from sight if we read anything even in Scripture which
with safety to our Faith can bear different meanings, let
us not by precipitate assertion so throw ourselves into any
one interpretation as to be ruined in case a fuller investiga
tion of the truth should overthrow our view. This would
be to fight, not for the meaning of Holy Scripture, but for
our own meaning, so that we wish to impose our own mean
ing on Scripture when we ought to wish to make the meaning
of the Scripture our own." This part of the subject may
be concluded by the following extract from the writings of
a modern theologian : — ¦
" All that the Church asserts is the unity of the
human race, all descended from one ancestor, all born
in original sin through the transgression of that ancestor,
and all in need of the redemption of our common Saviour.
Of course, the Church also asserts whatever is meant
and asserted by the narrative of Genesis. But the
Church has afforded us no authoritative interpretation
of that most obscure narrative. No theologian will under
take to say who were the inhabitants of the city that Cain
built (Gen. iv. 17). . . . The Church, I say, is silent on the
subject ; and from my own private searching of the Scrip
tures, I do not gather anything to settle the question
whether the primitive races of mankind, as races, were
savages or not. Thus we are referred back from the Bible
record to anthropology."3
1 " De Genesi ad literam," ii., 9, 20. * Ibid., i., 18, 37.
3 Joseph Rickaby, S.J., " Pohtical and Moral Essays," pp. 177 seq.

CHAPTER XVIII
EARLY MAN— SOME PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS
WE have now to take a long step in advance and —
leaving aside for the time being all considerations
as to the nature and origin of life and the development
and origin of species — must, for reasons already given,
turn to the consideration of what kind of an individual
early man, as shown to us by scientific observations, actually
was. As he existed ages before history came into being, it
must, to many people, seem difficult, if not impossible to
know anything about him of any certain and definite char
acter ; but this is far from being the case.
Even to very remote ages — almost if indeed not quite the
remotest in which it is known that man has existed — science
has penetrated and has unveiled some at least of the mys
teries which hang around human existence at that period.
There are two classes of relics of early man on which we
have to rely in forming an opinion of the kind of person
that he was. We have, in the first place a certain number
of actual remains of the human beings themselves, that is
their skeletons either entire or in part. Of the very earliest
men we may perhaps have no remains at all, and in any
case what seem to be the earliest in our possession so far,
are, as will later on be shown, sometimes problematical in
character and difficult of explanation. Then, as we come
to later though still very remote ages, the number of speci
mens increases, so that we can speak with considerable
certainty as to the appearance of the former owners of the
skeletons and even divide them, with some approach to
accuracy, into distinct races. Much more will have to be
said under this heading at a later point in this discussion ;
for the present we may leave the bodily relics of prehistoric
192

BOUCHER DES PERTHES 193
man and turn to the second class of relics, viz. his imple
ments, which have afforded so much valuable information.
It is most probable that the earliest implements utilised
by prehistoric man, being mere natural fragments of rock,
of wood, of horn, or of shell, are, even if they have persisted
to the present day, wholly undistinguishable from similar
objects which have never been utilised by man. Even the
first implements on which he exercised his ingenuity must,
one may surmise, so closely have resembled natural objects
as to be almost unrecognisable as the work of man's hands.
And indeed we shall see that great disputes have raged
around the case of certain stones claimed by some as the
works of man's hands and denied that position by other
and no less competent authorities.
At last, however, we do arrive at implements which all
persons competent to form an opinion "agree to be the work
of man's hands, and at that moment the science of Prehis
toric Archaeology comes into being. We may now consider
briefly its method and its limitations. The first question
that any intelligent enquirer would ask about the imple
ments of which we have been speaking is this : How do
you know that they are the work of man's hands ? When
the palaeolithic implements discovered at Abbeville in
France, about the middle of the last century, by Boucher
des Perthes, were first made known to the scientific world,
this was exactly the question that was asked, and it may
be added that it was answered in the negative by many
authorities. Gradually, however, scientific opinion came
round to the view of the discoverer of these objects, as to
the nature of which no one now has any doubts. A very
similar series of events occurred in connection with the so-
called Eoliths but with a different result, since, as will
shortly be detailed, the general drift of scientific opinion is
opposed to the acceptance of these objects as artefacts.1
The reply to the question asked above is that a very great
number of the relics of prehistoric man could not by any
possible means have come into existence by the processes
of nature, nor could any sane person mistake them for
1 This term may be compendiously employed in place of the longer
expression — " the work of man's hands."

194 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
anything but what they are, the works of man. Such, for
example, is the case with all the bronze implements, with
prehistoric pottery, with a host of other things.
But, of course, it is with the earlier implements that the
difficulty arises, and that for the obvious reason that they
more or less closely resemble purely natural objects, so that
the first and most important question that has to be an
swered in connection with any doubtful implement is this :
Could it have been produced by the ordinary forces of
nature such as water, ice, lightning, and so forth ? If the
reply to this is in the affirmative, then, though the object
may be an artefact, we cannot feel sure that it is so. If the
answer is in the negative and it seems quite certain that no
process or combination of processes of nature could possibly
have shaped the object, then, by a process of elimination,
it must have been made by man. There is another means
of study and identification of the nature and purpose of
the implements we are discussing and one very important
to understand. Prehistoric Man was a savage, a primitive
being, like the savages of to-day or of yesterday ; his needs
were identical with those of the latter-day savage, and, his
mind working on precisely similar lines, he met these needs
as the modern savage met them before civilisation came
across him and led him to alter his methods. Hence the
implements of the earliest kinds which come under our
study are quite similar to and in some cases absolutely
identical with those which primitive races are now making
and using, or were making and using up to a very recent
date. Therein lies the reply to the second question which one
may expect to have propounded by the same intelligent
enquirer : You call these things adzes, borers, arrow-heads,
scrapers, and so on : how do you know what they are ?
The reply is that all these things, and many others, are
identical with objects now made and used for the purposes
indicated by their names, by savage tribes.
Let us take one very obvious instance, that of the stone
arrow-head. Even a person who had never heard of pre
historic men would, if shown one of these objects picked up,
let us say, on the Wiltshire Downs, have no kind of doubt

STONE ARROW-HEADS I95
what it was. It would be instantly recognised as an arrow
head, and a person of the ignorance postulated would
confine his wonder respecting the object to the selection
of such a material as stone when metal was presumably to
be had.
But let us suppose that it was not so impossible to mis
take the purpose of the stone arrow-head ; even then there
could be no difficulty, for it is strikingly like the same
object as manufactured in historic times, and to our quite
certain knowledge all over North America by the Indian
tribes. The tiny and beautiful arrow-heads, for example,
found in Oregon are, though smaller than most of such
objects, otherwise identical with similar implements found
in England, in Ireland, in various parts of Europe, in Japan,
in fact the world over. The common stone axe found in
Australia is the own brother of the same implement found
in Ireland ; the adze-head of stone dredged up from the
Thames differs in no remarkable respect from that found
on the other side of the world. A remarkable example of
this is to be met with in connection with the primitive pot
tery, made of course on open hearths and not in closed
furnaces. Take a pot manufactured by those very primi
tive people the Akikuyu, whose country has lately come
into prominence in connection with a strenuous religious
controversy. Place it beside a pot made by the prehistoric
inhabitants of the Wiltshire Downs during the Bronze Age.
No one but an expert could decide which was the ancient
and which the modern product. Such being the case, it is
allowable to conclude that the method of manufacture of
the two articles was not very different, and as we know
step for step the exact method of the manufacture of the
Kikuyu urn we can form a pretty good idea of how the
far-off denizen of what is now Wilts made his domestic
pottery.1 So that by this comparative study of ancient
and modern artefacts we are not only able to decide as to the
character and uses of the former but also to obtain an accur-

1 The reader will find a most interesting account of the ways and
methods of a primitive race in Mr. and Mrs. Routledge's book " With a
Prehistoric People," which deals with the Akikuyu. London, Arnold & Co.,
1910.

196 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
ate impression of the very ways in which they were made
and used.
There is another interesting method of study of which
some mention must be made. No important object exists
which is not the result of a certain amount of evolution or
development. Take the modern motor bicycle. Every
body who has attained to middle age can remember the
"bone-shaker" and how it developed into the high
bicycle, the " Ariel," for example, which again disappeared
to make room for the so-called " safety," the " push-bicycle "
of to-day from which has developed the motor bicycle which
buzzes along our roads. In a similar manner, but in ages
long past, the hollowed-out stone was used as a lamp, with
perhaps a tuft of moss sticking out at one corner for a wick
and fed by sea-blubber or some such kind of fat. Such a
lamp is used by the Esquimaux of to-day, and such a lamp
is to be picked up amongst the remains of prehistoric
habitations. From this was developed the common earthen
ware lamp, at first open, then closed save for wick and oil-
holes, the kind of lamp often called a Roman lamp, but
really common to the whole Mediterranean shorelands ;
the kind of lamp of which our Saviour was thinking when
He spoke the Parable of the Ten Virgins. In time this be
came constructed of metal, and we have the Scotch " Cruisie,"
still, I believe, in use in out of the way parts of North Britain.
A derivative is the common brass many-wicked lamp used
in Italy from which comes the old " Moderator " and the
common paraffin lamp used where gas and electricity are
unattainable. What we learn from all these methods of
study is that Man is — and as far back as we can trace him,
Man has always been — Man ; possessed of similar needs
and meeting those needs by similar inventions ; similar —
nay identical — in mental processes.
We may now turn to a third question — the last to be
propounded by our intelligent enquirer. It may thus
be formulated : You tell us that such and such an object
was made ages ago by some long-forgotten prehistoric man
and was not made by nature, and that it was made for
such and such a purpose, and all this you seem to have
made good. But you then proceed to tell us something

BELIEF IN A FUTURE LIFE 197
about his ideas, and even his religious ideas ; pray what
grounds have you for such conclusions ? The reply to this
most natural question is deducible from what has been
said, and may thus be summed up : Wherever and when
ever we find him, Man is in all respects the same kind of
individual. We are not for the moment alluding to his
physical characteristics, though, as will shortly appear,
very much the same may be said about them ; what we are
alluding to is his general outlook upon life, his general
response to the common needs of humanity. In all these
matters, right back to the beginning of history, Man is Man
and nothing else : and we are, therefore, entitled to argue
from primitive man of to-day with his remains and his
ideas to primitive man of the earliest ages, whose remains
are so very similar and whose ideas can therefore hardly
have been so very dissimilar.
Let us take the most remarkable example of all, doubly
interesting for the purposes of this book. Prehistoric
archaeology teaches us that there never was a time, from
that of the earliest known interment of the remains of the
dead, when man did not believe in a Future Life, in what
we call the Immortality of the Soul, though his psychological
range did not, we may assume, lead him into any very
great subtilty of consideration in connection with that
matter. How can we prove this statement ? Well, there
is nothing more certain than that savage races, the world
over, bury food, arms, ornaments, and such-like objects
with their dead with one idea only — namely, that the spirit
of the dead person may make use of them in another world.
Further, with a curious kind of logic they sometimes argue
that, since the spirit of the dead person cannot go into the
other world until the person is dead, so neither can the
spirit of the implements accompany their master unless
they also have been killed, and so they are broken as the
surest method of killing them and releasing their spirits.
It is, of course, for this purpose and that they might wait
upon their master in the other world, as they had done in
this, that slaves, horses, and such-like living creatures were
slain at their master's funeral and their remains buried with
his.

198 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
There is no contesting these facts, nor has anyone ever
desired to contest them, since the evidence is overwhelming.
Now we find precisely the same facts obtaining with regard
to prehistoric man. The very earliest interment so far
discovered is that of Chapelle-aux-Saints in France, of
which more will be said in another chapter. In this inter
ment, dating back no one can say how many thousand
years, we find precisely the same conditions obtaining.
With him, too, were buried the " Grave-goods " or " Accom
panying Gifts," in this case flint knives and bones, which
were provided by those who survived him for the use of
his spirit in another world. The idea of that other world
is no doubt crude enough, but it is there, and its conception
is on a level with the conceptions which in all probability
these people formed concerning other matters. For example,
pieces of red ochre were placed with the remains above
alluded to. It is a common habit for savage races to decorate
their bodies with this substance, no doubt a foolish and
perhaps even unbecoming habit, but not so very far removed
from the rouge and powder of persons who would regard
themselves as the dernier cri of civilisation. We may feel
quite clear that in the case of prehistoric man the ochre
was placed with the dead body in order that its former
owner might not appear undecorated in the spirit land.
Further, bones were placed over the head — in fact, as Pro
fessor Sollas1 observes, " this was evidently a ceremonial
interment, accompanied by offerin'gs of food and imple
ments for the use of the deceased in the spirit world." Nor
will anyone be disposed to cavil at the way in which he
comments on these facts when he says, " It is almost with
a shock of surprise that we discover this well-known custom,
and all that it implies, already in existence during the last
episode of the Great Ice Age."
The following instance is a curious example of the simi
larity of ideas amongst ancient and modern savages. In
a tumulus in the Phcenix Park, Dublin, was found the skull
of a dog, as well as the bones of a child. Now it is a fact
that certain North American Indians are in the habit of
burying a dog with the remains of a child for the touching
1 " Ancient Hunters," London, Macmillan & Co., 191 1, p. 146.

PREHISTORIC BURIAL-PLACES 199
reason that the child might not be able to find its way to
the realm of spirits, but that the dog, which can always
find its way home, will lead it along the right path.
We are, it may again be claimed, entitled to argue from
the modern savage and his customs and ideas to those of
the ancient savage whom we only know by his remains ;
and when we compare what we know of the oldest and the
latest we shall often be startled by the similarity of their
methods and presumably of their ideas.
From what has gone before it will be understood that
many of the most important facts that we have learnt
concerning prehistoric man have been gathered from a
study of his burying-places. With regard to these inter
ments, and indeed with regard to the question of the exact
position of prehistoric objects in the scale of what we shall
speak of as Archaeological Time, many difficulties arise which
will have to be studied in the next chapter.
Meanwhile, it may be convenient to point out that so far
as man's handicraft goes, so far back as we know anything
about him, it is the handicraft of a true man made by a
skilled man's hand. This may be proved for himself by
any person who will take up two lumps of flint and try to
make for himself a copy of the implements laid with the
dead body of the man of the Chapelle aux Saints. He will
retire from the task, probably with barked knuckles, and
certainly with a greater respect than he has previously
entertained for Prehistoric Man.

CHAPTER XIX
EARLY MAN— ARCHAEOLOGICAL TIME AND ITS
DIVISIONS
AT this point it is absolutely necessary to devote some
IX. considerable amount of our space to the very important
question of chronology, as to which the wildest and, in some
cases at least, the most absurd statements are made day
after day, and that not merely in the pages of the daily
papers where we might expect them (though, of course, they
flourish there) but even in manuals purporting to give
the latest and most definite views of science. These wild
statements very largely arise from a want of comprehension
of what is meant by chronology, and that again arises from
a want of clear thinking on the subject. For example, we
often read some such statement as this — " Hundreds of thou
sands of years ago " [the brighter intellects do not hesitate
to say " millions "] " man made these implements or carved
these figures," or whatever may be the matter under con
sideration ; and this with the same assurance and con
viction as it might be stated that the Declaration of
Independence was signed on the fourth of July, 1776.
Those who have any knowledge of the subject know quite
well that this sum of years, as applied to prehistoric man,
is nothing more than a picturesque or rhetorical statement,
just exactly on a par with the children's " once upon a
time " ; but the general reader cannot be expected to know
this and is hopelessly misled. The object of this chapter
is to put him right in this matter, so that he may in future
be able to estimate at their correct value statements of the
kind alluded to.
When we talk about " Time " we talk about an entity
which may more or less arbitrarily be divided into days and
2QQ

HISTORICAL TIME 201
weeks and years, or again, and also arbitrarily, into epochs
which may or may not be correlated with a known number
of years in each case. For example, it is quite common
to talk about the Victorian period and even to speak of
things being " Early Victorian " or " Middle Victorian."
To these, or at least to the first of them, it is perfectly pos
sible to assign actual dates, since we know quite well that
the late Queen Victoria came to the throne in 1837 and
died in 1901. But there are many other cases, as will
shortly appear, where no such correlation is possible, yet
where such correlation is not merely attempted but actually
stated as established fact. All this will be more readily
understood when we come, as we shall shortly do, to con
crete cases.
Let us begin by remembering that we have. to do with
three categories of what is called " Time." These are : —
Historical Time (which is stated in actual years).
Arch.&ological Time ) Neither of which can be thus
Geological Time j stated.
Let us consider each of these separately and then in
relation to one another.
Historical Time deals with more or less well-established
dates. It informs us as to the year in which we and other im
portant persons were born, when different battles were
fought, when other great historical events took place ; it
is in fact the skeleton and framework of history and comes
into existence with it, very nebulous and uncertain at its
commencement, more definite later on — in all important
events during more recent periods practically unchallenge
able. For example, no one will challenge the statement
as to the date of the Declaration of Independence, nor will
anyone hesitate to admit that the battle commonly known
as that of Hastings was -fought in 1066. In less critical
days we used to see it laid down — on the dictum, by the way,
of the Protestant Bishop Ussher — that the world was created
in B.C. 4004, a statement to which few, if any, would now
subscribe ; and this is an example of the impossibility of
assigning exact dates to a time before history, which is the
custodian of dates, had come into existence. The question

202 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
of Biblical chronology may be left for the moment while
we turn to consider how far back we can go with any safety
in connection with actual numerical chronology. Dealing
with such records as we have, the discoveries made in
Babylonia and in Egypt seem to afford us the greatest
amount of information, and it is probably true to say that
Egypt supplies us with surer and more definite information
than any other yet attainable.1
Now in the history of Egypt we can tread with security
as far back as the conquest of Alexander (B.C. 332). But
that period, need it be said, is only as yesterday in the
long history of this earth, or even of the history of the men
who have lived upon it.
From Alexander backwards to the commencement of
what is known as the First Dynasty, our path becomes less
certain. There is indeed a kind of chronology, but how
uncertain and indefinite that is may be gathered from the
fact that the dates assigned for the commencement of the
First Dynasty vary from 3315 B.C. to 5510 B.C., and that
Professor Flinders Petrie, perhaps the greatest authority
on Egyptology, who in 1894 fixed the date as 4777, has
felt himself compelled by further evidence to change his
opinion, and to assign 5510 b.c. as the proper date, the latter
statement being made in 1906. It is right to say that the
distinguished authority in question has on all occasions set
forth his statements tentatively, with all reserve and for
the use of scholars who are in a position to estimate the
value and meaning of his findings, thus differing widely
from the authors of the rash statements above referred to.
Yet even the more distant of the two periods just quoted,
or any date resembling it, is only as the day before yesterday
in the history of the globe or even of its human inhabitants.
So then we may safely say of Historical Time that of the
events of to-day and yesterday we are tolerably sure, and
as to those of the day before yesterday we can make reason
able guesses. Of those of the days before that we know
nothing, though we can (and do) make many surmises as
to them.
1 From this point I think it permissible to quote, with slight alterations
from articles of my own on " The Earliest Men " which appeared in " The
Catholic World," January and February, 1914.

ARCHAEOLOGICAL TIME 203
• Archaeological Time may be defined, for the present pur
pose, as commencing with that uncertain epoch when man
first made his appearance on this earth. It merges into
Historical Time on the one hand— indeed all Archaeology
which is not Prehistoric belongs of course to History as
well as to Archaeology : and both kinds are, equally of
course, co-existent with Geological Time.
In very large part and at its earliest periods almost
entirely, as we shall see, Archaeological Time depends for
its estimate on Geological Time, since it is almost only by
the stratigraphical character of early remains or objects
that we can arrive at any conclusion as to their actual
and their relative chronological positions. Thus whilst we
are safe in assigning at present certain Periods to Arch
aeological Time and are more or less safe in assigning
certain objects to them, we are very far from being certain
as to the dates which can be assigned to any of these periods —
indeed, as will shortly appear, we can form no real con
ception of them in actual terms of years. Before dealing
with this point it will be well to refer again to the matter of
Geological Time, as to which most of that which has to be
said has already been said in earlier chapters. It need only
be repeated that, whilst we can obtain a very vivid idea of
the immense ages which must have rolled by whilst the
earth was becoming what she is to-day geologically, and may
even form some kind of comparative scale of the lengths
of time assignable to each period, it is wholly impossible
to assign to any of them such definite dates as we can
assign, for example, to the Stuart and Tudor periods in
English History.
We may now turn our attention to the periods of Archaeo
logical Time and subsequently see how they fit in with
geological facts. To begin with, mankind, as far as we
know about him in all parts of the world, passed through
an early period during which he was ignorant of the know
ledge of metals and their importance and usefulness to his
race. During this period such things as stones and sticks,
fragments of bone and of horn, were the implements which
he used or the materials out of which he fashioned these
implements.

204 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
As stone of various kinds, but far most commonly and
most importantly flint, was the chief material employed,
these times have come to be known as the Stone Age, a
term which does not exclude the use of other materials
save those of a metallic character.
At first the implements constructed from stone were
rough, rough that is by comparison with the more finished
implements of a later date though nevertheless wonderful
enough in their execution. To this period is given the
name of the Old Stone or Palaeolithic Period. It may have
been preceded by an Eolithic Period and, at least in certain
parts of the world, it faded into the next era through what
is called the Mesolithic Period.
In that next era, though metal was still unknown and the
materials remained the same, the process of manufacture
had so much improved that the epoch is spoken of as the
New Stone or Neolithic Age.
At the end of this man discovered the use of metals :
but before we come to that important landmark in history
it will be necessary to say something more about this Stone
Age. As already mentioned, all the peoples of the world
seem to have gone through a Stone Age, but it would be
the greatest possible mistake to suppose that this age was
synchronous in all parts of the world.
There was a time, no doubt, when the whole of what is
now Europe was in the Stone Age : there was almost cer
tainly a time when part of it was in the Stone and another
part in the Metallic Age. There can be no manner of doubt
that whilst Europe was enjoying the advantages, such as
they are, of the Iron Age in which we now live, Australia,
for example, was still in her Stone Period.
As to want of complete synchronism at the earlier pre
historic periods we have no very exact data, but facts seem
quite undoubtedly to point in that direction. As to the
later want of synchronism there can, of course, be no sort
of doubt.
Another point to be borne in mind is this, that whilst
man ceased, at the end of the Stone Age, to rely solely
upon non-metallic substances as the raw material for his
implements, he by no means ceased to use wood and stone,

THE BRONZE AGE 205
bone and horn, in the manufacture of tools — in fact, as we
very well know, he uses every one of them to this day in
countless ways. He added something to his possibilities,
just as when he substituted iron for bronze as the material
of his weapons of war he added a further possibility. All
this is so obvious that it hardly needs stating, but other
very illuminating facts are by no means so obvious.
For example, there seems to be but little doubt that in
England at any rate stone arrow-heads were used during a
great part if not the entire of the succeeding period, which,
as we shall shortly learn, is known as the Bronze Age.
Nay, more, it is quite likely that the most skilfully fashioned
of these objects belong to the Bronze Age and not to the
Stone Period.
The reason of this is not far to seek, for we may quite
well understand that bronze must have been a much more
costly material to use than stone. Time was not as valuable
as it is now, and anyway the experts of the period prob
ably made even well-shaped arrow-heads much more rapidly
than we imagine, so that it was much cheaper to use stone
than metal in the case of implements which must have been
constantly getting lost.
But even beyond this we know from history that many
of the Saxon warriors fought at the Battle of Hastings with
stone mauls — that is to say, with stone-headed clubs not very
unlike those used at least in Neolithic times. It is probable
that they were bored axe-heads, indeed it seems quite
probable that the knowledge of how to bore stones may not
have been acquired during what are properly called Stone
Ages, and that all the numerous implements of that kind
which have been found really belong to the Metallic times.
At any rate the fact that we have to bear in mind is that
there was here, as in the case of other periods, a consider
able overlap of materials and that man did not wholly turn
away from his old friends because he had discovered others
in some ways more useful and even tractable.
At some period, unassignable to any particular date, man-
almost certainly first of all in the Mediterranean basin, but
perhaps more or less contemporaneously in different places —
made the discovery that copper could be melted and run

206 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
into moulds. It is surmised that this was due to a fire
having been lit on a rock containing a very large proportion
of exposed copper ore. If this were the case, as it may
well have been, there is no sort of reason, rather the
reverse, why the discovery should not have been made in
various parts of the world, even in various parts of Europe,
at much the same time. At any rate a Copper period, or
iEneohthic Age, seems to have- existed in many places — in
Cyprus, for example, which some have looked upon as the
-original centre of the knowledge of metals, and in Ireland,
to mention but two places out of many. What seems cer
tain about it is that its existence was brief.
At any rate the next period — one, it need hardly be said of
enormous importance — was ushered in by a discovery on
the part of some genius as unknown as the discoverer
of fire, the discoverer of iron, and other benefactors
of the human race. This discoverer, in some manner as to
which we can form no idea, ascertained that an admixture
of something like ten per cent of tin with the pure copper
made a much more useful metal : and a knowledge of Bronze
became the property of the world. Whether the knowledge
of this combination of metals arose independently in different
places, or was spread from a centre or centres to distant
regions is doubtful, but there can be little doubt that in a
comparatively short time the knowledge of how to make
bronze had spread over the whole of Europe at any rate.
Then another discovery was made, which at least mini
mised the importance of bronze : this was the discovery
of iron, perhaps made in a very similar manner to that of
copper. The Early Iron Age, as it is called, is comparatively
speaking, a thing of yesterday: indeed we are ourselves
living, if not actually in the Iron Age at least in that Age
of Steel which is nothing more than a development from it.
In the passage from bronze to iron we can again see the
overlap of materials which was alluded to above, for there
are examples of implements — swords, for example— whose
blades are of iron and whose handles are of bronze.
There was, as we have seen, in all parts of the world a
stone age not necessarily — indeed in many of them cer
tainly not actually— synchronous. Not all parts of the world

MODERN STONE AGE PEOPLES 207
went through a Copper Age, nor did every part of the world
go through a Bronze Age. The former fact is easily explic
able by supposing that some tribe unacquainted with any
thing in the shape of metals had their ignorance dispelled
by some visitor who was acquainted with the excellences
of bronze and could show his hosts how to obtain the
materials for making it and did not trouble to put them
through a preliminary training in copper.
As a matter of fact, this is exactly what we know to
have happened in connection with the Modern Stone Age
peoples when they came in contact with men acquainted
with metals. When Australia was discovered by white
men they found the inhabitants still in the Stone Age.
So far as they taught them anything except a love of
strong drink and a wholesome fear of white men and
their arms, they certainly did not trouble to put them
through a Bronze Age. What these unfortunate savages
learnt, or perhaps we had better say " picked up," from
the whites was a knowledge of iron, so that they may be
said to have passed directly from the non-metallic to the
iron or even to the steel period.
Though the subject is replete with . interest it is not
necessary or even advisable to treat of the numerous im
plements which belong to the various periods which have
thus been briefly reviewed ; full information can be found
concerning them in the text-books of Prehistoric Archaeology.
What it is important for us to understand is that in the
general stream of human progress there were these various
" reaches." As to certain difficulties in connection with
the matter and more especially as to the question of the
relation of "time" to these periods, more will be said in
succeeding chapters.

CHAPTER XX
EARLY MAN— HIS IMPLEMENTS AND SOME
CONSIDERATIONS THEREON
OF course, where we have them, the actual skeletal
remains of man are of priceless value : yet, as will be
seen shortly, it is often a matter of incredible difficulty to
assign them definitely to their proper archaeological horizon ;
thus the conclusions which can be founded upon them be
come a matter of uncertainty.
With this preliminary remark we may for a moment
leave the question of the earliest skeletal remains which
are open to observation at present. For it will be necessary
first of all to review the various causes of uncertainty which
have to be disposed of before any definite conclusion can
be arrived at concerning a given group of objects — still more
before any water-tight theory can be founded upon them.
In any given case a series of questions have to be put
and answered, and these we may now consider in the order
in which they usually arise.
i. Are the objects in question human or of human manu
facture ?
It might be thought that as regards skeletal remains
at any rate this was not a difficult question to answer, nor
is it in the vast majority of cases. In the example of the
Chapelle-aux-Saints, for instance, where we have an entire
skeleton which was definitely and purposely interred where
it was found, in spite of its great antiquity no shadow of a
doubt can be entertained as to its being the skeleton of a
human being. But there are cases, and those just the cases
in which one would like to feel quite certain about all the
facts, in which matters are much more complicated than in
this case. 208

DISCOVERIES OF BONES 209
Where, for example, a few perhaps considerably mutilated
bones are found in a bed of gravel at some distance from
one another, apart from the other questions which arise
for consideration we have to decide (a) whether any or
all of the bones are really human and (b) in the latter
case whether they belong to the same individual. If the
bones had not been interred but had actually been, let
us say, washed down into their present situation, there is
certainly nothing to negative the supposition that they
belong to more than one individual and have been
washed down together with the bones of an animal or
animals. Save under very exceptional circumstances it is impos
sible to be certain that the scattered bones with which
we are dealing were all once the property of the same in
dividual ; indeed it is somewhat doubtful, in such cases,
whether one can ever rise higher than a conclusion of prob
ability on this point. In the great majority of cases we must
admit that it is absolutely impossible to prove that all the
bones belonged to the same body, even if no doubt is enter
tained as to their all being human. This, it may at once
be admitted, is not a matter of overwhelming importance,
for each bone can be considered on its own merits. But
the question may assume a position of commanding interest
if it be doubtful whether all the bones belonged to a human
being. For example, in one of the cases which will be more
fully dealt with on a later page, a very obviously human
skull, of even modern type, was found in the same gravel
with a lower jaw of rather monkey-like type. It was and
is assumed still by many that these two objects belonged
to each other because they were found at no great distance
from one another in the same stratum. It is clear that this
may be true, but on the other hand, it is equally clear that
it may not be, in which case those who have spent much
time in trying to explain the apparent anomaly which exists
have been troubling themselves to no account. Let us put
the matter in this way : if in the interment so often alluded
to, if in any interment of any kind, the skull and
the lower jaw in question had been found together, and
in their natural relations, no one could then have doubted

210 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
that they belonged to one another. In that case a strong
presumption would have been created that a second doubt
ful pair like those alluded to might also be parts of the same
body. If, further, we were to find quite a series of similar
pairs we should then entertain little or no doubt that our
original find was also a pair. Again, if both skull and lower
jaw were quite complete, so that they could be fitted together
and it could be seen that the joint was perfect, one bone
exactly fitting into another and each tooth meeting its
antagonist of the other jaw with perfect regularity, then
there could be no doubt left on the matter. As things are,
with the imperfect fragments which are usually all that
come to hand, and with the isolated character of the finds,
judgement must clearly be suspended and no final and
definite opinion can be entertained.
No more remarkable instance of how opinion may slowly
ripen with regard to a given example can be imagined than
that of the so-called Neanderthal skull. For years con
troversy raged round this fragment, which was regarded
by different observers as human and not human ; as the
skull of an idiot ; as belonging to one or other of widely
different races. Yet it is now regarded as but one example
of quite a number of others of the remains of a race of
human beings of a very early period. The moral of all this
is that the general reader should not be alarmed nor carried
away by the extreme statements of scientific men on one
side or the other, still less by the picturesque accounts
which he finds in the columns of the press. It takes, in
many cases, a very long time before scientific opinion can
or does settle down to such a state of equilibrium as it now
seems to have arrived at concerning the Neanderthal
skull. So much for some of the preliminary difficulties with
regard to skeletal remains, but such remains are rare, whilst
finds of implements are relatively common. We must now
turn our attention to them in connection with our first
question and endeavour to see how it is to be met. Most
that need be said about it has already been said in Chap.
XVIII, p. 192. We may at once dismiss all implements of
what is called the Mousterian period and a fortiori all of a

THENAY AND PUY COURNY 211
later date as above suspicion : no one doubts that they are
artefacts — that is to say, no one doubts that the great mass
of them belong to that class, for of course there may be diffi
culties and doubts about a particular specimen. It is with
regard to supposed earlier implements that the difficulty
arises, and here something must be said concerning some
of these objects. Before doing so it must be once more
insisted upon that we should expect to find the earliest
recognisable objects so like natural objects as to be almost
indistinguishable from them.
Now in 1867 the Abbe" Bourgeois discovered at Thenay,
near Orleans, broken flints which he believed to be,
and put forward as, implements of human manufacture.
They were found in a geological stratum (Upper Oligo-
cene) in which no human remains had then been found nor,
it may be added, have since been found. This would not,
of course, disprove their human origin and, in fact, a dis
tinguished anthropologist, de Mortillet, was so sure of the
human character of the implements that he invented a
semi-human manufacturer for them by the name of Homo
simius Bourgebisii, a creature for whom there was not the
slightest evidence, osteological or otherwise, save and except
these disputed fragments of stone. Ten years later J. B.
Rames found a number of flints at Puy Courny in Upper
Miocene beds in Auvergne, which he claimed to be of human
manufacture. De Mortillet was once more convinced and
produced another hypothetical half-human manufacturer,
named Homosimius Ramesii — this time, again without any
kind of osteological or other evidence beyond the stones.
In both cases scientific opinion has gradually settled down
to the view that these flints, like those of Thenay, were
shaped by natural agencies, such as water, earth-pressure,
perhaps even lightning, and were not the work of man's
hands. With this conclusion disappear also the two Homo-
simii, Bourgeoisii and Ramesii, whom we may, however,
usefully bear in mind as examples of the saying that it is
better not to prophesy until you know.
We may pass over some other less important cases and
come to the Eolith controversy, which cannot yet be said
to be at an end.

212 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
These eoliths, which have attracted much attention both
in England and on the Continent of Europe, are found, in
some cases at least, in gravels of great antiquity not belong
ing to the modern river systems. If, therefore, these things
really are human implements, they must belong to much
more distant ages than any other implements known to us.
It is, of course, merely a question of fact as to their character.
Up to a comparatively recent period, there was undoubtedly
a fairly strong body of opinion which was favourable to their
being artefacts, but it must be admitted that recent observa
tions have rendered that position much more precarious.
That such implements, or rather stones shaped like them,
can be produced by cart wheels from flints lately laid upon
the road for its repair does not seem to prove that all eoliths
are natural productions, since, after all, the cart wheel is
not a force of nature but a kind of human tool even if un
intentionally employed. Very much the same may be said
as to the discovery that stones identical with the so-called
eoliths could be made, and actually were made, by the
evolutions of a kind of iron rake, in a mixture of water,
chalk, flints, and clay in the process of making cement
at Mantes. No doubt both of these observations weakened
the case for the eoliths, but cannot exactly be said to have
destroyed it. A crushing piece of evidence brought forward
by the learned archaeologist, the Abb6 Breuil, has, however,
convinced many, it might even be said the vast majority of,
prehistoric archaeologists, that it is unsafe to look upon
eoliths as being artefacts.
The observer last mentioned has found in Lower Eocene
sands in Clermont undoubted eoliths with the detached
flakes still in situ. No one has ever suggested that man
existed at this period, and even if he had, that fact would
not alter the importance of the Abbe's demonstration that
these so-called implements can be made by a process of
nature, and that a process which must have been in operation
for long ages, down to the present day— namely, the slow
gradual creeping movements of strata whilst settling down
under the pressure of the soil. This pressure causes the
flints to be squeezed against one another, and flakes to be
removed. By this process is produced that characteristic

ICENIAN IMPLEMENTS 213
" eolith " form which resembles a slice of bread and butter
with a piece bitten out of it.
It has already been pointed out that we cannot definitely
accept any so-called implement as an artefact until we are
assured that it could not possibly have been shaped by
nature's agencies. It has now been shown that eoliths
can be shaped by a definite and perfectly recognisable
natural agency and it cannot, therefore, be assumed that
any of them have ever been manufactured in any other way.
We may pass from eoliths to the Icenian or Rostro-
carinate implements found by Mr. Moir below the base of
the Red Crag of Suffolk and described with great care and
minuteness by Sir Ray Lankester.1 The geological period
to which the Red Crag belongs is not quite clear, for, though
it has usually been assigned to the Pliocene series, Sir Ray
thinks that this is an error and that its fauna affords a
definite proof that it should be included in the Pleistocene
Age. There is still some doubt, expressed by Professor
Sollas, as to whether these objects are artefacts or not. If
they are, they unquestionably set back the date of man's
appearance on the earth to an even more distant period
than has heretofore seemed to be provable. As in the case
of the Abbeville implements, and perhaps we may even say
of the eoliths, time will tell ; and until further facts have
been accumulated one must suspend one's judgement on
this matter.
As to all later implements at present before the scientific
world, it may be said that their human origin is undis
puted and that their workmanship is such as to prove that
it was a man in every sense of the word who made them.
No one suggests a Homosimius as their maker.
Further, it may be added that they fall into series which
cannot here be described — series which belong to sub-periods,
and are so capable of recognition that when found in con
nection with an interment, for example, it is tolerably safe
to place that interment in a definite period by reason of
the evidence afforded by the implements with which it has
1 Breuil's paper appeared in " L' Anthropologic," 1910, Vol. XXI.
p. 385, and Lankester's in the " Philosophical Transactions," Vol. 203 B,
p. 283.

214 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
been interred. It will readily be understood how valuable
this is to students of prehistoric subjects.
2. If it is agreed that the objects are human or of human
manufacture, what is their stratigraphical position ?
It is obvious that the reply to this question can only be
arrived at on geological lines where the objects in question
have been discovered at any depth below the surface. A
large number of prehistoric objects — neolithic flints, for
example — are commonly found either on the surface of the
ground or in the surface soil turned up by farming operations,
or even by the digging of moles or rabbits. Concerning these
there is no question. Palaeolithic implements not found in
caves have very commonly been discovered in river gravels,
the so-called " drift " implements. This merely means that
they have been washed down, with gravel of natural origin,
by the river on whose banks they have been discovered — a
fact further made obvious by the worn appearance of the
angles of the implements. A more interesting discovery is
that of implements at the place of their manufacture, and
this is especially the case when those implements are of
the Palaeolithic Period.
Those who desire to read a most interesting account of
the discovery of such a palaeolithic workship can do so in
" Man the Primaeval Savage,"1 where they will also be
able to admire the painstaking way in which the whole
facts of the case were worked out by the discoverer. Put
briefly, what happened was something like this. The manu
facturers of the tools worked on the muddy flats beside a
pool of water. Leaving, as we may suppose, one evening
their implements made and half-made, together with the
chips and blocks which were their refuse and their raw
material, they returned to find them no more, for prolonged
rain and floods had covered them with a thick coating of
mud before the workmen were able once more to resume
their labours. Ages afterwards, when the mud of this early
day had proved itself of value for the making of bricks,
the floor of the ancient workshop became exposed and its
nature revealed by the objects which lay upon it. These
facts, however interesting and illuminating they may be,
1 By Worthington G. Smith, London, Stanford, 1894.

BURIED BONES 215
are not of great importance from our pointof view, which is
especially concerned with the question of the antiquity of
man. Where the question of the geological period of
skeletal remains is concerned other points have to be borne
in mind which must be settled before the matter of strati
graphical position becomes of any special importance.
3. Are the skeletal (and perhaps also other) remains in
their natural position, or is their disposition artificial ?
Here we approach a most difficult matter, yet it is one
which must at least be grasped in outline if readers are to be
able to form an intelligent opinion on the kind of facts con
stantly laid before them in the pages of newspapers. Let us
take one or two examples. In the first place, we may picture
the lonely death of a man, ages and ages ago. He is drowned,
let us suppose in some lake or pool ; his body is held down
by weeds ; his bones are covered with a thick layer of mud.
Slowly the lake silts up ; there is an elevation of the ground
and the whole area becomes part of what we call the ordinary
dry land. Then it turns out that a use may be made of this
ancient dried-up mud and it is excavated until one fine
morning the bones of the ancient inhabitant are found. The
papers get hold of it and we have captions as to the dis
covery of an antediluvian and the like. Now let us suppose,
on the other hand, that , instead of the events just described,
the bones had come to rest where they did because a mur
derer some century ago had dug a deep hole and therein
concealed the body of his victim. The position of the bones
in either case might be identical, yet the difference in age
between them might be measurable only in thousands of
years. If one thinks over the matter one can imagine quite
a number of ways in which a body might have been buried
deep down in the soil, yet quite recently. A landslip might
cover a sleeping tramp with tons of earth and no one be
the wiser. In fact, error may creep in by various paths.
How then are we to find our way out of the diffi
culty ? The first thing to consider is whether the soil in
which the bones have been found is natural untouched
earth or not, and this point can be settled -by a person
conversant with excavations if he gets a proper chance.
Unfortunately this is generally just what he does not do, for

216 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
naturally enough, in the enormous majority of cases, the
discovery is accidentally made by a workman who is neither
acquainted with nor interested in the difficulties we have
been considering, and by the time the expert is on the spot
all the conditions for forming an opinion may have been
destroyed. The first thing, then, which one has to ask one
self when bones have been found under conditions which
may suggest great antiquity for them is this : were they
buried there or not ? But there is another point which will
also claim our attention. In a number of these cases other
objects are found with the bones which we are trying to
date. These objects may be implements made by human
hands or they may be the bones or teeth, or both, of animals
belonging to races extinct or still in existence. In any of
these cases the objects thus found may afford invaluable
evidence as to the date of the body. But the evidence which
they afford may be wholly fallacious, so that the next
question we have to ask is this :
4. Is the collocation of objects significant or not ?
Here again a few instances will show the kind of con
siderations which arise. Let us suppose, as may quite well
happen, that the skull of a man is found in a mass of river
gravel, together with the teeth of a hippopotamus and some
fragments of Roman pottery ; does this prove that they
were all of the same period ?
Unquestionably it does not, for the hippopotamus and
the pot in any case cannot have been contemporary. Nor
need any of them be, for all may have been washed down
to the same spot, at the same time, by the same flood, but
from quite different places. We can, therefore, attach no
significance to this collocation ; it teaches us nothing.
Let us now suppose that we find in an interment, besides
human bones, some flint implements and a bronze pin,
what may we conclude ? Supposing that it is clear that
none of these things are of later introduction, it at least
proves that the bones belong to an individual of the Metallic
Period. Or again, suppose we find in the case of an inter
ment that the tooth of an elephant has been placed by the
remains of the dead, we are not, therefore, entitled to claim
that the niammpth and the man in question were cpn-»

AGE OF MAN ON THE EARTH 217
temporaries. The tooth may have been a cherished posses
sion of a man who had never seen or heard of a mammoth.
It may have been a kind of fetish, what we should now call
a " mascot." It may have been buried with him for any one
of these reasons or for some other. Finally, however, when
we find an obvious interment — let us say in a cave like that
of Chapelle-aux-Saints — where the bones are in an undis
turbed position, where they are surrounded by or resting
on flint implements, then at least we may say that there
is the strongest possible reason for believing that the
remains and the implements are exactly contemporary.
And further, if, as would usually be the case, we can say to
what archaeological period the implements belong, then we
are fairly entitled to say that the bones are those of a man of
that period and that their critical study should enable us
to form a fair idea of the physical characters of the human
beings of that date.
Those who read what has gone before and who are not
in the habit of troubling themselves much about the kind
of things here dealt with, will be apt to think that the whole
matter is not only very dull but that it bristles with captious
questions, and in any case is a fine example of " much ado
about nothing." Well, that is not so. The most acute
controversy of to-day, perhaps, is that which rages round
the question of the age of man upon the earth.
This controversy is concerned with the question of the
remains, physical and otherwise, of the early inhabitants
of the earth — in fact with the subjects dealt with in this
and the preceding chapters. One of the chief aims of
these has been to show in the first place how many matters
have to be taken into consideration before even a tentative
theory can be advanced. In the next place, it has been
necessary to point out how many pitfalls surround the ob
server and how easily he may make the worst and most
fundamental mistakes. All these things suggest great
caution and reserve, not only in formulating but in accepting
a theory. In fact it is most unsafe to base any but the most tenta
tive theory upon any isolated specimen ; the story of the
Neanderthal skull proves that, Even where, the evidence

218 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
is more satisfactory, the conclusion arrived at can rarely,
if ever, rise to a position of more than very great prob
ability, though from time to time it reaches one of as ab
solute certainty as is obtainable with regard to earthly
matters. Thus it is as certain as anything can be that man
has inhabited this earth for an immense period of time,
though it is quite uncertain what actual or approximate
number of years should or can be assigned to that period.
The evidence for the existence of the so-called Neander
thal race with certain marked physical characteristics, is
unquestionably convincing, yet it would be rash to assign
to this race every skull which presents the characters in
question. Modern individuals and races have been known
to possess them and, therefore, unless there is some other
collateral evidence, no such conclusion can be arrived at
with conviction.
Having thus sketched the foundation ideas of the subject
of prehistoric archaeology we may now turn our attention
to the actual discoveries of human remains which closely
touch the question in which we are interested — namely,
the date of man upon the earth — before discussing what
the Church and Science have to say upon that subject.

CHAPTER XXI
EARLY MAN— ACCOUNT OF DISCOVERIES OF
EARLY SKELETONS
IN the present chapter it will first of all be our task to
deal with the earliest, or what are thought to be the
earliest, remains of human beings. This will have to be a
mere sketch, but it will, it is hoped, be sufficient to make
the problems under consideration clear to those who may
not previously have come in contact with them.
The Trinil Remains were discovered in Java by Dubois
in 1891.1 These remains consist of the top part of a skull,
two molar or " back " teeth, and a thigh bone. These
objects were found, it is true, in the same locality, but as
much as forty-six feet apart from one another. It is thus
clear that they did not form an interment, and it is of course
not possible to prove that they all belonged to the same
individual. It is assumed that they do, but that view must
always remain an assumption, since an expedition fitted
out and financed by Madame Selenka, the widow of a well-
known scientific man, completed and reported upon its
operations. After vast expenditure of labour and the ex
cavation of a large tract of land the investigators discovered
one more tooth. They erected a monument to the possessor
(or possessors) of the bones and returned to Europe. No
account of the tooth in question has been made public, so
far as the present writer is aware, but it is understood that
it is in every respect human in its characteristics. It cannot
be proved, perhaps it can hardly be claimed, that it belongs
to the same individual as the other bones, assuming that
these all belonged to one person. It may be the tooth of
1 The subjoined account is taken and in large part verbatim from my
paper already referred to. 219

220 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
some quite modern person which has found its way to a
comparatively deep position by falling down an earth-
crack or by some such method. The first -discovered remains
have been assumed to belong to a single individual who has
been, perhaps a little prematurely, named Pithecanthropus
erectus. Be that as it may, and apart from the initial difficulty
as to whether all the objects belong to the same skeleton,
there is a further difficulty as to the characters of the skull,
reminding one of the earlier differences of opinion as to the
Neanderthal skull, of which some account will shortly be
submitted. Dr. Munro, a learned writer on subjects of
this nature,1 gives a list of seven authorities who look upon
the fragment of skull as having belonged to a human being,
of six other authorities who are clear that it was once
possessed by an ape, and of still another group, also seven
in number, who prefer the middle course of believing that
its owner was some sort of creature intermediate between
men and apes. What is clear is that whilst there is this
discordance of opinion amongst authorities — and it may at
once be stated that each of these twenty persons has every
claim to that title — the plain man may well suspend his own
judgement and conclude that, until a fundamental question
of this kind is settled with at least some approach to finality
and general consent, it is not much use to begin building
theories, seeing how insecure is their foundation.
Another curious fact connected with these differences of
opinion has been quoted by Dr. Munro from the pages of
de Mortillet, a veteran man of science whose name has already
found a place in these pages. He writes : " Les avis ont ete-
on ne peut plus partages. lis se sont tout d'abord parques
par nationality. Les Anglais, bien que compatriotes de
Darwin, ont fait des grands efforts pour demontrer qu'il ne
s'agit que d'un homme, un homme tres inferieur, mais
d6ja un veritable homme. Les Allemands, au contraire, se
sont froidement ingenies a prouver qu'il ne s'agit que d'un
singe ; Les Francais ont purement et simplement adopte*
les determinations du jeune savant hollandais. C'&ait
chose facile pour des compatriotes de Lamarck."
» " Paleolithic Man," Edinburgh, Oliver and Boyd, 1912,

CRANIAL CAPACITY 221
Apart from these fundamental difficulties it is by no
means certain as to what was the exact geological horizon
to which the remains belonged. Some believe that the
deposit was of Pleistocene, some of Pliocene age, the former
opinion now being, I understand, in the ascendant. It is
a comparatively small point when compared with that
just alluded to, but it adds to the general uncertainty and-
to the impossibility of making any very great use of these
remains in respect to theories concerning early man.
It must always be remembered, however, that the state
of uncertainty which at present unquestionably exists may,
as was the case with the Neanderthal skull, come to an end
and the matter be cleared up by further discoveries. But it
seems impossible, however, after Madame Selenka's labours,
to imagine that such discoveries can take place in the same
neighbourhood as that where the original discovery was made.
A parenthetic discussion of a matter which always crops
up in connection with these early skulls may here be
undertaken. In any description which we read of them we shall un
doubtedly come across the statement that " the cranial
capacity is estimated as being . . . which is about the
same as that of the . . . race." It will be convenient
here to explain and criticise this statement for the sake
of those who are unfamiliar with the methods of ethnology.
Roughly speaking, the size of the interior of the skull
corresponds to the size of the brain which it once contained,
and, also very roughly speaking, the size of the brain is
generally considered as having some relation to the intel
lectual position of the former owner of the skull. The
cranial capacity is measured by filling the interior of the
skull with shot or some such thing and pouring it out into
a measure. Anyone who has ever seen a skull can under
stand that with ordinary care and precautions all this is
an easy enough procedure. But where, as in most cases
of early skulls — in that of the Trinil skull, for example — we
only have a fragment of the original, the matter becomes
one of great difficulty. It is not exactly a matter of guess
work, but the extraordinarily different conclusions arrived
at by different observers, all trained and experienced

222 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
anatomists, at least show the great difficulty and uncer
tainty which surrounds the process.
In the case of the Neanderthal skull so often quoted, the
earlier measurements were vitiated and the skull made to
be of much smaller capacity than it really was by the fact
that a certain small point in connection with cranial anatomy
was not then fully understood. It is not easy to estimate
the cubic contents of a fragmentary skull ; but suppose
them estimated, how far will that help us ? It must be
conceded that size of brain is not always a safe index of
intellectual capacity. Tiny dwarfs with brains no bigger
than those of a baby have been possessed of intellects sur
passing those exhibited by many a grown man or woman
who has yet passed a lifetime outside a home for the feeble
minded. There was a well-known dwarf who died in America
aged about twenty years and measuring about the same
number of inches. She was of Dutch origin and went by
the name of the Princess Paulina. Her brain was, of course,
in size that of a child of her own stature — that is, immeasur
ably inferior in size to that of the brain of the lowest race
of savage ever seen. Her body-weight was only one hundred
and forty-four ounces, whilst the weight of the brain alone
in an ordinary woman averages about forty-five ounces. If
brain be everything she ought to have had something less
than the intelligence of an ape. Yet the doctor who attended
her in her fatal illness relates that she was "of a good
general education, and speaking four languages — her native
Dutch, French, German, and a little English." It does not
do to stretch the long arm of coincidence too far, but it is
not always the case that a skull of small size was therefore
in possession of a person of inferior or imperfect intellect.
Take, for example, the case of Gambetta, first Prime
Minister of France after the war of 1870-1, who, whatever may
be said about him or against him, could certainly never be
stigmatised as brainless. Yet Gambetta's brain-weight, as
ascertained by a post-mortem examination, was only two
and a half pounds, whilst the average British brain weighs
about three pounds. In fact, Gambetta's brain was con
siderably inferior in point of weight to the average brain
of savage tribes Had his skull been discovered and esti-

THE PILTDOWN SKULL 223
mated on the cubic capacity lines by some savant in the
future, wholly ignorant of who had been its possessor, it would
almost certainly have been declared to have belonged to a
member of some very inferior race of human beings. Never
theless it is fair to say that, with all the difficulties and
doubts which must necessarily attach to it, skull capacity
is the best and indeed almost the only measure which we
can have of the intellectual possibilities of an otherwise
unknown race. The fact is that, from the material point of
view, it is possibly the amount of grey cortex or the associa
tion of fibres, or something of that sort which we cannot
estimate by measurements, which makes the difference
between brains. As we can in many cases estimate the cubic
capacity with accuracy, as it is the only indication or
almost the only indication which we have of the intellectual
position of an extinct race, and as it has a certain corre
spondence with facts, we can use it and can attach con
siderable importance to its teachings. But we must always
bear in mind the fact that the method is not infallible in its
application. After these observations the reader will be in a better
position to estimate the opinions now to be laid before him.
The Trinil skull is in a most imperfect state and it is,
therefore, a matter of the greatest difficulty to estimate
its cubic capacity. Its original discoverer puts it down as
855 cubic centimetres,1 but Keith thinks that this is an
underestimate, though he does not commit himself to any
definite statement as to the capacity.
The Piltdown Skull, which has lately attracted so much
attention and has been the cause of much controversy, was
found by Mr. Dawson in a flint-bearing gravel overlying the
Wealden (Hastings beds) at Piltdown in Sussex, and was
described by him and by Dr. Smith Woodward.2 The
objects found in this gravel bed consisted of a fragmentary
skull, a lower jaw, and some flint implements claimed to be
1 It may assist readers to have the following facts before them.
Average capacity European skull 1550 c.c.
„ „ Australian native 1250 c.c.
„ „ Mousterian (prehistoric) 1620 c.c.
* In the " Quarterly Journal of the London Geographical Society,"
March, 1913.

224 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
of Chellean, that is, of early Palaeolithic period. Its de
scribes claim that all the objects belong to one another
and that they " cannot safely be described as being of
earlier date than the first half of the Pleistocene epoch."
The first piece of uncertainty about these objects is
their connection with one another. A difficulty, as will
shortly be seen, arises in connection with the jaw, which
does not seem to harmonise in its characters with the skull
itself. Some, therefore, think that the two bones did not
belong to the same individual. Leaving this point aside
for a moment until we deal with the Heidelberg jaw, let us
pass to the next point of difficulty. It has already been
said that the skull when found was in a very imperfect
condition. Before any attempt could be made to arrive
at an opinion as to what it looked like when complete, it
was necessary to essay what is called " reconstruction " —
that is to say, to make a model of the whole skull, working
from the proportions of the part which is in existence.
Now without going into details, it may at once be said
that no more difficult task can well be attempted, and this
indeed is obvious from the widely divergent results obtained
by undoubted authorities — results which make it quite im
possible for anyone to found, at least at present, any reliable
theory in the construction of which this fragment of bone
forms a factor.
The first describers of the skull, as a result of their
reconstruction, claim that the cubic capacity is 1070
cubic centimetres, that is, somewhat less than the cubic
capacity of the average Australian native. But, on the
other hand, Professor Keith,1 an undoubted authority
on craniometry, has also made a reconstruction which
differs most widely from the earlier description, for he
says that the creature thus reconstructed was one which
" could neither breathe nor eat, which was an utterly im
possible condition." Further, he adds that " the mistake
had been made similar to that in 1887, of putting a chim-
1 Since this was written Professor Keith has produced a book, " The
Antiquity of Man " (London, Williams and Norgate, 1915), which is largely
given up to a consideration of this skull. It is eminently improbable that
this work will end the controversy or that the Professor's conclusions will
be allowed to go unchallenged. The matter must be considered, therefore,
as remaining in a highly unsettled condition.

THE HEIDELBERG JAW 225
panzee face on a human skull." According to his view the
cubic capacity works out at 1560 cubic centimetres, in
other words, the skull is one of very considerable size, quite
on the large side amongst skulls. Where authorities of this
eminence differ and differ so much it is not for outsiders to
express opinions. This much, however, may be said, that
whichever is right, the skull is clearly the skull of a human
being and presents no characteristics which would prevent
it from being looked upon as the skull of a man of to-day.
The same cannot be said concerning the lower jaw found in
the same gravel, which must now be considered in connection
with the
Heidelberg Jaw, found near the place after which it
was named and first described in 1908. This jaw was found
by itself and without any skull. It is assumed to be human,
as the Piltdown jaw is also assumed by most to be human,
but there is at least the possibility that neither of them
may have been such.
The Piltdown jaw was at first stated to have belonged to
a creature which could not talk, but it is now admitted
that the anatomical character on which this view was
founded does not warrant the conclusion based upon it.
There is no doubt that both of these jaws, and more especially
that from Piltdown, do present highly simian or monkey
like characteristics and thus depart from the pattern which
obtains amongst mankind to-day. But there is a most
curious feature about the Heidelberg example : this is
that, in spite of the simian character of the jaw-bone, the
teeth which it contains are more like the teeth of the highest
races of to-day, and less like the teeth of monkeys than are
the teeth of some of the lower races of the present time.
To put it briefly; the jaw is more monkey-like and the
teeth are less monkey-like than the jaws and teeth of people
of to-day ; and it may at once be said that this combina
tion of characteristics is one of the most puzzling things
to an anatomist. The teeth in the case of the Piltdown
example are also stated to be definitely human. Professor
Osborn in his very valuable book "Men of the Old Stone
Age " (London, G. Bell & Sons, 1916) agrees with the view
recently put forward by Gerrit S. Miller, in what he

226 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
describes as "a recent comparative and exhaustive study,"
that the Piltdown Jaw is that of a chimpanzee ; he
states that this view has been adopted by several other
comparative anatomists. It must be admitted that many
are entirely opposed to it, and this being so, the question
must be left in this unsettled state.
The Neanderthal Remains are of the greatest interest
from several points of view. First of all they have been for
a lengthy period before the scientific world and have been
criticized and recriticized, described and redescribed, until
at last opinion has somewhat settled down about them.
They were found in 1857 in a cave in the gorge from which
they are named, which is situated near Diisseldorf. They
were described in the next year by Schaafhausen and were
claimed by Huxley to be the bones of a perfectly new and
very ancient type of man. Virchow, an authority of at
least equal rank, said that they were the bones of a quite
modern man who had suffered from a peculiar disease.
It is almost the case of the Piltdown skull over again. In
1901 Schwalbe carefully examined the bones and the various
views which had been expressed concerning them. He was
able then to tabulate four distinct and different opinions
with regard to the skull, under each of which were several
sub-opinions.1 Nothing certainly could appear more un
certain than the character of the skull. Schwalbe himself
described the individual as Homo primigenius, to distinguish
him from Homo sapiens, the man of to-day : yet we now
know that the Neanderthal bones belong to what is a
well-recognised race. This is the second point of interest
alluded to above ; for the Trinil, Piltdown, and Heidelberg
specimens are so far of a purely isolated character, and being
such cannot give us any certain aid in forming conclusions
of a general character.
We have fairly numerous examples of the Neanderthaloid
type, as to which there is still a curious divergence of
opinion. Keith in 19112 did not hesitate to state that in
1 For an account of this matter see a work by the author, " A Century
of Scientific Thought," published by Burns & Oates, London, 1915.
2 " Ancient Types of Man," Harpers, 1911. In this little book and in
Duckworth's " Prehistoric Man," Cambridge University Press, 1912, will
be found succinct accounts of all the finds of prehistoric bones made up
to the date of their publication.

THE NEANDERTHAL SKULL 227
his opinion " the Neanderthal type represents the stock
from which all modern races have arisen." In a more
recent work, however,1 he takes up a diametrically opposite
opinion, stating that the races of man known as Neander
thal have completely died out. In this view he is followed
by Dr. Spurrell in his very interesting book;2 but other
authorities such as Sollas seem to be of a totally different
opinion, and in spite of the confident statement of the two
writers just quoted the matter must be considered t© be
completely unsettled. It is recognised that bis cranial
capacity, thought by Huxley and others of that period to
have been very low, was, on the contrary, quite respectably
high in the catalogue of capacities.
This change of opinion arose from a trifling though im
portant discovery to which allusion has previously been
made and which may be more fully explained at this point.
If the reader will pass his hand over the back of his head
at the point where the neck-muscles are attached to the
skull, he will feel a more or less prominent knob of
bone, known to anatomists as the inion. In modern
races this corresponds with the line of division between
cerebellum and cerebrum — the great brain and the lesser
brain, to use the more popular terms. In Neanderthal
man it is now known that this was not the case, but that
the knob in question is from twenty to twenty-five milli
metres above the upper limit of the cerebellum. The failure
to recognise this fact had thrown out all the measurements
of the earlier observers, and this shows how cautious one
must be in accepting conclusions and how very easily
the most distinguished observers can go wrong even over a
vital matter of this kind. " The size of the cranial cavity
in the Neanderthal type was much under-estimated. In
place of being 1230 c.c, as Huxley supposed, it is over
1500 c.c, as Manouvrier and Boule have estimated. It is a
striking fact that the brain had reached, as regards size,
more xhan a modern degree of development in the Neander
thal type ; indeed, 1480 c.c. is usually accepted as an average
for modern man."3 1 "The Antiquity of Man," 1915.
* "Modern Man and his Forerunners," London, G. Bell & Sons, 1917.
* Keith, "Ancient Types of Man," p. 105.

228 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
From this point onwards we have fairly complete series
of human skulls. We are no longer obliged to rely on the
imperfect and uncertain evidence of fragments and single
examples, but have groups of skulls which we can compare
and correlate with one another. Thus though there are, and
there must probably always be, a great many difficulties to
be cleared up concerning the now fairly numerous remains
of prehistoric man which have come to light, we know enough
to draw some important and tolerably certain generalisa
tions. We can more than tentatively divide them into
races, such as those of Neanderthal, Cro-Magnon, and others.
We can place them in periods such as Mousterians, Aurig-
nacians, Magdalenians. All this we can do with tolerable
certainty. Further, we can quite definitely say about all
these races that those who belonged to them were in every
sense of the word — Men. They had the skulls of men, and
what is more, they had the hands of men, the skilful hands
of the mechanic — man the tool-maker, not a whit less skilful
than the tool-makers of to-day. At a later date than the
Mousterian, but still during the Palaeolithic period, man
revealed the fact that he had an intensely artistic nature
coupled with great artistic powers. This we learn from those
of his drawings and carvings, and they are surprisingly
numerous, which have come down to us. Finally, we know,
as has already been said, that he had one religious belief
which exists to-day, the belief in another life. The earliest
known interment, that at the Chapelle-aux-Saints, of Mous
terian — that is of very early Palaeolithic — age, exemplifies
all these facts. The bones are those of a young man — a
man, not an intermediate creature. The tools with him have
been skilfully made, and the fact that they are there shows
the belief in another world held by those who survived him
and laid him in his grave.

CHAPTER XXII
EARLY MAN— CLASSIFICATION— PREHISTORIC PERIODS
IN the present chapter it will be well to assemble the
facts which have just been under consideration into
some form of classification, after which it will be possible,
in the succeeding chapter, to attempt an account of the
Glacial Period and the relation of the races to be described
in this chapter to it. In these chapters there must needs
be a certain amount of overlapping and repetition which
may be excused on the ground that its object is to bring
the points in question more clearly and forcibly before
the minds of readers. All these accounts lead up to the
really important point, namely, the Age of the Earth, and
far more important, the period during which it has been
occupied by Man. These considerations will form the
subject matter of a further chapter.
Let us now set down the periods of. prehistoric time with
their leading features.
A. THE STONE AGE OR NON-METALLIC PERIOD
during which stone, wood, bone, horn, were the raw
materials from which implements were made.
a. The Pre-Palseolithic Period, assumed but at present un
proved. Eoliths and the like, if really artefacts, would
belong to this time. It may be looked upon as being the
period prior to that in which undoubted stone implements
were constructed, the period in which the unworked or
scarcely worked stone was used for the purpose for which
more highly finished tools were afterwards constructed.
b. The Palaeolithic Period.
c. The Mesolithic Period, or period of transition from the
older to the newer Stone Age.
d. The Neolithic Period. 229

230 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
B. THE ^SNEOLITHIC PERIOD, during which copper
came into use ; the period of transition between the Stone
and the Metallic periods.
C. THE METALLIC PERIOD.
a. The Bronze Period: b. The Iron Period.
These periods are full of interest to the archaeologist:
with the majority of them we, however, have here no
special concern.1 Our interest is in the earliest men, their
advent on the earth, their physical and mental character
istics, their supposed relationship to lower mammals and
matters of that kind ; and for this reason we may confine our
attention to the people of the Palaeolithic Age and mainly
to those at the very beginning of that period.
Let us see how they have been classified. The classical
names are those devised by Mortillet and adapted from
the names of places in France where remains of the races
in question2 have been first or chiefly found, or with which
they are in some way or other very definitely associated.
Mortillet's classification is as follows : —
Chellean, from Chelles, a place a few miles east of Paris.
Mousterian, from the cave of Le Moustier on the river
Vez6re in Dordogne.
Solutrean, from the cave of Solutre near Macon.
Magdalenian, from the rock-shelter3 of La Madelaine in
Dordogne. 1 Those desirous of reading a brief account of these periods as they
were in England may be referred to a work by the present writer entitled
" Remains of the Prehistoric Age in England," published by Messrs.
Methuen. a It may be well once more to insist that the term " race," as used here,
do es not necessarily mean that the persons belonging to it were as distinct
from another so-called " race " as — say — a Swede is from a Chinese. It
may be that this actually was the case or it may be that there was no more
difference between them than exists between the varieties of Englishmen
who might be described as Georgians or Victorians. The eighteenth and
the twentieth century Englishmen differ from one another anatomically
in no kind of way, though culturally they do. In the case of some of the
prehistoric " races " there are very distinct anatomical differences such,
for example, as exist to-day between Australian and European skulls. The
use of the words " zone of civilisation " might make matters clearer and
these have been employed sometimes in these pages. But after what has
been said in this note the meaning of the term " race " will no longer be
ambiguous. * A rock-shelter is a place of habitation under an overhanging rock :
a kind of cave without side-walls. It was a favourite place of habitation
at any rate during the later palaeolithic times.

THE PALEOLITHIC PERIOD 231
Whilst in its main outlines this classification remains
accurate, and most probably always will do so, it is neces
sary, in view of numerous discoveries which have of late
come to light, that it should be extended and sub-divided.
The following classification of the Palaeolithic Period, taken
very largely but not entirely from Sollas, will serve to show
the present state of opinion and will be followed in the
next chapter.
LOWER OR OLDER PALEOLITHIC :—
Mesvinian, Strepyan: these are accepted as definite
periods by Sollas but are included in the next by most
authorities. Ohellean: this and the next make up what Mortillet
named the Chellean. There is no doubt that the imple
ments assigned to this period were artefacts, and those
found with the Piltdown skull are claimed to belong to
this zone.
Acheulian.
MIDDLE PALEOLITHIC:—
Mousterian : Implements and bodily remains well known.
Interment at Chapelle-aux-Saints.
UPPER OR YOUNGER PALEOLITHIC :—
Aurignacian, Solutrean, Magdalenian : All well known both
as regards implements and bodily remains.
The characteristic Chellean implement, usually called a
coup-de-poing,1 may be looked upon as a kind of rude stone
hand-axe. By this is meant an axe-head never intended
to be affixed to a haft in any way, but to be held with its
more or less rounded butt in the palm of the hand. It
might be thought that this would be but an ineffective
weapon, but let any person of that opinion take one in his
hand and remember that he is going to use it in a conflict
with an adversary armed in the same manner and half
naked like himself : he will feel that for a hand-to-hand
conflict he might be much worse armed. Against wild
1 Sollas's term of boucher — from Boucher des Perthes, the first to make
these implements generally recognised — has not received general recog
nition.

232 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
animals, and especially against the huge beasts with whom
the man of the period had to contend, it is less easy to see
how he was able to defend himself ; but that he did so, and
successfully, is sufficiently obvious. Moreover, that very
fact is decisive as to his intellectual faculties, for it can only
have been by superior cunning and thought that he was
able to get the best of it in a conflict with animals capable
of destroying — had physical force alone entered into the
case — whole hecatombs of such defenceless creatures as
these early men must have been. If the Heidelberg mandible
and the Piltdown- remains belong to this period, as we may
at least tentatively suppose, we can say something about
the man of this early period in addition to what has been
stated in a previous chapter. Keith, who assumes the
evolution of man from some simian form, says of the Pilt
down remains and of the Heidelberg mandible : " The jaws
of these early human beings were primitive enough, but
certainly not simian. At even this early stage the simian
condition was long past." Certainly, if Keith is right, as
now seems to be clear, and the Piltdown cranial capacity
was 1500 c.c, there is no doubt that his skull was as roomy
as that of the most intellectual races of to-day, nor is there
any reason to suppose that his intellectual potentialities
were inferior to theirs.
At any rate man comes before us first of all as man
anatomically and as nothing else.
The Acheulian civilisation is a sub-division of that
called Chellean by Mortillet. It is distinguished from the
former by the lighter and smaller implements which char
acterise it. We have no knowledge of any skeletal remains
which might be associated with this period.
The Mousterian civilisation corresponds with the Middle
Palaeolithic era and is, for the moment, perhaps the most
interesting for us. A great deal concerning the earlier races
is, and perhaps must always remain, surmise, but of the
Mousterian man we know now a great deal. What is more,
we can now with reason say that we know of him as a race ;
that is, we have a sufficient number of relics of this period
to construct a picture of a group of men, not merely
of an isolated example. Mousterian man had given up or

MOUSTERIAN CIVILISATION 233
nearly given up — some would say entirely given up — the
use of the coup-de-poing, hitherto the characteristic stone
implement, and in its place used broad and thick flakes
worked on one side, together with scrapers1 and points,
i.e. sharpened fragments of flint for use in the hand. Of
skeletal remains of this race we have a large number, in
cluding the Neanderthal skull, once a storm-centre of
debate. These remains prove the race to have possessed
roomy skulls ; they were a large-brained people and hence,
it may be argued, a people with at Jeast as consider
able potentialities of intellectual advance as we possess
to-day. They were a people with the capable hands of
artificers, as is proved by the beautiful implements which
those skilful hands turned out. They were a people with a
reverent feeling for their dead and a belief in the survival
of the individual in another world, as is proved by what we
have learnt from their interments. In a word, physically,
intellectually, and psychologically they were men and
women indistinguishable from those now inhabiting the
earth. The Younger Paleolithic includes four zones, or three
zones and one of transition. Nothing need be said about
the skeletal characters of the men of any of these,
for there is nothing to distinguish them from those of
modern races ; but a few words may be bestowed upon
some of their other characteristics and particularly on
the art which forms so very distinctive a feature of this
time. This is very markedly the case in the Aurignacian epoch,
for the people of that time, as has recently been shown,
displayed a most astonishing love for and skill in art, as
illustrated by the perfectly wonderful series of cave paint
ings which have been discovered in various parts of Europe —
notably, for example, at the caves of Altamira and Pair-
1 " Scrapers " — implements for cleaning away fat and other fleshy
remains from the inside of skins in order to render them suitable for
wearing purposes — are amongst the commonest objects in the list of stone
implements. They are of several kinds : those named in the text have
the scraping edge at the side of a long fragment of flint, not at the
end of a long or short piece as is the case with the common scrapers of the
later palaeolithic and of the neolithic ages.

234 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
non-Pair, in Spain and France respectively. In these and
other caves bisons are represented as single individuals
and in herds, as well as many other animals then co-existing
with Aurignacian man.
One of the most extraordinary and incomprehensible
features of these pictures is that they are found in places
to which the light of day never penetrates. They are very
often coloured with red ochre and other simple pigments,
and they display in spirit and drawing a skill and sureness
of touch which would do credit to any artist of to-day.
While on the subject of art it may be well to finish with
this matter, as it concerns all the peoples of the younger
palaeolithic epoch. It was not merely pictorial art which
they practised ; they etched pictures — for example, the well-
known illustrations of mammoths and elephants to be
found in all books on the prehistoric age.1 Thus we
have an entire gallery of zoological illustrations of the
animals of that far-off date, drawn by contemporary artists
and without doubt most faithful representations. We shall
shortly see that we know exactly what the mammoth was
like, having seen him in a preserved condition : we should
have had an almost equally good idea of his appearance
from the different contemporary pictures of him which have
been discovered. It perhaps hardly needs to be said that
the preservation of these works of art is due to the fact
that they were not executed on canvas nor on panels of
wood (or if any such there were, then they must long ago
have perished) but on stone and on bone : one of the pic
tures of the mammoth, for example, is executed on a frag
ment of his own tusk. Bone, ivory, and horn were, during
the younger palaeolithic period, favourite materials for the
construction of implements, and these implements were
quite generally ornamented : in other words, applied art
had its birth at this time as well as purely pictorial art.
1 Apart from the ordinary text-books on the subject of the prehistoric
age and the large monographs which have been published about the
discoveries in the caves, attention may be called to a work by Spearing,
entitled " The Childhood of Art," published by Kegan Paul in 1912, in
which, besides an account of the objects in question, there will be found a
large number of representations, coloured and otherwise, of the pictures of
these bygone races ; also Parkyn, " Prehistoric Art," Longmans, 1915.

APPLIED ART 235
This ornamentation was sometimes only of an incised char
acter, sometimes it was in relief, sometimes in the full round.
It was applied to various objects, such as those curious
holed pieces of reindeer horn called in most of the books
" batons de commandement," which may possibly have
been used as dress-fasteners. It is also applied to poignards
or daggers of horn. One of the most remarkable examples
is that of a long dagger of reindeer horn the handle of which
forms one piece with the blade. This handle represents a
reindeer in full flight : his fore-legs are tucked away under
him so that they do not interfere with the grip, nor do his
hind-legs, which are stretched out behind tain, whilst his
crupper makes an excellent pommel for the support of the
hand. The carving is in the full round, and the weapon is
not only beautiful but was probably also serviceable. In
fact, when one considers the sharpened pieces of flint which
were the only tools of the artist, we have in this example
a piece of work which any atelier of to-day might be proud
to turn out.
One curious feature remains to be pointed out, and it
is one which in itself illustrates the similarity between these
early savages and the savages of to-day or of yesterday
— this is their unskilful treatment of the human form.
In this respect the history of the race seems to repeat
the history of the individual ; for it is known to all that
children who may make quite efficient attempts to represent
other objects, fail, as a rule, completely when they attack
the problem of representing the human form. Such certainly
is also the case with all primitive races. Still the people of
this remote age did try to represent the human form, both
in outline and in figurines, and we gather from these that
their physical conformation was like that of some African
races, notably the Hottentots. Rude as the representations
are, this fact is sufficiently obvious, and it forms a link in a
chain of argument as to the modern representatives of these
peoples on which a few words must shortly be said.
Two deductions maybe drawn from the extraordinary out
burst of art to which we have been calling attention. First of
all it exemplifies the high intellectual characteristics of the
people, and that point scarcely requires to be emphasised.

236 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
But it also shows that to some extent at least the struggle
for existence must have become less intense. When man is
engaged every moment of his life in a deadly fight for life
he cannot find time to ornament the tools with which he
makes existence possible. The fact that he can spare time
for this, points to a certain relaxation in the extreme
struggle for existence.
Let us note, in concluding this brief account of the art
of the Palaeolithic period, the puzzling fact that in the
Neolithic period which succeeded to it, though after a gap
as to which something will be said in the next chapter,
there is no trace of any kind of art. It is curious, but there
is no greater fallacy than that which attributes to the
human race always and everywhere a continuous tendency
to progress.
The Solutrean period, which is sometimes included in
that which has just been under consideration, is by others
separated from it for this amongst other reasons — that the
working of stone, so far as the Palaeolithic Age goes, here
attained its maximum : indeed some of the implements of
this period are perfect marvels of craft manship.
The Magdalenian period marks a decline in the working
of stone, though great skill was still exhibited in that direc
tion. But it is par excellence the period of skilful work in
horn and in bone, the horn of the reindeer being used for
a variety of purposes. Further, it may be said also to have
seen the high-water mark of art ; for many of the best
examples, notably the reindeer-dagger described above,
belong to this period, as well as a number of the etchings of
animals which show a vivid appreciation of nature.
The Tourassian period may be looked upon as the end
of the Palaeolithic Age, or the commencement of the transi
tion to the Neolithic Whichever theory one adopts it is
certain that workmanship in stone very much declined.
Further, it would seem that the reindeer was deserting the
districts over which he had up to then roamed and that
his place was being taken by the red deer. The result of
this is to change fundamentally the type of horn implement.
The reindeer has a solid horn which can be shaped into
tools of various kinds, just as a solid stick can be whittled

HORN IMPLEMENTS 237
into a small flat shovel or a pointed shaft. But the red-deer
horn is hollow, so that only the side of it can be employed
for the manufacture of flat or very slightly curved imple
ments. There is the same difference between the two that
there is between a length of elm or oak and a length of
bamboo, and the difference between the two is reflected in
the difference of the implements constructed. The most
characteristic amongst these are harpoons barbed on one
or both sides and formed from a piece of reindeer's horn,
with which the capture of fish was effected.
Having now considered the various finds whether skele
tons or implements, and the diverse zones of civilisation
met with during the Palaeolithic period, we need not follow
any further the history of man on the earth.
We may now with advantage turn to the consideration
of the relation of the races with which we have been dealing
to the Glacial Period, the account of that period having been
deferred, it will be remembered, until it could be linked up
with the history of the men who belonged to it. But
before passing to this part of our subject there are one or
two matters which may be cleared up. In the first place, it
may reasonably be asked what became of these early races.
Did one zone fade or develop into another, or did one group
disappear before another took its place ? If so, what
became of these disappearing peoples, and where did they
disappear to ? Were they wiped off the face of the earth
or did they desert their former homes to seek refuge else
where ? It is not possible to do more than touch upon these
complicated and most difficult questions here. They will
be found to be discussed in Sollas's " Ancient Hunters," a
book from which quotation has already often been made
in these pages. His views are thus summarised by himself :
" If the views we have expressed in this and preceding
chapters are well founded," he says, " it would appear that
the surviving races which represent the vanished Palaeolithic
hunters have succeeded one another over Europe in the
order of their intelligence ; each has yielded in turn to a
more highly developed and more highly gifted form of man.
From what is now the focus of civilisation they have been
one by one expelled and driven to the uttermost parts of

238 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
the earth : the Mousterians survive in the remotely related
Australians at the Antipodes, the Solutreans1 are represented
by the Bushmen of the southern extremity of Africa, the
Magdalenians by the Eskimo on the frozen margin of the
North American continent, and as well perhaps by the Red
Indians."2 The greater part of what has been said in this and the pre
ceding chapters, and indeed of what will be said in the next,
relates chiefly to discoveries made and theories relating to
Europe. This must necessarily be the case, since at present at
any rate the discoveries made there are more considerable
than those which have so far emerged elsewhere, and the
zones of civilisation are more numerous and better defined.
But we must not pass from the subject without a few words
as to some discoveries on the other side of the Atlantic3 Of
these it would appear as if the " Nebraska loess men " have
the best claim to antiquity, and they are probably much
later than many of the remains which have been discovered
in Europe. According to Dr. Hrdlicka the features of this
race differed in no way from those still to be found amongst
Indian tribes. The Lansing (Kansas) skull appears to be
long to the same period. The celebrated Calaveras skull is
of modern type and Mongolian in character. It is utterly
1 With whom must, of course, be taken the Aurignacians, who seem to
be linked by their cave-art, as well as by the female physical characteristics
exemplified in their figurines, with modern African races.
2 It may be convenient to set down here for purposes of reference
some of the leading sites in England associated with the zones of civilisa
tion dealt with in this chapter. Chelleo-Mousterian : — Alluvium of the
Thames, Ouse, and Avon ; Kent's Hole Cave, near Torquay in Devon-
hire ; Robin Hood's Cave, near Creswell in Derbyshire ; Brixham Caves
and Wookey Hole in Somerset. Of this last a very complete account has
been published by Mr. Balch (Oxford University Press, 1914). In an intro
ductory summary by Professor Boyd Dawkins, which deals with the early
men of this part of England, the writer points out that Mr. Balch's
discoveries have established the fact that the cave-dwellers of Wookey Hole
and the lake-dwellers of Meare and Glastonbury belonged to the same
race and were both of pre-Celtic stock. These statements, which have
not as yet had time to be subjected to full criticism, may have an
important bearing on the Hiatus question which will be discussed in the
next chapter. Aurignacian : Paviland Cave in Gower. Solutrean : Robin
Hood's Cave, Church Hole Cave, both these near Creswell, Kent's
Hole. Magdalenian : Robin Hood's Cave, Church Hole, and Kent's
Hole. 3 For a full account of these the reader may be referred to Dr. Ales
Hrdlicka, " Skeleton Remains of Early Man in North America." Bureau
of American Anthropology, Washington, 1907.

EARLY AMERICAN SKELETONS 239
impossible that it could have belonged to the formation
(Miocene) in which it was found. The man of the Arkansas
loess is of Indian type, with a low forehead sloping back to a
high crown. The oldest type of man found in South America,
during excavations for docks at Buenos Aires, appears to
be identical in character with the Arkansas man.

CHAPTER XXIII
THE GLACIAL PERIOD
THE period of the earth's history which is to be dis
cussed in this chapter is one of the greatest interest
and importance in relation to the questions raised in this
book, since it is intimately associated with the appearance
of man. Indeed it is only through a consideration of the
problems of time associated with the Glacial Period that it
may be possible, if indeed it ever is possible, to arrive at a
conclusion as to the number of years which have elapsed
since man first came into being. Like many other great
problems of science, what is known about the Glacial Period
is no doubt considerable, but what is still matter of surmise
is far larger. We shall try to point out what is sure and what
is still matter of dispute.1
In the first place, then, no kind of doubt need be enter
tained that large parts of the world during the Pleistocene
Era passed through a period or periods of extreme cold,
during which vast tracts of the earth were covered with
enormous glaciers — tracts of the earth which are now en
joying an ordinary temperate climate or even luxuriating
in still warmer conditions.
It is further quite certain that this period was not one
of continuous and uninterrupted cold, but that it was
diversified by epochs of a milder character, during which
1 This chapter is for the most part drawn from the following, the most
recent works on the subject : Sollas, " Ancient Hunters," MacmiUan
London, 1911 ; G. F. Wright, " Origin and Antiquity of Man," Oberlin,
Ohio, 1912 ; J. Geikie, " Antiquity of Man in Europe," Oliver and Boyd,
Edinburgh, 1914 ; W. B. Wright, " The Quaternary Ice Age," London,
MacmiUan, 1914. After this acknowledgement it seems unnecessary to
assign each of the statements in this chapter to the author from whom
quotation is made, save in the cases where there is wide discrepancy of
opinion and where it is therefore advisable that the reader should know
by whom any given view is supported. 240

THE GLACIAL PERIOD 241
the glaciers retreated and areas, formerly frost-bound, be
came once more capable of supporting life ; these milder
epochs being again succeeded by glacial conditions. Indeed,
there is nothing to prove that we may not now be in
enjoyment of an inter-glacial epoch of mild character, nor
anything to show that the glaciers may not once more
invade those parts of the world where they are now and have
for ages been unknown, and by their invasion eradicate in
the areas invaded all traces of the civilisation of which we
are now so proud. There is nothing to prove this to be a
dream ; and this because so far we are wholly in the dark as
to the cause of that Ice Age which we know to have existed.
It is hardly necessary to say that a number of theories have
been put forward to account for the extraordinary differ
ence of the temperature which must have existed at that time
when compared with that which obtains at the present day.
It has been suggested that it may have been due to a varia
tion in the internal heat of the earth, but that does not
explain the intervals, still less does it explain why we are
not under glacial conditions at this moment. It has been
supposed that the sun may be a variable star and have
periods of darkness during which glacial conditions would
obtain ; or again that it has yellow or warm periods, and red
or cold. There is no real proof that these theories have any
kind of foundation. The idea that the Glacial Period was
due to the passage of the earth through colder regions of
space seems to be untenable. Changes in the distribution
of land and water have been invoked as an explanation
since the days of Lyell, but the most recent researches seem
to throw very grave doubt on this explanation. The theory
that the changes in climate are due to variations in the
amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has also been
put forward, but has failed to meet with any general accept
ance. There is also a group of explanations based on the
effects of the variation Of the elements of the earth's rota
tion and orbit, such as variations in the obliquity of the
ecliptic, which, it now appears from careful calculations,
could not produce any marked climatic changes.
Possibly a more likely explanation is that of Hann, who
holds that " the simplest and most obvious explanation of

242 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
great secular changes in climate, and of the former preval
ence of higher temperatures in the northern circumpolar
region, would be found in the assumption that the earth's
axis of rotation has not always had the same position, but
that it may have changed its position as the result of
geological processes, such as extended rearrangements of
land and water." This view, which recent observations
seem to have shown to be more tenable than was thought
to be the case when it was first formulated, is still under
discussion, but cannot be said to have secured anything like
general acceptance. Croll's Astronomical Theory has per
haps secured greater acceptance than any other explanation
so far brought forward. It has its difficulties, but they are
perhaps less than those with which other explanations are
confronted; but it would be too much to say that this
theory is in any way to be regarded as established. It is
briefly as follows : —
All the planets, the earth included, revolve around the
sun, not in a circle but in an ellipse, and the sun occupies
one of the foci, not the centre of this ellipse. At one end
of its orbit (in perihelion) the earth is much nearer the sun
than it is in the other (in aphelion). Further, the earth's.
axis is tilted so that in its journey around its orbit it presents
first one then the other of its hemispheres more directly
to the sun's rays, and at this time it is the southern hemi
sphere which is presented during perihelion and the northern
in aphelion, but this was not and will not always be the
case. Now, without going further into this matter1 it may
briefly be said that Croll's Theory refers the glaciation of
Northern Europe and America to a time or times when,
the eccentricity of the earth's orbit being considerably
greater than at the present day, the northern summer
occurred in perihelion.
It is not exactly waste of time to have briefly considered
all these explanations, since they form a good example of
the careful manner in which problems of this kind are con
sidered by men of science, and further and even more fully
demonstrate the extreme difficulty of assigning a reason
1 This is fully discussed in Chapter XIV of W. B. Wright's " Quater
nary Ice Age."

LIMITS OF THE ICE 243
for many events of the occurrence of which we can
entertain no reasonable doubt ; and that even though we
are in possession of so many of the terrestrial, astronomical,
and mathematical data on which the explanation so long
sought and so elusive must necessarily rest.
Any text-book on geology will explain the indications
on which are based our knowledge of the districts which
have existed under glacial conditions during the period in
question, and how we are able to indicate the direction and
ascertain the thickness of the sheets of ice. In the words
of Sollas, if we follow the southern boundary of the ice, we
shall find that it will take us out of Britain and lead us right
across the continent of Europe. After stretching from
Kerry to Wexford, and through the Bristol Channel to
London, it crosses the sea, continues its course through
Antwerp, past Magdeburg, Cracow, Kiev, runs south of
Moscow to Kazan, and then terminates at the southern end
of the Ural mountains. All that lies to the north of this
line — the greater part of the British Isles, Northern Germany,
Scandinavia, and almost the whole of European Russia —
was buried out of sight beneath a mantle of ice formed by
the confluence of many colossal glaciers. At the same time
a large part of North America was overwhelmed. The great
terminal moraine which marks the southern boundary of
the ice can be traced with occasional interruptions from
Nantucket, through Long Island past New York, towards
the western extremity of Lake Erie, then along a sinuous
course in the same direction as the Mississippi ; then it
follows the Missouri as far as Kansas City, and beyond runs
approximately parallel to that river, but south of it, through
Nebraska, Dakota, Montana, and Washington, where it
meets the coast north of Columbia river. Within this
boundary nearly the half of North America was buried be
neath a thick sheet of ice, flowing more or less radiately out
wards from a central region situated in and about the
region of Hudson Bay. The coexistence of two continental
ice-caps, continues the same writer, one on each side Of the
Atlantic Ocean, is a sufficiently impressive fact, and that
the Ocean itself enjoyed no immunity from the rigours of
the time is shown by the discovery of boulders, which appear

244 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
to have been carried by ice, in close proximity to the Azores
(about lat. 380 N.). A review of the evidence may fairly
lead us to conclude that a general lowering of the tempera
ture, probably to the extent of about 50 C, affected the
whole of the Northern Hemisphere which lies outside the
Tropic of Cancer. We need not delay over the case of the
Southern Hemisphere further than to state that it also
presents its traces of a Glacial Period. In the regions which
we have more particularly been considering, the ice sheets
were of enormous extent, covering something like two million
square miles in Europe and about double that in North
America. They were also of enormous thickness, as the
average depth of the European sheet has been calculated at
one mile and that of the North American at from one to
three miles. G. F. Wright remarks that the ice was cer
tainly more than one mile deep over New England, for marks
of the movement are found on the summit of Mount Wash
ington, which is more than six thousand feet high. It is
quite obvious that during this period when such tracts of
ground were covered by such enormous masses of ice no
kind of life could have existed. But it must be remembered
that the ice was not omnipresent, for there were areas of
Europe and of America which were not invaded. G. F.
Wright, who is one of the champions of a recent date for
the Ice Age, even goes so far as to say that " large areas in
Europe and North America which are now principal centres
of civilisation were buried under glacial ice thousands of
feet thick, while the civilisation of Babylonia was at its
heyday." It may at once be admitted that this view,
which will be further considered shortly, is one which would
not be accepted by at least a very large number of glacialists,
but it will serve to impress on one's mind the undoubted
fact that at certain periods of the Ice Age mankind must
have been in existence on some part of the earth whilst
other parts were covered with the immense crusts of ice
with which we have been dealing. But further, there seems
no doubt that the Ice Age was not an era of unbroken and
unvarying cold. On the contrary, there were intervals — how
many is still in dispute — during which warmer climatic con
ditions prevailed, the ice receded and human existence

INTER-GLACIAL PERIODS 245
became possible in regions where before — and afterwards —
it was quite inconceivable. Here again it must be ad
mitted that there is not a unanimous opinion in favour of
the existence of genial intervals — still less is there a general
consent, even on the part of those who believe in them, as
to the exact number and relations of these intervals — but the
most generally received view will now be indicated,together
with the chief divergences therefrom. To this it will be
convenient to add the relationship of man, according to
various authorities, to the different subdivisions of glacial
time. In a former chapter we dealt briefly with the geo
logical history of the earth down to and including the
Pliocene era which we saw was, on the whole, a time of
considerable warmth, the temperature gradually becoming
cooler towards its later part. On this followed the Pleis
tocene era, which is conterminous with the glacial epoch.1
There are, as has already been said, differences of opinion
on the question, but the generally received idea is that
there were during the Glacial Period four periods of intense
glaciation, with three milder intervals. Each such milder
interval would, of course, be preluded and led up to by a
time when the glaciers of the preceding period of glaciation
were receding, and in like manner would be terminated by
a period during which the glaciers were gradually resuming
their sway. The last period of glaciation was succeeded by
the recent period — perhaps itself only a genial interval to
be followed by further glaciation — in which we are now
living. Various names have been given to these periods ; perhaps
the best known classification is that of Penck and
Buckner, which is founded on alpine studies and is named
accordingly, Die Alpen im Eiszeitalter.2
1 In the following account use has been made of the works below
indicated and the initials added in brackets after each will be employed
for the purpose of avoiding unnecessary repetition. These works may be
consulted by persons desirous of obtaining fuller information on the
subject. Hoemes (H), " Der Diluviale Mensch in Europa," 1913 ; Sollas
"Ancient Hunters," MacmiUan, 1911 ; Wright, G. F. (G. F. W.), ut
supra ; Geikie, Jas. (G.), " The Antiquity of Man in Europe," Oliver &
Boyd, 1914 ; Wright, W. B. (W. B. W.), " The Quaternary Ice Age,"
MacmiUan, 1914. This chapter has appeared in a modified form in my
" Century of Scientific Thought."
* P. and B. in the table.

246 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
First Glacial Period. Scanian (G.), Giinz (P. & B.).
This was a period of intense cold. In Britain no records
exist, since they have either been destroyed or buried under
later glacial formations.
First Inter-Glacial Period. Norfolkian (G.), Gilnz-
Mindel (P. & B.)
At this time Britain was joined to the Continent of Europe
by land-bridges ; the continuity between the two now
separate portions of land may perhaps best be illustrated
by saying that the Thames was a tributary of the Rhine.
The animals of this period were very different from those
now or in recent times in existence in Europe j1 for amongst
the fauna were the hippopotamus, two kinds of elephant
(E. meridionalis and E. antiquus), the bear, the bison, and
the sabre-toothed tiger. It is possible that the sand-beds
of Mauer in which what is commonly known as the Heidel
berg mandible was found may belong to this period, for
Geikie states that "the geological and palaeontological
evidence, although not quite decisive, seems to favour the
reference of this ancient human type to the first Inter-
glacial or Norfolkian stage."
Second Glacial Period. Saxonian (G.), Mindel
(P. & B.).
As the ice receded at the termination of the second
glacial period, Europe became subject to what are called
" tundra " conditions — the word tundra, which is Russian
in its origin, is applied to the flat plains wliich border the
Arctic regions alike in Europe, Asia, and North America.
Treeless and in many places marshy, they endure long periods
of frost during each year, followed by others of cold winds,
with relaxations during which scanty and stunted vegeta
tion makes its appearance. When, therefore, one speaks of
" tundra " conditions in Central Europe, one refers to a
climate and other conditions similar to that experienced
to-day in a large part of Siberia. It is obvious that
1 It will be obvious that the account given in this table is based on
European data. This is because the questions of chief interest in this
connection, which relate to man and his appearance on this earth, are at
the present time mainly associated with European discoveries.

THE MAMMOTH 247
conditions of this kind must exercise a great influence on
the animals and plants at that time striving to exist in the
area in question : indeed it is largely by considering the
character of the fauna and flora that we are able to come to
a conclusion as to the nature of the climate with which
they must have been associated. Prominent amongst the
fauna were the woolly rhinoceros ,the musk-ox, the mammoth
and the reindeer. Two of these creatures are of such im
portance that a few words must be said about them. The
Mammoth (Elephas antiquus) was a huge elephant, differing
from the elephants now in existence in various ways, but
notably in size ; in being clad with hair, some of it no less
than six feet in length, which enabled it to withstand the
rigours of a climate unsuitable to the elephants of to-day ;
and in the enormous upturned tusks which it possessed.
This creature is not merely known to us by its skeleton, as
is the case with so many extinct animals. It comes under
our notice in two other ways. First of all, as stated in a
previous chapter, it was the object or one of the objects of
the art of early man, where we have vivid and unmistakable
representations of this creature by his human contemporary.
But beyond this, it has been possible for man of the present
day to see this huge beast as he was in the days when he
wandered over Europe, for in the course of those wanderings
in what is now Siberia it was not infrequently his misfortune
to become bogged in a temporarily-thawed ice and mud
bed. Unable to extract himself from the trap into which
he had walked, he perished in it and was subsequently
frozen up and retained in that frozen condition — exactly
like meat in cold storage — until long ages afterwards an
unusually warm season thawed him out in such perfect
condition that it has been possible to discover, by dissection,
the remains of his last meal (pine tops) in an almost
unaltered condition in his stomach. The reindeer, the other
animal of interest, requires no special description, since
being still in existence in northern latitudes it is familiar
to everybody from pictures. It will suffice to point out
that during the time with which we are now concerned and
for many years afterwards this creature was to be found
all over the Continent of Europe.

248 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
Second Inter-Glacial Period. Tyrolian (G.) Mindel
Riss (P.).
When the Tyrolian period had been fully established the
climate of Europe was milder even than it is at present ; and
as a consequence, the snow-fields and glaciers of the Alps were
much less extensive than they now are, a fact which throws
a remarkable light on the conditions which then prevailed.
The physical geography of Europe was very different from
that of the present day, for land-bridges connected that
continent with Africa and with the British Isles of to-day.
At that time, it must be remembered, what are now-Britain
and Ireland were continuous land — indeed what may be
thought of as the Continent of Europe extended some con
siderable distance west of what is now the further shore of
Ireland. The fauna differed remarkably from that of recent times
for " the hippopotamus, elephants, rhinoceroses, cervine
and bovine animals and many carnivores ranged over the
major portion of Europe " (Geikie).
An excellent example of the difference in this respect
may be found in a consideration of the facts learnt from
the study of the Victoria Cave near Settle in Yorkshire — a
place which has afforded shelter to man and beast for many,
many centuries down at least to the time of the Saxon
invasion, when the unhappy Celt, flying from the face of
his foe, made it his place of refuge. It is but a few
miles from Harrogate, where these lines are being written,
and it is safe to say that no larger wild mammal
than a fox would now be discoverable in its vicinity. At
the time with which we are now concerned there were,
as the remains show, the hippopotamus, the rhinoceros
(though not the woolly variety) ,the straight -tusked elephant,
the bison, the red-deer, the hyaena, and other animals which
need not be mentioned ; and with them and, as far as he
could, no doubt on them, lived man, who was, we may feel
sure, but too often their victim as well as their hunter.
Which of the races of man with whom we have been
concerned in former chapters may we look upon as having
existed at this period ? This is a very pertinent question,

SECOND GLACIAL PERIOD 249
for we have now undoubtedly arrived at a time when we
can consider prehistoric man as a race and not merely as a
thing of fragments like the Heidelberg and perhaps the
Piltdown or the Trinil remains.
There is a considerable difference of opinion on this
matter, for Hoernes, who had already disposed of the
Chelleans and even of the Mousterians by placing them in
the previous genial interval, brings the Solutreans into this
one. It may fairly be said that Geikie's view is one
which commends itself more to the scientific opinion
of the day, in spite of the deservedly high authority of
Hoernes. According to Geikie the Chellean civilisation was associ
ated with this epoch. Their " rudely fashioned stone im
plements seldom occur in caves, but are often met with in
the older Pleistocene river-drifts. From this it has been
inferred that Chellean man probably lived in the open, for
the climate was clement and equable, the seasons not being
so strongly contrasted as in our days. The margins of the
rivers were apparently favourite haunts of the race, the
coarse gravels affording an inexhaustible supply of the
stones required for implements."
At its zenith this seems to have been the warmest of the
intervals and it was almost certainly also the longest.
As the climate gradually grew colder, preluding the next
glacial epoch, the hippopotamus, the straight-tusked and
the southern elephants, migrated southwards. The last-
named animal never returned. It was during this period
of transition from genial interval to glacial conditions that,
according to Geikie, the Acheulian civilisation flourished.
Third Glacial Period. Polonian (G), Riss (P. & B.).
In the period of transition just alluded to and in the
epoch now under consideration, up to what may be called
its climax, Geikie thinks that " man of the Mousterian stage
of culture had come to occupy the caves of north-west,
central, and southern Europe. In England, Belgium,
France, and Germany he was eventually contemporaneous
not only with the mammoth and the woolly rhinoceros, but
with the reindeer, glutton, arctic fox, and other members

250 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
of the tundra fauna." This period was not one of such
intense cold as the Saxonian, in which, as already stated,
the glaciers in England extended as far as the valley of the
Thames ; in the epoch under consideration they came no
further south than the Midlands.
Third Inter-Glacial Period. Durntenian (G.), Riss-
Wiirm (P. & B.).
During this genial interval the Alpine glaciers dwindled
very much, as is shown by the following amongst many
other facts. On the Ebenalp and at an elevation of 4800
feet is the cave of Wildkirchli, in which have been found
implements belonging to the Mousterian zone of culture and
with them evidences of a fauna amongst which are the cave-
bear, the cave-lion, the wolf, the stag, and the ibex. Now
it is to be noted that all these animals have also been identi
fied in the Mentone caves where they are equally associated
with Mousterian implements, as well as with the bones of
the straight-tusked elephant, the broad-nosed rhinoceros,
and the hippopotamus. This shows how mild- the climate
must have been even at the elevation of the Wildkirchli
cave. With this period, as well as with that which immedi
ately preceded it, Geikie associates Mousterian man, that
rugged and hardy individual exampled by the man of the
Neanderthal remains.
On the other hand, Hoernes places Magdalenian man in
this period. We may pause for a moment to consider how
very tentative are all the views which are put forward
respecting this glacial period. According to the classifica
tion now commonly adopted Mousterian man belongs to
the Middle, Magdalenian to the Younger Palaeolithic epochs.
At any rate there is little doubt that there is a considerable
interval of time between them — some, as we shall see, would
say tens of thousands of years ; yet it will be observed that
two authorities, both of great eminence, put them into the
same era, a thing which both would admit is impossible.
There is, as is only natural in a subject in connection with
which new discoveries are being made every day, a constant
shifting of position on all sorts of questions connected with
the Prehistoric period ; and the uncertainty of many — one

THE GALLEY HILL SKELETON 251
might almost say most — of the views put forward in con
nection with it is well exemplified by the conflict of opinions
to which attention has just been called. To finish with this
point, Hoernes not only introduces the Magdalenians into
this period, but he goes further for he subdivides it into
two parts. The first of these, characterised by the reindeer,
is Magdalenian ; to the second, characterised by the red-
deer, he assigns the Tourassian and even the Asylian — that
is to say, the transition civilisation, which chronologists
who follow Penck would place at something like one hundred
thousand years' distance from the Mousterians, and who, on
the most modest and moderate estimates, were removed
from them by many long centuries. There is a skeleton
discovered in the Thames Valley, commonly known as the
Galley Hill skeleton, concerning which there has been much
discussion. Keith1 assigns this skeleton to the period with
which we are now concerned and remarks concerning it :
" The first impression on examining the remains of this
earliest known inhabitant of England is one of surprise,
almost of disappointment ; in all his features, with a few
exceptions, he is so modern in build that we might meet
him on the streets of London to-day and pass him by un
noted."2 Fourth Glacial Period. Mecklenburgian (G.), Wurm
' (P. & B.).
This seems to have been a less severe period of cold than
the preceding glacial periods. According to Geikie " the
younger archaeological stages — the Aurignacian, the Solu
trean, and the Magdalenian — are closely related to this
epoch, the mammalian fauna indicating, for the first -named
stages, a somewhat cold climate (as in the cave at Mentone
1 " Ancient Types of Man," Harpers, 1911, p. 32.
8 A few lines above it was remarked that the fluctuating character of
scientific opinion on the topics now under consideration was largely due
to the constant stream of new discoveries which are daily being made
known to us. Here is an excellent example of this fact. At the date, 1911,
when the book was published the statement just quoted might have well
been held to be correct, but the Piltdown skull, discussed in another
chapter, has robbed the Galley Hill example of its distinction, if scientific
opinion is correct, and may itself be thrown into the shade, comparatively
speaking, any day by some new discovery. However this may be, the age
and characters of the Galley Hill specimen are very noteworthy.

252 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
and elsewhere), and for the Magdalenian even colder con
ditions. Probably the first-named stages should be assigned
to the dawn of the Wurmian — to the period of transition
from the preceding inter-glacial epoch", while the Magdalenian
belongs essentially to the succeeding glacial epoch."
Magdalenian man is traceable, either skeletally or by
means of his implements, all over the Continent of Europe :
he is to be met with in England, Belgium, Germany, Swit
zerland, Austria, Russian Poland, etc. This does not
necessarily mean that he inhabited all this area at the same
period of time. What is quite probable is that as the
climate grew colder he migrated further south to middle
Europe, where it would seem that tundra conditions then
obtained.
The Recent Period
As the intense cold of the true glacial epoch passed away,
conditions similar to those which we now experience came
into existence and have since continued. It has already
been pointed out that we may be merely enjoying an interval
between two glacial periods. We may or may not be at
the maximum of the interval ; probably not, as it would
seem that the glaciers of the Alpine region are still in a
stage of regression. The speculation is not a very practical
one, but it may tend to engender a feeling of humility if
we reflect that there is really no apparent reason why con
ditions may not occur under which the forces of nature will
once more assert themselves, the gigantic glaciers reappear
and wipe off the face of the earth every trace of the civilisa
tions of Europe and North America.
So far we have been endeavouring to link with one
another the stories of the glacial period and of man's rela
tion to it, and we have seen how many difficulties that task
presents and how diversely it has been accomplished by
different authorities. We now arrive at a period when
difficulties, at present apparently insuperable, have to
be confronted, and of these it will be necessary to take
stock. The Magdalenian civilisation is a definite thing, clear-
cut and easily recognisable ; the same may be said of the

THE HIATUS 253
Neolithic civilisation which succeeded it. But the remark
able thing is that the two seem to show little if any rela
tionship to one another. This is an unexpected condition
of affairs, for there is no difference to account for it in the
character of the materials used : there is, however, a greater
break than that which occurred when metals came into
use. Moreover, there seems to have been also, in Europe,
or, at any rate, in Northern Europe, a complete contrast
in climate and in fauna. These points may be illustrated
by a table of contrasts prepared by W. B. Wright : —
Magdalenian Neolithic
Poorly developed Stone in- Highly developed Stone in
dustry, dustry ; art of grinding
and polishing stone.
Remarkable skill in drawing Absolutely no pictorial art.
and etching.
Hunting and fishing the only Agriculture and the keeping
occupations. of domestic animals.
A cold fauna with reindeer The fauna of the present day.
and mammoth.
It is quite clear from a consideration of this table that we
have to do with two perfectly distinct and unrelated races
living under totally different conditions and amongst dis
similar surroundings. It is inconceivable, for example,
that the wonderful art of the Magdalenian period should
have passed suddenly and completely out of existence,
leaving no trace of its former luxuriance, had there been
a continuity of race. The fact is that there seems to have
been no continuity and no link between these two civilisa
tions — so much so that this time is commonly spoken of as
" The Hiatus." Of course it will be admitted that some
where or another the gap must have been filled up, for no
one has ever suggested that there were two inhabitations
of the earth by races of men unrelated to one another.
But what at present seems to be undeniable is that in the
northern parts of Europe palaeolithic man did disappear
off the face of the earth, which was left without human
inhabitants for a lengthy period during which the physical

254 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
conditions as well as the character of the fauna were pro
foundly altered.
" It is beyond question," says W. B. Wright, " that in
post-glacial times neither Ireland, Wales, nor the northern
half of Great Britain were occupied by man until the long
subsequent Neolithic invasion. Even the south of England
affords evidence of this general exodus, for here there is
a complete break both in stratigraphical relations and style
of workmanship between the implements of the two periods.
Between the Palaeolithic and Neolithic culture of Great
Britain there is a great gulf fixed, and no amount of re
search has succeeded in finding any trace of a transition
between the two."1
At the present moment — in spite of efforts to show some
trace of a transition at Larne in Ireland, at Cissbury in Eng
land, and elsewhere — the statement just quoted must stand
as true. It is, however, more than probable that this diffi
culty will be completely cleared up, possibly at a very
early date, by the numerous scientific excavations now
taking place in so many parts of Europe. Indeed there is
little doubt that Piette has discovered in the Grotto of
Mas d'Azil in France a series of zones which demon
strate the transition stage with which we are now dealing.
From this grotto the zone of civilisation which we may look
upon as transitionary between the Palaeolithic and Neo
lithic Ages has been named Asylian ; it is also called Tour-
assian ; and other transition periods have been denominated
Campignian, Tardenoisian, and Arisien. Over these matters
we cannot linger, but must content ourselves with noting
the fact that there is at present a hiatus in most parts of
Europe between the two great epochs of civilisation, which
hiatus we take, by actually observable evidence, to have
been bridged in certain spots in southern Europe. There
is, however, a difference of opinion as to when exactly this
Transition period was in existence. Hoernes, who, as we have
seen, pushes back all his races, assigns the Transition
(Asylian) period to the Fourth or Mecklenburgian glacial
epoch, which would bring the true Neoliths in at the com
mencement of the present or fourth genial era. Geikie, on
1 " The Quaternary Ice Age," p. 78.

ASYLIAN PERIOD 255
the other hand, places the Asylian period in the present
genial epoch, thus throwing the Neolith nearer to our own
day. There is little doubt that the majority of prehistoric
archaeologists would agree with him.
Having thus endeavoured to sketch the history of the
Pleistocene epoch both geologically and anthropologically,
we must next turn our attention to the exceedingly vexed
questions of the age of the earth and of the age of man
upon it.

CHAPTER XXIV
THE AGE OF THE EARTH AND THE AGE OF
MAN ON IT
THERE is perhaps hardly any problem connected with
geological science which has been more widely
debated, or in relation to which more widely divergent
opinions have been arrived at, than that which is concerned
with the age of the earth ; and more especially with that
part of its existence, very small in comparison with the
whole, during which it has been inhabited by man.
No one need spend time in wondering why a question of
this kind should interest men of science : it is less obvious
to the general reader why the problem should offer such
almost insuperable difficulties. That it does so is proved
by the enormous discrepancies of the results arrived at — a
fact which will be obvious to anyone at all conversant with
the literature of the subject.
In order to regulate our own doings we must have some
measure of. time — whether that measure be a watch or a
clock or whether we content ourselves with observations
of the sun or of heavenly bodies.
In like manner, in order to estimate the progress of time
in connection with the history of the earth, we must also
have some kind of measure — a " geological clock " : and
this is exactly what geologists have been looking for, so far
without any very conspicuous success.
A ship, which is lost unless it has an accurate timekeeper
on board, carries one or more chronometers supposed to be
absolutely faithful recorders of the passage of time. Even
the domestic clock is of httle use to its owner unless it keeps
time ; the difficulty with most geological clocks is that we
cannot feel sure that they do keep time, nay more, we can
256

RIVER EROSION 257
feel almost sure with regard to them that they do not —
that is, that they have been " slower " or " faster " in the
past than they now are. One or two simple examples will
suffice to explain what is meant, and to illustrate the
difficulty there is in estimating even recent geological time.
Rivers carry down to the sea a certain amount of detritus
every year : this is measurable and has been carefully
measured in the case of some rivers, notably and most
carefully, for example, in the case of the Mississippi. This
detritus, being obtained by the wearing away of the bed
of the river, causes a slow deepening of the gorge in which
the river runs. It would seem to be an easy matter to esti
mate the age of the river by a rule-of-three sum : a moment's
reflection, however, will show that unless we are quite
certain that the annual amount of detritus carried away
is a constant quantity, our -calculations may be wholly
incorrect. But, it may be argued, it is easy to take an
average over a number of years. This might be possible
if we had some thousands of years' records on which to work
instead of fifty or sixty at the most. Even then it would
not give us an absolutely accurate estimate, for we should
still be uncertain whether the conditions in earlier ages had
not been wholly different from those of the time during which
observations had been made. In the immediate post
glacial period, for example, when enormous glaciers were
in process of melting, immense volumes of water must have
poured through the watercourses with correspondingly
increased denudation and removal of detritus.
Again, take the rate of deposition of stalagmite.1
In Kent's Cavern, near Torquay, there may be seen at
this day an inscription carved on a boss of rock which reads
" Robert Hedges of Ireland 1688," and is perhaps the record
of some fugitive of that troublous period. The existence
of this cave had been forgotten for many years until it was
rediscovered by a Catholic priest, Father McEnery, in- the
1 It may perhaps be explained that stalagmite is the calcareous con
cretion which often forms a floor, at times with fantastic upward projec
tions, in limestone caverns, just as stalactite hangs stony festoons from
the roofs of the same. Both are due to the gradual deposit of carbonate of
lime dissolved in the water which slowly filters through the rock from the
surface soil.

258 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
middle of the last century. When the cave was scientifically
examined by the late Mr. Pengelly the inscription in question
was found to be covered by a thin but measurable coating
of stalagmite. The floor of the cave presented several feet
of stalagmite. If it had taken two hundred years to form
one-twentieth of an inch, or whatever it was, how many
years would it take to form four feet ? The question seems
easy of answer, but it is not ; for in another case, also in
England, ginger-beer bottles were actually found under a
foot deep of stalagmite. Here again the clock does not keep
time. The deposition of stalagmite depends upon the
amount of carbonate of lime in the percolating water ; that
to some extent depends upon the amount of carbon dioxide
in the water, and that again upon the nature of the soil it
passes through and the kind of vegetation wliich it carries.
Thus neither of these apparently promising clocks really
can be relied upon to keep time ; and in greater or lesser
extent this is also true of the many other " clocks " which
from time to time have been proposed to the scientific
world. With this preliminary warning we may now turn our
attention to some of the most recent observations which
have been made upon this subject.1 To begin with, we
have to decide from what point of view we are going to
commence to calculate the age of the earth. Whether it
began as a nebular gas or as a nebular collection of planetesi-
mals is of httle consequence in this connection, for, so far
as it is possible to see, there is no means of deciding how long
ago either event may have taken place. Are we to calculate
from the time when the moon was cast out of the side of the
earth ? As to that there is ample margin for difference of
opinion, for Sir George Darwin estimated that this event
might have taken place at any time between 50,000,000 and
100,000,000 years ago. We may perhaps with benefit con-
1 For most of the facts, figures, and comments in the earlier part of
this chapter I am indebted to a paper by Professor Joly, f.r.s., which
appeared in the " Philosophical Magazine," September, 1911, and was
republished, after revision, in the "Smithsonian Report" for 1911,
pp. 271-93. The references in the text are to this publication. His book
" The Birth-Time of the World," which appeared after this chapter was
written, may also be commended to readers.

THE AGE OF THE OCEAN 259
sider the age of the ocean, at which there really is some
chance of arriving, and thus consider the age of the earth
from the time of the separation of dry land from sea. This
has been estimated by the calculation from solvent denuda
tion. We must begin by noting that as the land was once
all dry and the water deposited on it from the clouds, the
first collections of fluid in the hollows — the future seas and
lakes — were all distilled water untainted with salt of any
kind. All the salts in the sea, then, must have accumulated
since that period and must have been derived from the earth
by the solvent denudation just mentioned. Our calculation
then must depend upon the percentage of sodium in sea-
water and be based on the average chemical composition of
river water and the probable annual discharge of the rivers
into the ocean. " The sodium which has reached the ocean
has originated in the conversion of igneous into sedimentary
-rocks. It is easy to calculate from the composition of a
generalised igneous and a generalised sedimentary rock
and from the quantity of sodium in the ocean that the
denudation of about 84 million cubic miles of sediment
accounts for the sodium in the ocean. Such a quantity of
sedimentary rock would, if all was now on the land, cover
the present land area (55 million square miles) to a depth of
little over one mile."1
No one denies that in calculating on this basis there are
numerous opportunities for mistake, nor that corrections
may have to be made in the future for points now foreseen
as well as quite probably for others unknown at the moment.
Subject to all these limitations — and it should ever be borne
in mind that no one is more insistent than the scientific man
as to the extremely tentative character of all such calcula
tions — Professor Joly comes to the conclusion that " solvent
denudation, estimated in the only manner open to us,
assigns an age to the ocean which at its probable maximum
does not exceed 100,000,000 years,"1 and he adds: "It is
against probability to add 50 per cent to this value. We
can only double it by appealing purely and simply to the
imagination for effects of which we possess no indication,
1 Joly, p. 28a.

260

THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE

and the existence of which is at variance with what we
know."1 Another method of estimating the age of the earth is
that by radioactivity, based upon the accumulation in
minerals of the inert products — helium and lead. The rate
of production of helium by a given amount of uranium may
be regarded as known with considerable accuracy, says
Joly ; and from this and from the mass of lead generated
annually per gram of uranium — assuming that lead is the
final product of decay in the uranium series — it is possible
to make an estimate of the age of the earth. Such an
estimate, in view of the inchoate state of our knowledge of
the whole subject of radioactivity, must be even more
tentative than that which is based on solvent denudation.
It is only mentioned here to show one more of the methods
of attack to which this problem has been subjected.
The age of the earth has this bearing on the question
with which we are especially concerned, in that the Pleisto
cene Period can only bear a certain ratio to the whole,
indeed can only form a very small part of it ; so that the
longer or shorter period we allow for the whole will entail
a longer or shorter period for the part.
This being so we may now turn our attention to the
question of the maximum thickness of the strata deposited
in the various geological periods as estimated in the sub
joined table.

Recent and Pleistocene
Pliocene ....
Miocene ....
Oligocene ....
Eocene ....

Feet.
4,000
. 13,000
. 14,000
. 12,000
. 20,000

Upper Cretaceous . .
Lower Cretaceous . .
Jurassic ....
Trias ....

. 24,000
. 20,000 8,000
. 17,000

63,000

69,000
* Sollas, Presidential Address to the Geological Society of London
in 1909.

THE AGE OF THE EARTH

261

Feet.

Permian . . .

. 12,000

Carboniferous . .

. 29,000

Devonian .

. 22,000

 63,000

Silurian

. 15,000

Ordovician

. 17,000

Cambrian .

. 26,000

^OjWxJ

Keweenawan

. 50,000

Animikian . .

. 14,000

Huronian . . .

. 18,000

¦  82,000
Archean . . .
?
 335.000
Supposing that man was in existence during the entire
of the Pleistocene and Recent Period, it will be seen from
the above table how very small a part of the whole of
geological time that must needs be.
Professor Joly has been kind enough to plot out for me
Strutt's time (obtained by the radioactivity method)
against Sollas's data (as given in the table above) . By taking
square paper and joining the Oligocene point to the present,
which would be o in such a diagram, some idea of the sub
sequent periods should be got. On this calculation the
beginning of Pliocene time would be about 3 or 3-3 millions
of years ago, and the beginning of Pleistocene time about one
million years ago. In considering these figures the reader
must not fail to bear in mind that they are highly tentative
and based on data wliich may require extensive correction
and revision.
The matter of chief interest to us is the date of the advent
of man : or, in other words, we are more concerned to learn
what science has to say to-day on that subject than we are
to ascertain the latest views as to the actual age of the earth
itself. To this question of man and his date we may now
turn our attention.
In what follows readers can scarcely fail to be struck by
the amazing discrepancies which will be observed to exist
262 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
between the statements of different persons, all more or
less authorities on the subject with which they are dealing.
This at least clearly proves one thing — namely, that no real
certainty, scarcely even any probability, can attach to any
matter concerning which such extraordinary differences of
opinion exist. There is, however, another point to which
attention should be called and it is this : the writers to
whom we have been alluding may be divided accurately
enough into two classes, geologists and anthropologists — in
other words, into those who have made the earth and its
history their chief study and those who have devoted their
attention chiefly to man and his history. It may further
be remarked that, almost without exception, the more
extravagant demands for time will be found to be made by
anthropologists and not by geologists. The underlying
reason for this is that most anthropologists believe that the
body of man was evolved from that of some lower animal,
and moreover believe that the process of evolution occurred
by small variations taking place over a vast extent of time.
They, therefore, postulate that vast extent of time.
A little consideration will show that this is a very
unscientific way of going to work. If it were perfectly
certain — if it were as clear as any proposition of Euclid —
that the body of man had been evolved, and evolved by
the slow process alluded to, and if it were equally clear that
that process of evolution could not by any possibility have
taken place in less than so many years, then indeed it would
be allowable for the anthropologist to say to the geologist :
" You must find me so many years since the advent of
man, and if you cannot do so it is quite clear that your
methods are all wrong." In a later chapter these questions
will be considered, and it will be seen that the premises
for such a conclusion as that indicated above are in no kind
of way established.
Unless and until they are established, the question
remains, and, it may be added, seems likely always to
remain, a purely geological one, to be settled on purely
geological lines. It is, therefore, to the geologists that we
must turn, though it must be admitted that when we do
so we find ourselves confronted by hopeless discrepancies

THE RECENT PERIOD 263
even there. One instance of the difference of opinion
between geologists and anthropologists may here be cited
as an example of the classes of statements of which I have
been speaking. Mention has several times been made of the
Mousterian race and of their interments at Chapelle-aux-
Saintes. Professor Sollas, who is primarily a geologist
though also a high authority upon anthropology — in fact
one of the few men who can speak with real authority in
either house — places these interments at a distance of
25,000 years from the present day. Professor Keith, on the
other hand, who is an anthropologist of high standing but
who certainly would not claim to be a geological expert,
refuses to be satisfied with less than 350,000 years for the
period which has elapsed since the Mousterians placed this
particular dead man in his tomb. Nothing can better illus
trate the points under discussion than this single example.
After these preliminary remarks we may devote a short
space to the consideration of the time theories of different
authorities and may commence by asking how long it is since
the Recent Period, in which we are now hving, came into
existence. It is obvious that no fixed date can be given for
this. There was no particular morning on which Prehistoric
Man woke up to discover that the Mecklenburgian Glacial
Epoch had come to an end and the present genial epoch
had commenced. The passage from one to the other must
have been slow and gradual, and the dates, therefore, at best
can be but approximate.
The retreat of the glaciers was slow and the extent of
Europe which they covered, even at their maximum,
limited. During the whole of the same glacial epoch men
and women were living and dying in other parts of the world,
even in other parts of Europe : what were these people and
what form of civilisation had they reached ? G. F. Wright,1
who has been a student of glacial questions for forty years
and has published many important books "and papers
on the subject, as we have aheady seen, makes his
view on the matter perfectly clear. His remarkable
statement may be repeated : " Large areas in Europe
1 "The Origin and Antiquity of Man," Oberlin, Ohio, U.S.A., 1912,
P- 195-

264 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
and North America which are now principal centres of
civihsation were buried under glacial ice thousands of feet
thick, while the civilisation of Babylonia was in its heyday "
— that is to say, some five to six thousand years ago.
Further, he continues : " The glib manner in which many,
not to say most, popular writers, as well as many observers
of limited range, speak of the Glacial Epoch as far distant
in geological time, is due to ignorance of facts which would
seem to be so clear that he who runs might read them."
Such a view does not differ very widely from that expressed
by another distinguished geologist, Professor Sollas, who —
after tracing backwards the history of mankind until it
ceases to be history and becomes archaeology, and that
prehistoric — arrives at the Asylian Period, which, as we
have already learnt, is now regarded as the time of transition
between the Palaeolithic and the Neolithic Ages ; and states
that " from this point — the beginning of the seventh
millennium" (from the present date, of course) "we look
backwards over the last glacial episode." On the other hand
let us ask the same question of Penck, whose studies in
glacial conditions in the Alps and whose numerous writings
thereon justly entitle him to a place in the first rank of
authorities. Penck thinks that the post-glacial period in
which we are now living cannot possibly have lasted for
less than 20,000 years — that is to say, he demands three
times as long as Sollas and four times more than Wright.
A recent series of researches in Sweden seems at the
present moment to afford some hope that a reliable time-
scale may at last have been arrived at in connection with
the point at issue — the end of the Ice Age. These researches
have been made by de Geers1' in the laminated marine clays
of southern Sweden, which seem to mark off the years in
much the same manner as the rings in the trunk of a tree.
Assuming that this particular " clock " keeps time — and
there is more reason to assume this than there is in the case
of any other " clock " so far offered to us — de Geers claims
that he is able to prove that it is 9000 years since the ground
on which the University of Stockholm stands became free
1 For an account of them see W. B. Wright, " The Quaternary Ice
Age," MacmiUan, 1914, p. 343.

THE GORGE OF NIAGARA 265
from ice. The same authority claims to have also shown
from the conditions observable in a post-glacial lake-bed
in Sweden that the ice did not leave that particular region
until about 5000 years ago. In all this we are not very far
away from the statements of Sollas and G. F. Wright. It
may reasonably be asked on what evidence writers such as
the last named depend in coming to a conclusion as to dates.
One example has been cited in the marine clays and
another much better known and more widely discussed is
that of the Gorge of Niagara.1 Like the majority of water
falls everywhere, Niagara is itself a post-glacial object, as
is proved by the fact that there is a buried pre-glacial
channel leading from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario, some dis
tance west of the present river. The gorge with which we
are now dealing is at present some seven miles in length,
and the strata by which it is bounded are such that Wright
remarks of them that " no geological conditions could be
more uniform and calculated to yield more definite results
to careful study."
Here at any rate we have a promising " clock," for there
is a definite distance to be measured ; it is composed of
rock so uniform in character that the cutting-through pro
cess ought to be fairly uniform, and there is no special reason
to suppose that the volume of water has so varied at different
epochs as seriously to affect the rate of erosion. Lyell, a
most distinguished geologist, visited the Falls in 1842 and
made a guess that the rate of erosion could not be more than
one foot per annum, and probably would not be more than
one-third of this or four inches. This statement is often
cited as if it had been a fully reasoned view instead of the
mere guess which it admittedly was : this is hardly fair
to that very eminent authority. Lyell himself suggested
that careful observations should be made, and from the
date in question they have been made for sixty-five years,
with the remarkable result that it has been proved that
the average rate of erosion has been a httle more than five
1 A full account of this will be found in G. F. Wright's book, to which
the reader may be referred for a very complete account of the evidence of
various kinds on which the writer in question depends for the establish
ment of his thesis as to the recent date of the Glacial Epoch.

266 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
feet per annum — that is to say, more than five times Lyell's
maximum and more than fifteen times his minimum. So
that if, as here, at least, seems quite likely, the same forces
have been at work continuously in the past that are opera
tive at the present, Niagara River would have eroded the
whole gorge in 7000 years. Wright, from whom this
statement has been taken, adds a chronological table of the
gorge which is so picturesque that its quotation may be
permitted. " With great confidence," he says, " we can locate the
position of the Falls at different past historical epochs.
For example, at the time of the Crusades the cataract was
about one-third of the way down to the head of the rapids.
At the time of the birth of Christ it was two-thirds of the
way down to the rapids. When the Falls had receded to
the head of the rapids, Rome was being founded and Greece
was just entering upon her classical career. When the
Falls were at the whirlpool, Israel was just entering Egypt,
while the beginning of the Falls at Queenstown occurred
only a short time before the building of the great pyramids,
and the expedition of Sargon from Babylonia to the
shores of the Mediterranean about 3800 B.C." The same
evidence is obtainable from other falls, such as those of St.
Anthony at Minneapolis, Minnesota, for an account of which
and for much other interesting matter on this subject the
reader may be referred to the work from which quotation
has already been freely made. From this and from a vast
amount of other evidence Wright concludes that the entire
glacial epoch — the whole period, not merely the fragment
of post-glacial time which we have been hitherto considering
— this whole period does not extend to more than 80,000
years. Further he states, with regard to the period of man's
habitation of the earth, that while his antiquity " cannot be
less than ten thousand, it need not be more than fifteen
thousand years. Eight thousand years of prehistoric time
is ample to account for all known facts relating to his
development." So far for the protagonist of a recent date :
let us now turn to the conclusions of his opponents ; and in
so doing we will omit for the present all consideration of
anthropologists and turn to a distinguished geologist.

ANTIQUITY OF MAN 267
Penck certainly holds a high place amongst glacialists and
is in no way chary of drawing large cheques upon the bank
of Time. Now Penck demands for the genial intervals
alone an enormous period of time —
For the Riss-Wiirm or Third (Mousterian man, Geikie)
60,000 years.
For the Mindel-Riss or Fourth (Chellean man, Geikie)
240,000 years.
We have already been asked for 20,000 years at least for
the post-glacial period, so that we are now arrived at
320,000 from the present day without having made any
allowance for the first genial interval, not to speak of the
glacial periods which divided these periods from one another.
These other areas must also be taken into consideration.
" The data," says Geikie,1 " for determining the duration
of the First or Gunz-Mindel Interglacial epoch are not so
ample — all the evidence, however, leads to the belief that,
while not so long as the Second, it was much longer than the
Third Interglacial epoch. We may provisionally assume,"
he continues, " its duration to have been about 100,000
years, and we thus obtain 400,000 years for the first three
interglacial epochs : to which we may add 20,000 years to
cover the interstadial stages of post-Wurmian times."
Then we have still to allow for the glacial epochs themselves,
and according to Professor Geikie for this purpose not less
than 200,000 years are required, so that we must assume
" a minimum of 620,000 years for the duration of Pleistocene
times." We have here a very different conclusion from that
previously quoted, though the same data were open to
both experts. We have seen what the former thinks as to
the period of time during which man has occupied the earth.
From what has gone before it is obvious that Penck would
give him a very much longer history, and such is indeed the
case. " Quite recently Professor Penck has expressed the
opinion that the Glacial Period with all its climatic changes
may have extended over half a rnillion to a million years,
and as the Chellean stage dates back to at least the middle
of the period, this would give somewhere between 250,000
and 500,000 years for the antiquity of man in Europe. But if,
* " The Antiquity of Man in Europe," Oliver & Boyd, 1914, p. 301.

268 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
as recent discoveries would seem to indicate, man was an
occupant of our continent during the First Interglacial
epoch, if not in still earlier times, we may be compelled
greatly to increase our estimate of his antiquity."1 Perhaps
one may be permitted a parenthetic comment and question
at this point.
Penck insists that we must go back some 200,000 years
before we arrive at the times of Mousterian man, yet when
we arrive at him we find him, as we have already learnt,
in every sense of the word a man and a capable man too.
He had many more difficulties to contend with than we
have, and had, of course, many fewer advantages, but there
is no reason to suppose that his intellectual potentialities
were any less than ours of to-day. Again, according to
Penck we may have to go back some 20,000 years ior the
commencement of the Neolithic era. It is less than 10,000
years — to follow the generous estimates which we are using
— since the knowledge of metal came into existence — less
than 4000 since iron became known. Some 6000 or 8000 years
for the evolution of our present complicated civihsation,
and what of the previous 190,000 odd years ? What was
the highly capable Mousterian man doing, still more what
were the undoubtedly talented Aurignacians and Solutreans
doing, that they made so little progress in such a vast extent
of time ? It may be asked what about the Australians and
other such primitive folk ? No doubt there are primitive
and backward races, but the history of Europe, so far
as we can see it, seems to fit in but badly with Penck's
enormous vistas of time.
One thing is perfectly clear — that while there are such
enormous discrepancies between the findings of diverse
authorities no kind of reliance can be placed upon any of
them. This, it should at once be admitted, is fully realised
by the geologists themselves : "No geologist has over
much confidence in such estimates," says Geikie,2 and adds
that " they serve to give some precision to our conception
of geological time " — in face of the discrepancies, not quite
as much precision as one might desire.
1 The quotations are from Geikie, op. cit., pp. 302-3.
i Op. cit., p. 300.

THE CHURCH AND CHRONOLOGY 269
Before passing from this subject it may be added that
whilst Dr. Obermaier is prepared to give 50,000 or even,
in consideration of the Mauer jaw, 100,000 years for Palaeo
lithic man in Europe, the Abb6 Breuil, who is in the front
rank of modern anthropologists, is prepared to assign a
period of some 20,000 years for the sojourn of man upon
earth ; and that Prestwich, whose geological knowledge no
one will deny, limited the entire Glacial Period to 25,000
years, and thus, so far as our present knowledge goes,
limited the sojourn of man to a .still smaller number of
years. The practical lesson for the ordinary reader is this —
that when he sees a statement in his daily paper that a
certain skull or a certain implement of human manufacture
which has recently come to light is several hundreds of
thousands or even several million years old — the statements
run into millions at times — he must remember that there
is no sort of definite evidence for any such statement, and
that all that it amounts to is that the object in question
is (or may be) of quite a respectable antiquity.
Lastly, so far as this matter goes, we may ask how the
Church views this question of chronology. In approaching
that matter I shall not depend upon my own knowledge,
but shall quote from recognised authorities. There is no
question but that the period of man's appearance on the
earth dates much further back than was supposed in pre-
scientific days. But to the dates of those days the Church
has never given her sanction. On this point the learned
article on Chronology in the " Catholic Encyclopaedia "
may be quoted. When dealing with the Creation of Man
its writer says : " The question which this subject suggests
is : Can we confine the time that man has existed on earth
within the limits usually assigned, i.e. within about 4000
years of the birth of Christ ? The Church does not inter
fere with the freedom of scientists to examine into this
subject and form the best judgement they can with the
aid of science. She evidently does not attach decisive
influence to the chronology of the Vulgate, the official
version of the Western Church, since in the Martyrology
for Christmas Day the creation of Adam is put down in
the year 5199 B.C., which is the reading of the Septuagint.

270 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
It is, however, certain that we cannot confine the' years of
man's sojourn on earth to that usually set down. But, on
the other hand, we are by no means driven to accept the
extravagant conclusions of some scientists." With that
conclusion all may agree.
Before closing this chapter attention may be called to the
words of the Rev. Hugh Pope, o.p. :x " It is well to bear in
mind that the Biblical chronological system is in no sense a
scientific one, that its details are often conflicting, that
starting as it does from the beginning when there can have
been no means of dating events, it is possibly only meant
as a guide to the memory and not as a clue to history."
" On the other hand," he also states, " none of the dates
assigned by scholars to the events of this early period can
be regarded as more than approximate and should not be
regarded as solid means of testing the Biblical statements.
These latter, indeed, are as ancient as any other system of
chronology which has been handed down to us."
1 " The Catholic Student's Aids to the Bible," O.T., p. ai.

CHAPTER XXV
LIFE— VITALISM— MATERIALISM
IN order to complete that section of this work which is
especially concerned with Geology, it has been necessary
to touch upon some of the questions concerned with Primi
tive Man before the topic of his origin has been so much
as mentioned.
This topic indeed is one to which we shall have to devote
much attention. But before we can touch upon it it will be
necessary to pass in review the various biological problems
of interest to us in connection with the purposes of this
work ; and, as the term Biology itself demands, we must
commence by considering the nature of Life, and must
discuss the question as to its origin upon this planet.
In essaying this task, and especially the first part of it,
we are confronted with perhaps the most difficult problem
with which we have as yet been brought into contact :
though, to those unacquainted with philosophical and bio
logical writings, it may seem strange to suggest that there
is any problem at all, let alone one of any significance or
difficulty. Let us approach the problem in the simplest possible
manner and ask ourselves " Is there any difference between
a man and a block of stone ? " To this question there can
be but one reply : " Of course there is." But when we ask
our second question : "Is this difference one of kind or
of degree ? " the reply does not come quite so clearly nor
so unanimously. Most ordinary people would reply : " Of
course the difference is of kind, for one is alive and the other
is not." Yet in that reply is involved the whole complicated
question which we have to discuss ; for it is that word
" alive " which sums up the whole matter in dispute. Is
271

272 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
a thing which we call " alive " different in kind from what
we call not alive ? The ordinary man would at once reply :
" Of course it is." And in the opinion of most learned men
throughout the ages the ordinary man would be quite
right. But we must now approach the question from a
more technical point of view.
" What is Life ? " What is a "living thing " ? What
is it that distinguishes a living from a not-living thing ?
There have been innumerable attempts to define the
indefinable — that is, Life : Fr. Maher gives a number of
them.1 Speaking of the scholastic definition of Life he
says : " The scholastics defined Life as activitas qua ens
seipsum movet — the activity by which a being moves itself.
The word move, however, was understood in a wide sense
as equivalent to all forms of change or alteration, including
the energies of sentiency and intellectual cognition as well
as local motion. The feature insisted on as essential is the
immanent character of the operations. An immanent action
is one which proceeding from an internal principle does not
pass into a foreign subject, but perfects the agent. All
effects of non-living agents are, on the contrary, transitive.
Notwithstanding the multitude of attempts made by
successive philosophers and biologists, the definition of the
schoolmen has not been as yet much improved upon."
In connection with this statement it must be borne in mind
that the comment and a fortiori the definition were made
before the. internal activities of the atom were fully recog
nised, and it is possible that such recognition may require
a modification in the definition, the truth of which will,
however, in no way be altered.2 Further definitions,
quoted by the same author, are as follows : " Bichat's
definition is well known : ' Life is the sum of the functions
which resist death.' This is not a very great advance if
death can only be described as the cessation of Life. ' Life
1 " Psychology," p. 551.
" The internal activities of the atom, of which we know too little to
dogmatise in any way, are in continuity, it has been suggested by a
recent writer, with the internal and external activities of living things.
Space does not permit of a discussion of this matter, but it may at least
be said that the purely rhythmical inter-atomic movements seem to differ
wholly from the purposive movements of living things and to have no
more relation to them than the so-called Brownian movements.

LIFE AND DEATH 273
is the sum of the phenomena peculiar to organised beings '
(Beclard) . ' Life is a centre of intussusceptive assimilative
force capable of reproduction by spontaneous fission '
(Owen). ' Life is the twofold internal movement of com
position and decomposition at once general and continuous '
(De Blainville, Comte and Robin). These definitions,
starting from the physiological point of view, aim merely
at summing up the phenomena of vegetative hfe and exclude
intellectual activity. Mr. Spencer with his wonted lucidity
defines life as ' the continuous adjustment of internal
relations to external relations.' " When I read over these
definitions and recognise the modicum of truth which each
contains, I cannot think that any one of them — not to say
all of them — is likely to be of much help to the general
reader for whom this book is chiefly intended.
He will probably say that there certainly is something
in a living being which there is not in a lump of stone. He
will further, though less strenuously, argue that there is
something more in any animal, giving that word its widest
significance, than there is in a plant. Nor, as a rule, will he
hesitate to admit that there is something in man which
is not met with in any other animal.
Let us consider the first of these somethings : but before
doing so let us make it quite clear that there is a school —
a rapidly diminishing school, as we shall see — which denies
altogether that there is any such " something " ; which,
on the contrary, argues that there is no difference of kind
but merely one of degree between a man and a stone. To
take one of the latest and most advanced of this school i1
" Between hfe and death the difference is of the same order
as that which exists between a phenol and a sulphate, or
between an electrified body and a neutral body. In other
words, all phenomena which we study objectively in living
beings can be analysed by the methods of physics and
chemistry." There are, then, those who maintain that there is a
" something," whilst there are others who deny it any
existence. Before proceeding to bring forward arguments
1 Le Dantec, " The Nature and Origin of Life," Hodder & Stoughton,
London, 1907, p. 5.
T

274 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
in favour of our own view — that there is a " something " —
we may devote a short time to considering the history of
the Vitahstic struggle, since by so doing we shall find our
study of the question itself somewhat simplified.1
We commence, as in most things, with Aristotle, "the
master of all who know," as Dante calls him. Aristotle, into
whose arguments we need not look, had no doubt that there
was a " something " which he named an entelechy — a thing
which bears the end in itself. This actuality Aristotle called
the soul ; but he distinguished between different kinds of
souls or different stages of the soul which determined
different stages of the organic creation. Thus according to
his philosophy, plants possess for their lifetime, and animals
at the outset of their career of hfe, only the nutritive
soul which is the soul of growth and is identical with the
generative principle which existed in the seed. But at a
later period of growth, when they became recognisable as
animals rather than as vegetables, animals became endowed
with the sensitive soul with which was connected the
appetitive ; and this possession it was which marked them
out as animals and distinguished them from vegetables.
Men alone have the third endowment, Reason, which alone
comes " from without " and is divine.
We need not trouble to work our way through the suc
ceeding ages nor need we even delay over the Scholastics
and their teaching. St. Thomas, whose work was so largely
founded on Aristotle, put forward views which did not
substantially differ from those already mentioned — in fact,
throughout the centuries until that from which we have
so recently emerged, no one of any authority doubted the
truth of what is commonly called Vitalism.2
1 For a recent account of the history of this discussion, from which, by
the way, almost all mention of the Scholastics is omitted, the reader may
be referred to Driesch, " The History and Theory of Vitalism," Trans.,
C. K. Ogden, MacmiUan & Co., 1914. From this work most of what im
mediately follows has been taken.
2 Whilst it may be admitted that there are objections to this as
perhaps to almost any other descriptive term for the theory under con
sideration, we shall continue to use it as expressing the convictions of
those who believe that in living beings there is a something not to be
found in not-living matter. Fr. Maher's note on this term and on another
(" Animism ") frequently to be met with in discussions on these matters,
may here be cited (" Psychology," p. 545) : " Some modern authors

VITALISM 275
In fact, Driesch1 points out that the old Vitalism died,
or rather appeared to die and certainly became obscured,
owing to the fact that it ceased to have any opponents.
Its upholders became careless and unable to face attacks,
even those of a not unjustifiable character ; and above all
they neglected to strengthen their position by showing
the support which it gained from the new facts constantly
being accumulated by biological workers. " Thus it was,"
he says, " that a critique came to the front which, to all
outward appearance, had set Vitalism on one side for the
time being. . But Vitalism had not been overthrown ; it
had only been purified, and hence it is that we lay stress
on our statement that the old Vitalism died literally by a
process of self-extermination."
The reaction alluded to was started by Lotze and Claude
Bernard. The article of the former on " Life and Life-
Force " in the first volume of Wagner's " Dictionary of
Physiology," published in 1842, is regarded by Driesch as
" the most solid of all attacks upon Vitalism." Claude
Bernard, an acute critic, was really a Vitalist himself, as
clearly appears from some of his statements ; but his
criticism, with that of Lotze, led up to materialistic doctrines
often associated with the name of Darwin, but more properly
belonging to the school known as Darwinian. As we proceed
in our study we shall rapidly discover that Darwin and
" Darwinism " so-called are sometimes — one might almost
say frequently — very different things. Driesch considers
that there were four circumstances which " fundamentally
teach that there is in man, distinct from the rational sentient soul, a vital
principle, the source of vegetative life. This theory used to be styled
Vitalism, though that term now includes Animism and all doctrines which
maintain the reality of a vital principle superior to the chemical and
physical properties of matter. Others make the rational soul numerically
different from the common subject of sentient and vegetative activities.
In opposition to these various hypotheses the Peripatetic doctrine, some
times called Animism, holds that in man there is but one actuating principle,
the rational soul, which is, however, capable of exerting the inferior modes
of energy exhibited in sensuous and vegetative life. In this view the plant
possesses merely a ' vegetative soul,' the brute a ' sentient soul,' con
taining virtually, however, the faculties of the vegetative principle. It is
hardly necessary to remind the reader here that the proof of a spiritual
principle in man is independent of all theories regarding the nature of
vegetative ' souls.' "
1 " History of Vitalism," pp. 123-5.

276 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
determined the character of all thought about nature, and
indeed on many other problems, in the second half of the
nineteenth century. First of all, the rise of a materialistic
metaphysic in express opposition to the idealistic identity-
philosophy. Then Darwinism, which explained how by
throwing stones one could build houses of a typical style.
Thirdly, the discovery of the law of the Conservation of
Energy by Robert Mayer — a proposition which, in spite of
the poverty of its content, enraptured all the natural
sciences. Lastly, and of particular importance in reference
to Biology, the discovery and systematic investigation of
the delicate structures of living beings with the help of
improved optical instruments."1
This fact stands out, however we may account for it, that
for most of the second half of the last century, Materialism
(in the sense opposed to Vitalism) was dominant in all
the scientific schools. "Things were not pleasant," says
Driesch,2 " for the few who, when materialism was at its
zenith, guarded the tradition of the old, i.e. of the vitahstic
biology. People would have preferred to have locked them
up in mad-houses, had not ' senility ' ' excused ' them up
to a certain point."
The above sentence might be looked upon, by those
unacquainted with the scientific literature of the period in
question, as being an exaggeration. That such is not the
case, those who lived during the period and followed its
discussions are very well aware.
That a change has come over the face of the scientific
world no one now doubts. To-day it is the anti-vitalists,
to whom, were it not ignoble to do so, the heartless taunt
of senility which found a place on their lips might be
retorted ; it is they who are in the minority. The argu
ments and facts which have led to this change of opinion
will have to be discussed, in some detail : but before we
attack them it will be well to cite some quotations showing
the attitude of mind of scientific teachers on both sides of
the controversy.
Tyndall :3 " The whole world, living and not-living, is
1 " History of Vitalism," pp. 137-8. • Ibid., p. 140.
» " Belfast Address," 1874. w

THE BODY A MACHINE 277
the result of the mutual interaction, according to definite
laws, of the forces possessed by the molecules of which the
primitive nebulosity of the universe was composed."
Again -,1 " That the living body is a mechanism ... is
now the expressed or implied fundamental proposition of
the whole of scientific physiology."2
Burdon-Sanderson in 1889 said that " for the future the
word ' vital,' as distinctive of physiological processes, might
be abandoned altogether."
Without piling up further references on this side we may
look at one more statement by Le Dantec, from whom
quotation has already been made.3 Alluding to the possible
fabrication of a living cell in the laboratory, he says : " When
the effective synthesis is obtained, it will have no surprises
in it — and it will be utterly useless. With the new knowledge
acquired by science, the enlightened mind no longer needs
to see the fabrication of protoplasm in order to be
convinced of the absence of all essential difference and
all absolute discontinuity between living and not-living
matter." In the following pages many quotations from exponents
of the other side will find a place : it will not be necessary,
therefore, to quote here more than one or two as a set-off
to those given above.
Von Bunge in 1886 declared that " the mechanical theories
of the present are urging us surely onwards to the vitahstic
theory of the future." This utterance was made when
Materialism was at its zenith. It was beginning to decline
when the next statement to be quoted appeared. This was
1 " Collected Essays," L, 199.
* To this may be added the following note from the author's " What
is Life ? " p. 6 : " There is a curious difference between the phrasing of
the first and second editions of this article which very clearly shows how
definite the late professor's views were on this point, and how rigidly he
excluded any such thing as a vital force from his philosophy. In the first
edition he wrote ' our volition counts for something as a condition of the
course of events.' But, in a later edition, fearing evidently lest he might
have seemed to have bowed down in the House of Rimmon, he altered
this so that it reads ' or, to speak more accurately, the physical state
of which our volition is the expression.' And here he shows himself
to have been a whole-hearted adherent of the most rigidly mechanical
school." » Op. cit., p. 250.

278 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
by Haldane :x "In a living organism a specific influence
is at work, which so controls all the movements of the
body and of the material entering or leaving it, that the
structure peculiar to the organism is developed and main
tained." And again : " To any physiologist who candidly
reviews the progress of the last fifty years it must be per
fectly evident that, so far from having advanced towards
a physico-chemical explanation of life, we are in appearance
very much farther from one than we were fifty years ago."
Wilson, not merely the leading American authority in
his own special field, but perhaps the most eminent living
cytologist in the world, has said :2 " The study of the cell
has on the whole seemed to widen rather than to narrow
the enormous gap that separates even the lowest forms of
life from the inorganic world."
In this connection it is somewhat remarkable that up to
quite recently — some might even claim up to now — the
leading supporters of vitalism have been met with rather
in America and in Germany than in England. No doubt
this is due to the fact that in the last-named country the
interests of biologists, under the Darwinian stimulus, have
largely been turned in the direction of what Driesch calls
" the phantasy christened Phytogeny. "3 In the other
countries mentioned matters relating to the life-histories
of living things, ontogenetical problems, to use the technical
term, have been more to the front.
If we are to deal with the subject without undue
periphrase we must give some name to the " something "
which we have been discussing. I fully admit that " vital
principle " is not an ideal term, though it is better than
" vital force," since it avoids the technical difficulties
associated with the term " force." Inadequate as it is,
I mean to use this term throughout, since it is understand
able and at least as good as the substitutes which have
been proposed. One author, for example,4 prefers "biotic
1 " Nineteenth Century," 1898, ii., p. 400. The writer is a distinguished
teacher of Physiology at Oxford.
» " The Cell in Development and Inheritance," Macmillan, ed. ii., 1900,
p. 434. * " History of Vitalism," p. 140.
4 Moore, " Recent Advances in Physiology and Bio-Chemistry,"
Arnold, 1906, p. 4.

THE VITAL PRINCIPLE 279
energy " to " vital force," though it is not easy to see how
Greek makes belief in such a something easier than Latin.
Williams talks of " genetic energy " ; Cope of " a growth
or bathmic-force " ; Henslow speaks of it as a " property
of self -adaption," and Eimer as one of " direction." Driesch
goes back to Aristotle and calls it " entelechy," no doubt
an excellent term, though puzzling to the ordinary reader.
Let us adhere to the term " vital principle," and let us be
quite clear what we mean by that term. We mean something
not within the range of mechanics, of chemistry or of physics,
something which makes living substance different from not-
living. Is there such a something ? Is the use of such a
term as vital principle a mere word-explanation, not con
nected with any underlying facts ? Such are the questions
which we have to consider, and in doing so let us remember
what an answer in the negative implies. It implies, as I
have said elsewhere,1 "that all the phenomena exhibited
by living bodies, including the poetry of Shakespeare and
Wordsworth, the profound reasonings of Aristotle or Sir
Isaac Newton, the generous instincts of a Fry or a Howard,
these and all other minor manifestations of life are explicable
and may, therefore, some day be explained in terms of
chemical equations and physical experiments. It seems a
hard saying, and one thing is clear, namely, that if this is
true, there is an end to biology as a science, an end also to
psychology, an end to all branches of science dealing with
living things, since all these must resolve themselves into
branches of the two only sciences of chemistry and physics."
Bearing these points in mind we may now turn to a
consideration of the evidence offered in favour of vitalism.
And we may commence this consideration by reviewing
the characteristics of the simplest living object, the single
cell. We must endeavour to ascertain whether the processes
which we observe in it are explicable on purely chemico-
physical lines, and we can then proceed to a wider study
of the field of life and its manifestations.
1 " What is Life ? " p. 8.

CHAPTER XXVI
THE CELL— ITS CHARACTERISTICS
SINCE a cell or a congeries of cells constitutes all
living things, it will be well to begin with a cell in
our attempt to ascertain whether living things are machines
or something quite different from machines. In discussing
this and other biological matters my effort will be to write
as simply and untechnically as possible, so as to be com
prehended by the general reader. Others, if this book
should secure such, must pardon the crudities which must
necessarily attach themselves to this kind of exposition.1
A cell then is a mass of protoplasm — sometimes con
tained within a bag or sac, which is then called its wall,
sometimes not. It is generally provided with a specialised
portion called a nucleus. It may -have vacuoles and also
organs called centrosomes and other contents, as to which
nothing more need be said. Whatever else there may be,
the essential feature of- the cell is its protoplasm, whether
differentiated or undifferentiated. This substance, which
Huxley quite correctly spoke of as the physical basis of
life, consists of comparatively few chemical substances —
carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulphur and traces of
some other elements. We only know it chemically in the
dead state, and there is no certainty that we can speak of
1 Those who desire to pursue further studies in connection with the
subject of this and the immediately succeeding chapters may be referred
to the following works : —
" The Cell in Development and Inheritance," by E. B. Wilson. New
York, MacmiUan ; the best book on the subject, but highly technical in
character. " The Science and Philosophy of the Organism," by Driesch.
Gifford Lectures, 1907, 1908, Black, London. " The History and Theory
of Vitalism," and " The Problem of Individuality," MacmiUan, London,
1914. " Mechanism, Life, and Personality," by Haldane. London, Murray,
1913. " L'Enigma della Vita ei Nuovi Orizzonti della Biologia," by
Gemelli. Firenze, Libreria Editrice Fiorentina, 1914. " What is Life ? "
by Windle. London, Sands & Co., 1908. On the anti-Vitalistic side
the following may be read : " The Nature and Origin of Life," Le Dantec.
London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1907. " Mechanism of Life," Leduc.
London, Rebman, 1911. " The Evolution of Life," Bastian. London,
Methuen, 1907, 280

PROTOPLASM 281
it as a chemical compound with a definite molecule and
formula. If it has these they must be of quite extraordinary
complexity ; indeed Wallace1 said of it : " Protoplasm is
so complex chemically as to defy exact analysis, being an
elaborate structure of atoms built up into a molecule in
which each atom must occupy its true place, hke every
carved stone in a Gothic cathedral." Pfliiger, a very dis
tinguished physiologist, also claims that living protoplasm
is a huge molecule, undergoing constant, never-ending
formation and decomposition. He further suggests that it
may quite probably behave towards the ordinary chemical
molecules as the sun behaves towards small meteors.
Where the cell has a wall the cell-protoplasm or
cytoplasm is enclosed within it : where it has not, it exists
as a naked viscid drop, visible under the microscope.
In the substance of the cytoplasm is the nucleus. Like
the cell thisis sometimes naked, sometimes enclosed within
a sac, forming a sort of bag within a bag. Within the
nucleus there is a specialised form of protoplasm, arranged
in a kind of skein-like thread, which is known as chromatin,
from the property which it possesses of staining deeply
with certain chemical substances. Some have looked upon
this as the most important and significant substance con
tained in the cell and have claimed for it the function of
carrying the cell's hereditary characteristics. T. H. Morgan
has brought forward exceedingly powerful arguments to
prove that the chromosomes are in any case the bearers
of the characters which are heritable on Mendelian lines,
though he thinks that there are other heritable characters
which may be borne by the cytoplasm or cell-substance
and not by the chromosomes. He further thinks that
the position of the Mendelian factors can actually be
located in the chromosomes.2 Certainly the chromatin
skein becomes broken up and distributed whenever a
cell divides — a process which is constantly occurring
during the development of the individual from the con
dition of an ovum to that of a fully developed speci-
1 " Man's Place in the Universe," Chapman & Hall, 1904, p. 199.
a On this and other points connected with inheritance see Morgan and
others, "The Mechanism of Mendelian Heredity," London, Constable,
1915; and Morgart, "A Critique of the Theory of Evolution," London,
Milford, 1 91 6,

282 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
men of its race, as well as during its subsequent history
until death brings matters to a close.
To sum up : in a typical cell we find, firstly, an enclosing
cell-wall. Within this there is a mass of viscid protoplasm,
called the cytoplasm. Floating in this cytoplasm is the
nucleus contained within its nuclear wall. And, finally,
within the nucleus are the skeins of chromatin, together
with a protoplasmic basis, like the cytoplasm of the outer
part of the cell but called linin. Time was when the cell
was regarded as a very uncomplicated structure, in fact
the term " the simple cell " was one quite commonly met
with in text-books ; but this grossly misrepresented the
facts. The result of the close and unintermitting study of
cytology — the science of the cell — for the past forty or fifty
years has been to show that the character of that " simple "
structure is complicated beyond description. Someone has
said that if we can imagine a " Dreadnought " filled with
machinery of the delicacy of that found in an ordinary
watch, we shall have some idea of the multiple energies
contained within each of the millions of millions of cells
which make up the human body and all other hving things,
vegetable or animal.
Whether this living thing is unicellular or multicellular —
of the size of an elephant or only visible under the micro
scope — it presents certain characteristics not noticeable in
non-living matter which must now be described. It will
be convenient for our purposes to study them in the simplest
possible form, namely, the Amoeba — a minute water creature
about one-hundredth of an inch in diameter, a single living
cell of the type already described. Let us study this tiny
being under the microscope and observe its peculiarities.
First of all we notice that it moves about. It pushes out
a kind of promontory formed of its own substance and then
pulls the rest of the cell of which it consists to join that
promontory ; and thus it slowly moves from place to place.
The form of motion is slug-like, though it is the motion of a
single cell and not of a vast congeries of cells like the slug.
Another curious thing which may be noted about its motion
is that it takes place against the stream if the Amoeba
should find itself in non-stagnant water. If whilst watching

THE AMCEBA 283
the creature under the microscope we set up a current in
the water, the Amoeba will move in the opposite direction
to the current : perhaps it has this habit or instinct or
whatever we may choose to call it in order to permit it to
maintain its position in running water and not to be washed
away by it. Apart from this motion from place to place,
the Amoeba exhibits another form of motion : for if we
examine it carefully we shall find that the protoplasm in
its interior is in a constant state of flow. As an able writer
has said, the granules in the protoplasm " stream constantly
forwards along the central axis of each process as it forms,
and backwards within the clear layer all round, like a
fountain playing in a bell-jar."1
It may be remembered that the power of motion has
been regarded as the salient feature of living things and
taken as the best definition of life.2
In the second place we may notice that we can make
the Amoeba move : if we touch it with the point of a fine
needle, for example, it will contract itself and draw in any
processes which it may have thrown out. This function
is called " irritability " and it is one of the most remarkable
which living matter possesses. When this function of
irritability comes into play, some of the internal energy of
the Amoeba is transformed from the potential to the
kinetic state ; this is done in " response to an action of
itself inadequate to produce it and has been compared not
inaptly to the discharge of a cannon, where foot-tons of
energy are liberated in consequence of the pull of a few
inch-grains on the trigger ; or to an indefinitely small push
which makes electric contact : the energy set free is that
which was stored up in the charge."1
In the third place we can watch the Amoeba feed itself.
* Hartog, " Protozoa," Camb. Univ. Press.
* See p. 272. St. Thomas Aquinas (" Summa Theologia la," 9, r, art. 1)
says : " Ilia proprie sunt viventia quae seipsa secundum aliquam speciem
motus movent." And again (" ST. ia," 9, 18, art. 2c) : " Ens vivum
est substantia cui convenit secundum suam naturam movere seipsam."
In considering these statements one must be careful to bear in mind that
the term motus or motion is used in the scholastic sense and not in that
of everyday usage. On this see " What is Life ? " pp. 29, 30, and for a
full discussion of the whole question, " La Definition Philosophique de
la Vie," by Cardinal Mercier, published at Louvain in 1898.

284 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
Should it come in contact with any particle of suitable
food in the water in which it fives, the Amoeba slowly sur
rounds it and takes it into the interior of its single-celled
body. There we are only conscious of the gradual disap
pearance of the particle of food. We cannot follow this
process under the microscope, for it is of a chemical char
acter. But we know that the food is split up into its com
ponent parts ; it is transformed and all or part is assimilated
so as to form part and parcel of the Amoeba body and to
make up for the natural wear and tear which takes place in
it. Such parts of the food as are not required are cast
out of the body as refuse.
In these processes two classes of constructions or recon
structions take place. There are " anabolic " processes
during which energy is absorbed and by means of which
more stable and less complex substances are built up into
less stable and more complicated. On the other hand,
there are " catabolic " processes, of a directly opposite
character, in which these unstable complicated substances
are broken up into stabler and simpler forms. This process
is accompanied by the giving out of energy. We may com
pare the manufacture of an explosive to the anabolic pro
cess. Energy is stored up : the explosion is the catabolic
process which leaves behind it what we may call inert
chemical compounds.
The prime object of these processes is the carrying on
of the life of the body ; but they are accompanied, in what
we think to be a wholly secondary degree, by the formation
of by-products. Some of these — e.g. the bile formed by
the liver — have their own proper and indeed necessary
function in the animal. As to others — as for example musk
in the animal which produces it — it is hard to say whether
they are of any real use to the producer. They may be,
but it is possible that they may be of the nature of excre
tions. Closely associated with these assimilatory processes
are those of respiration. In a sense we may look upon the
breathmg of air as a form of feeding, for no living thing
can get on without a proper supply of air. We cannot see
the Amoeba breathe ; but of course it absorbs oxygen
from the water around as do all other water creatures.

DEATH 285
and no doubt also discharges its carbonic acid into the same
medium. In the fourth place, if we are fortunate, we may observe
the Amoeba multiply its race by division. Omitting the
remarkable occurrences in connection with the chromatin
which accompany this process, we may briefly say that the
single cell divides into two, so that where there was previously
but one Amoeba there now are two. Of these it may be
remarked that it is quite impossible to call one the mother
and one the child or even to speak of them as belonging to
two generations. There are two Amoebae where there was
only one. That is all that we can say.
In the fifth and last place the Amoeba can die. Seeing
that each Amoeba renews its youth, so to speak, by dividing,
or can do so under favourable conditions, there seems no
impossibility in supposing that a given portion of proto
plasm forming an Amoeba might be actually immortal-
using that word in its common significance.
But there is no question that we can kill an Amoeba by
poisoning its water, or by electrocuting it, or by depriving
it of water for a sufficient period of time. Now a remarkable
thing happens. Whilst the Amoeba was alive it was the
master, and the chemical substances with which it dealt,
notably oxygen, were its servants. Now the conditions
are reversed, for the servants begin to prey upon their
former master until it is destroyed. " This change is associ
ated with changes in the mechanical and optical pro
perties of the protoplasm, which loses its viscidity and be
comes opaque, having undergone a process of rfe-solution ;
for the water it contained is now held only mechanically in
the interstices of a network, or in cavities of a honeycomb,
while the solid forming the residuum has a refractive index
of a little over r6. Therefore, it only regains its full trans
parency when the water is replaced by a liquid of high
refractive index, such as an essential oil or phenol. A similar
change may be effected by pouring white of egg into boiling
water or absolute alcohol, and is attended with the same
optical results."1
Such then are the chief characteristics of the Amoeba,
1 Hartog, ut supra.

286 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
and such also are the characteristics of all living things, be
they vegetable or animal. We can recognise all of them in
ourselves and in all other hving things, with the necessary
modifications and differences.
Can we recognise them in not-living matter ? As to
motion : certainly not-living matter has no motion of
transference in itself. It must be moved by something,
whether that something be the force of gravity or a kick by
a boy's foot. According to physicists there is a constant
motion going on inside the atom ; but that form of motion,
it must be remembered, must be taking place within all
the atoms which make up the chemical substances of which
the living tissue consists. It is quite a different kind of
motion from that which is exhibited by these chemical
substances under the guise of flowing protoplasm. Its
motion is limited to the interior of the atom and has no
external effects, nor can we by all our experiments liberate
this energy, or cause it to act outside the narrow confines
within which it exists. Hence we may conclude that motion
distinguishes living from not-living matter.
The same statement can be made as to irritability. We
know very well that we can tickle a stone all day without
producing any effect upon it. We can move it of course
by exerting force, but that is not the making a thing move
by itself. But here we come up against an argument used
by the anti-vitalistic school. Writers like Le Dantec claim
that the phenomena of irritability are really referable to
what he calls tactisms. After discussing certain movements
in connection with the reproductive cells of a fern, he de
clares that " the irritability peculiar to this cell species can
be thus reduced to a sum of perfectly well-defined tactisms,"
and proceeds, " after this nothing remains of the pretended
spontaneity of movement in living bodies. An observer
conversant with the results of all these experiments in
tactisms knows that the movements he observes in living
bodies through the microscope are due to the colloid and
chemical reactions of the mobile beings and the medium."1
Any person who takes the trouble to read Le Dantec's book
and to consider the evidence which he brings forward for
1 Op. cit., p. 163. Italics as in original.

Tactisms 287
this very sweeping statement will, we think, be inclined to
agree with us that forcefulness of assertion does duty for
cogency of evidence.
Let us take one example of a tactism and see how it
works out. The assertion is that there is no such thing as
spontaneity of movement in Hving things. It is all due to
a chemical reaction transmuted into a tactism. It is a
chemical reaction then which causes a mouse to fly from a
cat : it is a chemical reaction which causes me to desire to
sit down by the side of one person and to shun another like
the pestilence. Once stated in this way, common sense
teaches us that the theory is untenable ; but we can go a
little further. It is one of the essential features of a chemical
operation that it must always act in the same way : add
the same reagents and you get the same result : repetition
and age cannot alter this fact. If it is a chemical reaction
which causes a bird or a wild animal to. fly from the face
of man, that reaction must occur at the very first time when
the reagents are brought into contact ; yet we know very
well that this is not so. For example, there is the well-
authenticated case of the walruses in the South Sea Islands,1
visited by German explorers in 1799. " On the arrival of
the expedition, the animals were perfectly tame and fear
less ; but advantage was taken of this to hunt them down
and secure their flesh' as meat for the European visitors,
and by the end of the winter the animals were already difficult
to approach. The following^vinter, when another exploring
party arrived in those parts, the walrus fled whenever it
perceived a human form in the distance ; it had grown to
recognise man as its enemy, and took refuge in instinctive
flight." This and a number of similar cases which might
be cited dispose altogether of the tactisms theory, which,
it may be added, never really estabhshed itself even
amongst materialistic writers.
As regards assimilation, the question of the formation of
crystals has sometimes been urged as a form of feeding and
growth ; and there is this superficial resemblance, that
undoubtedly a small crystal can take up fresh supphes of
1 See Chatterton Hill, " Heredity and Selection in Sociology." Black,
London, 1907, p. 74.

288 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
the chemical substance of which it is composed and in this
manner add to its size.
But, to begin with, the crystal can only take up a chemical
substance identical with itself and can only take up that
substance unchanged and add it to itself superficially and
not interstitially. The Amoeba and all other living things
take up many different substances as food. It may be said
that the living thing practically never adds such substances
unohanged to its own body, but breaks them up and, having
transformed them into something assimilable, adds them
interstitially and not superficially to its substance. There
are other arguments ; but enough has been said to show
that the crystallisation parallel completely breaks down
when carefully examined.
The not-living substance cannot reproduce itself, nor can
it in any proper sense of the word be said to die. It might
be' urged that iron rusts when exposed to damp, and that
in that case the oxygen became its master as it did that of
the dead Amoeba. No doubt ; but the difference is this.
So long as it is ahve the Amoeba can protect itself against
the oxygen and be its master. Once it has emerged from the
state of ore the iron cannot, unless man, who has extracted
it from its ore, protects it, it will commence at once to succumb
to the action of the atmosphere. It is never self -protective,
as the Amoeba and other living things are, so long as they
are ahve. Is there then no difference between dead and
living matter ? What is it that departs from the Amoeba
and enables oxygen to take its revenge on its former master ?
It must surely be something. That something, according
to the Vitahst, is the vital principle, the entelechy or what
you will ; and in the case of man the immortal soul, which
for a time has had its dwelling in the collection of cells
which we call the human body.
It does not seem that the consideration of the funda
mental activities of living matter, when compared with
what we know of not-living matter, affords much confirma
tion of the chemico-physical or " machine " character of
life. The statement may be reiterated that no one doubts
that at least most of the activities of living matter require
chemical, physical, mechanical explanations of a secondary

THE VITAL PRINCIPLE 289
character. No one doubts this. What is urged is that
these explanations are not a full explanation ; that there
are facts left over which cannot be explained by them ;
that there is a something else unaccounted for by them
which must be taken into consideration. The further
arguments in connection with this will occupy the next
chapters. Here we only add a statement from one of the
most recent writers on this subject.1 The concept of this
"something " — a vital principle — is, he says, " forced upon
us mainly because of the failure of mechanistic hypotheses
of the organism. If our physical analysis of the behaviour
of the developing embryo, or the evolving race or stock, or
the activities of the organism in the midst of an ever-changing
environment, of even the reactions of the functioning gland,
fail, then we seem to be forced to postulate an elemental
agency in nature manifesting itself in the phenomena of the
organism, but not in those of inorganic nature. This
argument per ignorantiam possesses httle force to many
minds : it makes little appeal to the thinker, the critic, or
the general reader, but it is almost impossible to over
estimate the appeal which it makes to the investigator as
his experience of the phenomena of the organism increases,
and as he feels more and more the difficulty of describing
in terms of the concepts of physics the activities of the
living animal."
1 Johnstone, " The Philosophy of Biology," Camb. Univ. Press, 1914
p. 318.

CHAPTER XXVII
VITALISM— I
IN the previous chapter attention was called to the fact
that the processes of chemistry and physics are rigid
and definite. Given a certain combination of reagents or
of factors, and certain results may be looked for with perfect
assurance : interfere seriously with these factors or their
co-operation, and the whole process will collapse. So with
a machine : it will do one thing or possibly two or three
things, but it will do them only in one way ; and if you
so interfere with it that it cannot do its work in its own
way it will not do it at all. We must bear these points in
mind when we are considering the statement that hving
things are machines and that, if we understood them suffi
ciently, we could write down all their activities in chemical
or physical formulae.
Let us look at this proposition from two or three points
of view, and first from that of reproduction. With certain
exceptions with which we need not at present concern our
selves, multicellular hving things reproduce themselves by
the union of two cells of opposite sexes, which unite to
form a single cell. The mouse and the elephant, and much
smaller things than the mouse, originally consisted of a
single cell ; and these cells were very slightly different in
size, and could with difficulty, if at all, have been distin
guished from one another even by the most expert micro-
scopists. How is it that out of this single cell so great a
thing as an elephant emerges ? And what is it which makes
one cell become an elephant and another closely resembhng
— almost indistinguishable from — it become a mouse ?
These questions have long been asked by science, and to
the first of them — the " how " — we can return a very com-
290

DEVELOPMENT OF THE EMBRYO 291
plete reply. To answer the question " why " is always
infinitely more difficult, and in the case which we have put
has so far proved to be impossible. Some day or another
someone may solve the riddle of heredity, but that day has
not yet arrived, nor are there any definite signs of its speedy
arrival. Before passing to the consideration of the further
events in the life-history of this single cell, formed by con
tributions from two parents, let us consider for a mo ment
the process of its construction, one of the greatest marvels
in nature — not so regarded because, like other marvels, it
is of daily occurrence and so loses its significance. For
here is a process poles apart from any of the operations of
inorganic things. Sir William Tilden, f.r.s., one of the
most distinguished chemists of the day (fn. " Chemical Dis
covery and Invention in the Twentieth Century," London
Routledge, 1917) says on this point : " Consider the
propagation of the animal races by the sexual process, and
there can be no fear of contradiction in the statement that
in the whole range of physical and chemical phenomena
there is no ground for even a suggestion of an explanation."
To return to our subject, the future individual, then,
begins as a single cell which develops into a cell-congeries
consisting of millions upon millions of cells. In a very
rough and generalised fashion this is how it occurs. After
a series of internal convulsions primarily concerned with
the chromatin, the single cell divides into two : each of
these again divides so as to form four ; these again, eight ;
then sixteen, thirty-two, and so on ; in every instance the
division of the cell being preluded by the internal con
vulsions already- alluded to.
The result of this is the formation of a more or less spheri
cal mass of cells adhering one to another. The whole thing
somewhat resembles a mulberry ; and for that reason the
embryo at this stage, when complete, is called a " morula,"
that being the Latin word for the fruit named. A further
series of processes leads to this solid mass becoming hollow :
it then consists of a kind of bag formed of cells adhering to
one another — something like a raspberry with the central
and uneatable part pulled out : the embryo is now called
a " blastula." We need not follow the process of develop-

292 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
ment further ; indeed it would be hopeless to attempt such
a task here. This, however, may be pointed out — that, up
to the time of which we have been speaking, the cells of
which the embryo consists are all indistinguishable or almost
indistinguishable from one another under the microscope.
This condition of uniformity comes to an end later and the
adult condition reveals to us cells of the most different
character, many of them distinguishable not only from
others but easily nameable as what they are, even by a
comparative tyro. Thus there are skin-cells, brain-cells,
liver-cells and so on ; all different from one another yet all
dating back to and deriving their existence from the single
original microscopic cell.
Before going further let us consider how what we have
just learnt bears upon the machine theory. Here we have
a huge machine — the elephant — capable of making other
machines like to itself. This alone seems a very wonderful
kind of machine ; for, let us observe, it not only makes the
" parts," which would not be so wonderful a thing, but it
also " assembles " them, to use the technical term. This is
a feat at present unaccomplished by any complicated
machine if indeed by any machine. But, further, the
machine not only makes and assembles the parts, but it
actually carries on the two processes simultaneously, and
finally creates vast complexity out of original simplicity.
Of course it may be argued that the original simplicity is
apparent, not real, and this no doubt is to some extent true.
But the original cell is comparatively simple when one
compares it with the adult fabric and its vast congeries of
cells, each of them resembling in simplicity or complexity
that from which they have all sprung.
We may look at the matter from another angle. If we
could imagine a machine capable of making another machine
just hke itself, we should be imagining a very wonderful
piece of mechanism, the like of which has never yet been
made by man. A chisel is a simple enough tool, but one
chisel cannot make another without the aid of man's hands
and man's wits. If the cell only went on making other
cells hke itself, as the Amoeba does, it would be wonderful
enough, and far enough removed from anything that chem-

THE AMPHIOXUS 293
istry and physics can show us : but there might be some
who would be prepared to admit that a machine which
could do this kind of thing was at least conceivable. But
observe what the original cell — which for the moment we
will look upon as a machine— actually does. It makes
whole myriads of things of different kinds, all doing different
kinds of work. It makes muscle-cells, liver-cells, nerve-
cells, just as our original machine might be expected to
turn out from its own simplicity, locomotive engines, filter
ing implements of great delicacy, and wireless telegraphic
machines. To most persons the machine theory, when looked
at from this point of view, seems a wild phantasm of a dis
ordered brain. I at once hasten to admit that the crude
comparison of ordinary machinery hardly deals fairly with
the delicate processes of chemistry which are invoked
by the materialists. I admit this at once, and only use the
example because it is likely to bring the point home to those
without scientific training.
Chemists and physicists, as we shall see later on, are the
first to insist that they neither know of nor can imagine
any processes in their branches of science which can imitate
or even explain the events with which we have been dealing.
It will be noted that it is usually biologists who talk in a
glib way about chemistry and physics explaining these
things. Yet, after all, it is to the chemists and physicists
that we should go if we want information about chemistry
and physics.
However, we can go a stage further. It will at any rate
be granted that the machine can only do its work in its
own way, and that if it is thwarted in doing it in that way
it will not do it at all. It cannot be imagined that it will
evade the difficulty of doing its piece of work by discovering
some method never known to have been employed by any
previous machine. Similarly with the chemical or physical
experiment : • it occurs in one way and in no other, and if
it cannot occur in that way then it does not occur at all.
How does this apply to the processes we have just been
dealing with ? It is possible for man to interfere, and to
call upon the developing cell to try to achieve its end by
methods never previously attempted — of that we may feel

294 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
pretty clear — by any other cell from the beginning of the
history of life upon this world.
For example, there is a little fish-like creature called the
Amphioxus or Lancelot, which exists in salt or brackish
water near the coast in certain places. It develops from a
single cell and on the lines mentioned above. Ordinarily,
of course, one Amphioxus comes from one cell, the original
cell. But let the experimenter take this cell and watch it
until it has by four processes of division become sixteen
cells. It is now well on the way to be a morula — in fact it
is a small morula and if it is allowed to go on it will become
a blastula and finally an Amphioxus. But the experimenter
intervenes ; placing the sixteen-celled individual in a test-
tube with some water, he shakes it violently until the sixteen
cells fall apart. The ordinary man seeing or hearing of
this experiment will undoubtedly say, " Well, there's an
end of that potential Amphioxus ; for if anything could
kill it, that would ! " What are the actual facts ? Each
one of these sixteen cells sets to work to divide, and in the
end produces an Amphioxus : so that the net result of the
experiment is that where normally only one Amphioxus
would have been produced, actually sixteen, supposing
everything to go well with each cell, will have come into
existence. Now here is a well-established fact which can only be
accounted for in one of two ways. Either the cell is pro
vided with machinery whereby it can adapt itself to the
conditions indicated, or it has powers which no not-living
machine can have — powers that is of adapting itself to
absolutely new circumstances. In point of fact, these two
contentions or alternatives are one. The something with
which the cell is provided is the vital principle which enables
it to achieve its end by means previously unknown to cells.
For of the purely mechanical explanation, if indeed anyone
were bold enough to put it forward in connection with this
matter, this may be said. If the machine is so constructed
that when broken it is capable of becoming as many machines
as the pieces into which it was broken, this would be won
derful beyond all belief. But the machine must have been
thus constructed without any sufficient reason, for the sort

THE FROG'S EGG 295
of breakage is not one which could ever have been supposed
to be a likely accident. We can understand machines being
made to lubricate themselves, because all machinery must
be lubricated ; but machines which can re-make themselves
from their own parts and multiply themselves in the process
are unthinkable.
Another experiment of the same category may now be
described. The egg of the frog, with which almost every
body must be familiar, goes through the stages above
recounted, beginning with the single cell. Every step in
the course of this development has been so fully studied of
late years that it is as well known as the streets of his beat
are to a policeman or a postman. Experimenters have inter
fered with this process in all sorts of ways : for example,
they have prevented the egg from developing in its ordinary
spherical manner by causing it to carry on its processes
between two sheets of glass, thus giving itself plane instead
of curved surfaces. They have interfered with it in a number
of other ways-, for an account of which readers must be
referred to one of the text-books on the subject. But the
unbeaten cell attains its end in spite of the experimenters,
unless indeed conditions are made so hard for it that it dies.
" ' One is sometimes tempted to conclude,' was recently
remarked by a well-known embryologist, ' that every egg
is a law unto itself.' The jest perhaps embodies more of
the truth than its author would seriously have maintained,
expressing as it does a growing appreciation of the intricacy
of cell-phenomena, the difficulty of formulating their general
aspects in simple terms, and the inadequacy of some of the
working hypotheses that have been our guides." These
words were written by the leading authority on the cell
and its development1 in the last month of the last century,
and certainly nothing has occurred in the present century
to cause him to alter his opinion : rather has fresh evidence
accumulated in favour of the position which he then took up.
It is hardly going beyond the facts to say that every egg
is a law unto itself. Certainly every egg has the power of
reaching an identical end by more than one path. This
cannot, as we have seen, be achieved by any machine, nor
1 Professor Wilson of Columbia University.

296 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
is it known in connection with any chemical or physical
experiment. It points quite clearly to a fundamental
difference between living and not-living matter ; and, one
may say, is a complete confutation of the opinions expressed
by Le Dantec and others of the materialistic school. Such
writers rely very much upon the behaviour of chemical
compounds known as colloids. No doubt the behaviour of
these compounds is remarkable, but chemists of the first
eminence refuse to credit the idea that colloids in any way
explain the phenomena with which we are now concerned.
In 19 13 there was an important discussion on this matter
at a meeting of the British Association, at which great
claims in this direction were made for colloids. Professor
Armstrong, a chemist of the first order, laughed at this
claim, and stated that " the dominant note of the com
munication had been the blessed word ' colloid,' and like
other blessed words the term ' colloid ' was used to obscure
and wrap up ignorance." In the same debate the President
of the Physiological Section concurred with Professor
Armstrong and said that " there was a tendency to make
too much of colloids in connection with life. Nor has
opinion on this matter in any way suffered an alteration
in the few years which have passed since the discus
sion alluded to. Sir William Tilden says: "Protoplasm
cannot be thought of merely as a solution of mixed colloids
and saline electrolytes. The Amoeba, if merely a drop of
colloid solution, would, like a drop of any jelly, gradually
melt away into the surrounding water by the operation of
ordinary liquid diffusion. The Amoeba has extensibility
and retractility, and therefore cannot be an ordinary solu
tion." And he concludes his argument by stating that
" those who accept the purely materialistic doctrine as to the
origin of life have before them the necessity of establishing
a vast number of facts, before such doctrine can be made
generally acceptable to the scientific world."
Further, Leduc has tried to show that his chemical com
pounds offer some similarity to the processes of growth
and development in living things, but they have no more
real bearing on the question than the toy known as
"Pharaoh's serpent,"

CHAPTER XXVIII
VITALISM— II
IN a work which treats of so many subjects as this does,
it is of course impossible to deal in a comprehensive
manner with such a vast question as that of the vitahstic
controversy. All that can be done is to indicate the main
outlines and to refer enquirers for further information to
the books indicated in the footnote to the previous chapter.
The matter, however, must not be left without touching
upon another line of argument in favour of the vitahstic
solution, nor without some attempt to meet the most im
portant objection which has been brought forward against
that solution.
If we scratch our hand, or, to make the matter more
obvious, if we even make a deep wound in it, what happens ?
There is more or less bleeding in accordance with the char
acter and depth o'f the wound. By degrees this ceases and
if no poison has entered the wound, it gradually heals up
with or without a scar. Let us pause for a moment to con
sider whether we can recollect any similar occurrences in
connection with non-living matter. If by some unfortunate
accident we knock a small hole in a gas or water pipe, it
will not fill itself up, even if we stop the flow of water or of
gas. There is no process of regeneration in connection with
the wounds, if we may so call them, of not-living substances.
It is claimed that the living body is a form of machine
capable of mending such lesions. To most people such use
of the word machine is unnatural, but let us go a step
further. There are animals, even vertebrate animals, which possess
much higher capabilities of regeneration than we or most
297

298 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
vertebrates do. It is wonderful enough that a badly broken
bone should be capable of re-knitting its fragments together
so that in the end the limb may be as sound and strong as
ever it was. But we cannot grow again a limb which has
been amputated. The salamander, a vertebrate animal,
can ; and, what is more, can repeat the process apparently
as often as it may be required to do so. It is an interesting
fact that these experiments on regeneration were first con
ducted by two Catholic ecclesiastics. Those on the hydra,
an invertebrate creature, of which more shortly, were made
by the Abb6 Trembley. They were the first experiments
in this fruitful field. Spallanzani, of whom we shall hear
again in connection with the question of spontaneous
generation, was also a Catholic priest. His were the ex
periments on the salamander : he proved that if the tail
were cut off, a new tail would grow, containing vertebrae ;
and further that if the leg or even all four legs were cut
off, the loss would be completely repaired after a brief
interval of time. His most classical experiment is one in
which he, during three summer months, six times removed
all four legs and the tail from the same salamander : the
undaunted creature reconstructed itself on each occasion,
and as rapidly on the sixth as it had on the first. Spallanzani
calculated that, during the three months over which the
experiment extended, this salamander had made for itself
no less than 647 new bones, not to speak of all the muscles,
nerves and arteries which, with the bones in question, made
up the parts which had been amputated. The same experi
menter found that the salamander could regenerate even
its upper and lower jaws if these were removed. Again it
must be pointed out that these remarkable things happened
in a vertebrate. Regeneration is wonderful enough in a
boneless invertebrate, but of course far more wonderful
and incomprehensible in so highly organised a creature as
a vertebrate. To the general reader the facts which have just been
recorded will seem much more remarkable than those which
have next to be submitted to his attention, though in reality
they are not so for reasons which we shall attempt to make
clear before we leave the subject. The experiment in ques-

REGENERATION 299
tion was made by Wolff1 on the eyes of the larvae of the
water-newt or triton, a common inhabitant of pools. The
eyes of this creature are constructed on the same lines as
our own, and they contain like ours a transparent lens,
called " the crystalline lens," immediately behind the central
opening or pupil. It is this lens which is removed in the
operation for cataract, when it has become clouded and
impervious to light. Wolff performed this operation on
the triton and found that it was capable of regenerating the
lens within the space of quite a few weeks. It then became
a matter of the greatest interest, for reasons which will
appear in a moment, to ascertain how this regeneration
took place. In some cases it seemed certain that a tiny
fragment of the old lens had remained, and that the new
lens grew from it. But in other instances it was equally
clear that this was not the case ; and it was then found
that the new lens had been grown from the cells forming
the edge of the iris — that is of the coloured curtain which
surrounds the pupil. This is a reahy astonishing fact.
We have spoken of the blastula stage : this is succeeded
by a stage in which the cells of the embryo are grouped into
three layers called epi-, meso-, and hypo-blast. This is a
very important stage in specialisation, for from each of
these descend certain adult structures of the body. For
example, from the epiblast come the skin and the brain ;
from the mesoblast, muscles and bones ; from the hypo
blast the lining membrane of most of the alimentary canal.
There are other derivatives ; those mentioned are only
selected as examples. Now it would be as easy for an em-
bryologist to imagine that an eagle could emerge from the
egg of a pigeon as to imagine any one of these layers or their
derivatives producing an organ or a tissue normally pro
duced by another. They and their derivatives remain
racially distinct ; and one explanation of cancer is that
epithelial cells escape into mesoblastic tissue, and there
run wild and cause the disastrous results. However, be
that as it may, the crystalline lens is a derivative of the
epiblast, the iris belongs to the mesoblast ; so that in
this process of regeneration we actually have a structure
1 Arch. f. Entwickl. — Mech. d. Organismen, Bd. i., 1895.

300 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
normally epiblastic produced from mesoblast. That is one
of the most wonderful things which has ever been presented
¦(¦ the scientific world in connection with this question.
It is even more wonderful than the case of the salamander,
wonderful though that is, for in the salamander at least
epiblastic structures might grow from epiblastic and meso-
blastic from mesoblastic ; but such was not the case with
the triton's eye.
Now let us crudely translate this into the case of the
machine. Here we shall have to imagine a locomotive
engine, which has lost one of its wheels, growing another
from its own body and, if we are to extend the parallel to
the case of the newt, actually growing a steel wheel from the
glass of which one of its gauges was made. It is clear that
these processes are wholly dissimilar to any processes we are
acquainted with in the case of not-living matter or in the
case of machines : still it is claimed that the living body is
a special kind of machine capable of these regenerative pro
cesses. To my mind Wolff's experiment appears to be quite
conclusive. Here is an animal reconstructing its lens along
lines never before known to be traversed — one may safely
say never traversed. As in the case of the experiment on
the developing egg of the frog, here is a force which gains
its end by treading a path never before trodden. Is it really
possible for anyone to assert that all this is explicable in
terms of the rigid and unvarying laws of chemistry and
physics ?
There is one thing which no vertebrate animal can do
in the way of regeneration : no vertebrate animal, having
been cut into two portions, can reconstruct each of those
portions into a complete new individual. This operation
is a mere commonplace of life amongst invertebrates, as
was first shown by the Abbe" Trembley in the case of the
water-hydra. The common worm is another example ; and
a parasitic worm, called Planaria, will make as many new
planaria as were the fragments into which the original
creature was chopped up. In the language of machinery
the steam engine, which has been divided into fore and aft
portions by some terrible accident, actually reconstructs

CLAVELLINA LEPADIFORMIS 301
itself into two new and perfect engines in place of one. If
such things could happen to engines, accidents of the kind
would be less unpopular with the directors than they are
now !
We can go a stage further in this matter of experiment ;
and, having given the details, we shall then be in a position
to consider what all this means. The Ascidians are sea-
creatures high up in the invertebrate division — iff fact
zoologists place them quite near to vertebrates. We need
not trouble about these phylogenetic problems : it will
be sufficient to note that all zoologists would allow the
Ascidian to be a highly organised invertebrate. Amongst the
Ascidians there is a little creature about an inch in length,
called Clavellina lepadiformis, which has a body consisting
of three portions. The foremost of these is an extraordinarily
large branchial arrangement or gill-basket through which
water passes : behind this are the other two portions, body
and intestine-sac. Now if we cut the branchial portion off
a Clavellina, both the fragments may regenerate themselves
into complete forms, just as in the instances which were
recounted above. But a more remarkable thing may happen :
the piece of branchial basket may undergo a complete
reduction of form ; lose all appearance of organisation ;
become a minute sphere and then, after apparently resting
for a few days, transform itself into a small but complete
Ascidian. Further, we can cut off the branchial apparatus
and having done so we can subdivide that apparatus into
two parts of any shape we choose. Each of those portions
will go through the process just described, and after its
period of rest, will reconstruct itself into a small complete
Ascidian. The branchial part of Clavellina then forms
what Driesch calls by the cumbrous name of " a harmonious-
equipotential system."1
He applies this term to " any ontogenetic totality which
consists of cells with equal prospective potency, i.e. with an
equal possible fate." For example, the blastula of the sea-
urchin is a hollow sphere consisting of perhaps one thousand
1 See his works as indicated in the footnote to a previous chapter
on p. 280. For what follows see " The Problem of Individuality,"
pp. 12 seq.

302 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
cells. Cut this up with a fine pair of scissors in any direction
you choose, each part so divided off, provided that it is
not less than one-quarter of the whole, will develop into a
complete larva of small size. The blastula before its sub
division is an example of what he calls a "harmonious-
equipotential system." So then is the branchial apparatus
of Clavellina ; indeed Driesch claims that it is the " very
type " of such a system, for " every element of it is able
to perform any single morphogenetic action that is required,
and all the elements work together in harmony in each
single case, for the cut may be made quite at random."
Now after the blastula has developed into the three primi
tive layers we no longer have a " harmonious-equipotential
system " as before, unless we look upon each layer in that
light — at least this is the case in higher animals. So Driesch
asks the question : " What makes the equipotential system
unequal with regard to the actual fate of its parts ? What
transforms equal potentialities into equal actualities ? In
other words : the localisation of the various singularities
of morphogenesis is the problem. Whence does this local
isation come ? "
It does not come from without. That we know : for we
know that external agencies such as light and gravity have
no effect on ontogenesis. It is not due to chemical processes
within the organism. " From chemical disintegration or
from unmixing there can only arise equilibria or, so to say,
geometrical arrangement. But an organism is not a geo
metrical arrangement or a complex of such arrangements.
And, further, there are many organs in an organism which
have very different specific forms, though they have the
same chemical composition — as, for example, the bones of
vertebrates. For all this a purely chemical theory of
ontogeny — which otherwise might be compatible with
equipotentiality — cannot account . ' '
Failing these, can any form of the machine theory explain
the circumstances ? The machine might be defined as " a
given specific combination of specific chemical and physical
agents." Is ontogeny the result of the " interaction " of
such agents ? I will continue the argument in Driesch's
words. " If normal undisturbed embryogenesis alone would

HARMONIOUS-EQUIPOTENTIAL SYSTEMS 303
result in the formation of a complete embryo, if in other
words, all the experiments carried out with early embryonic
stages would result in the production of fragments of organ
isation, then we should feel obliged to accept the theory of
machine-like preformation. But this is not the case. On
the contrary, the ontogenetic systems are ' harmonious-
equipotential.' Take whatever portion of them you like,
quite at random,- and yet there will be a completeness of
final organisation." The embryonic "machine," then, that
is supposed to be present in its completeness in one part
of the system, is also in another such part, and in yet
'other such parts, and equally well in parts of different
size, overlapping one another.
Let the reader draw on a scrap of paper a rectangular
figure of moderate size. Let him then draw upon this a
series of other rectangular figures, all included within the
original rectangle and overlapping one another. Now the
outer rectangle is a harmonious-equipotential system in
its normal undisturbed state. It might contain some very
complicated form of " machine " as the foundation of de
velopment. But all the other rectangles which have been
described within it — and their number might be very great
— provided that each is not too small, also contain the power
of developing a complete individual and must contain the
same " machine." But it is surely absurd to suppose that
any fragment of the original " harmonious-equipotential
system " can, nay must, contain the same " machine " as
the whole. " We know that any part of the system, con
tingent as to its size and as to its position in the original
system, can give rise to a complete being. Every cell of the
original system can play every single role in morphogenesis ;
which role it will play is merely ' a function of its position.'
In face of these facts the machine theory becomes an
absurdity. These facts contradict the concept of a machine ;
for a machine is a specific arrangement of parts, and it
does not remain what it was if you remove any portion
from it. Now the machine theory was the only possible
form of a mechanistic theory that might a priori seem to
be applicable to the phenomena of morphogenesis. To
dismiss the machine theory, therefore, is the same as to

304 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
give up the attempt of a mechanical theory of these pheno
mena altogether. Or, in other words, the analytical dis
cussion of the differentiation of harmonious-equipotential
systems entitles us to establish the doctrine of the autonomy
of life, i.e. the doctrine of so-called vitalism, at least in a
limited field : there is some agent at work in morphogenesis
which is not of the type of physico-chemical agents."
The arguments which have been put forward in this
and the preceding chapter with others for which readers
must be referred to larger treatises on the subject, have
convinced many — it would perhaps now scarcely be in
correct to say most — biologists that something exists in
living matter which does not exist in not-living matter,
which something makes it living matter and is altogether
out of the category of chemical and physical phenomena.
It is this " something " which we speak of as the vital
principle. Note to Chapter XXVIII. — I have endeavoured to put
Driesch's vastly important but certainly complicated argument,
as to the " harmonious-equipotential system," as clearly as I can
in his own words and in my paraphrase. For the sake of making
it more obvious to those unfamiliar with philosophical discus
sions it may also be put in this much cruder way :
(i) A certain collection of cells is normally destined for a
certain termination — it is to do a certain piece of work.
(2) But we may divide this collection of cells up into half a
dozen pieces, each of which and all of which will do that piece
of work, so that instead of one piece of work there will be six
pieces of work.
(3) Further, the method of sub-division is quite arbitrary, that
is, we may cut the primary collection up in any sort of way
provided we do not make any piece too small- — the same result
will follow.
(4) It is just conceivable that there might be a machine in the
original collection to effect its purpose.
(5) But we should have to postulate subsidiary machines all
over the collection and even over-lapping machines to explain
what occurs.
(6) This is an inconceivable condition of affairs.

CHAPTER XXIX
VITALISM— III
THE chief objection which is brought against the
yitalistic explanation — most certainly the objection
which presents the greatest difficulties — is that which is
connected with what is called the Law of the Conservation
of Energy : a matter which must be discussed before we
turn to the question of the origin of life.
Energy is a capacity for doing work possessed by bodies
under certain circumstances. For example, the weight of
a clock can do work, because it is drawn towards the earth
by the force of gravitation, though we do not know exactly
what that is. As it is so drawn, it overcomes the friction
between the works of the clock, and the clock " goes."
Or again, if a bullet be fired at a plank it exhibits energy,
though it loses its motion, for it penetrates more or less
deeply into the wood. The former kind of energy is called
potential, the latter kinetic. One may be transmuted into
the other.
Moreover, there are many manifestations of energy, some
of which, by those unfamiliar with physical treatises, might
not be thought to belong to such a category. Light, heat,
sound, rotation, vibration, elastic strain, gravitative separa
tion, electric currents and chemical affinity are enumerated
by Sir Ohver Lodge.1 But whatever may be the differentia
tions of energy the total amount of energy is constant
throughout. For example, if one takes a stone into one's
hand and throws it up into the air, a certain amount of
kinetic energy is transmitted to the stone and exercised by
it in its upward flight. At the summit of its flight there is
an instant, very brief of course, during which it is neither
1 " Life and Matter," p. 21.
x 3°S

306 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
rising nor falling, but is actually at rest. For this brief
instant its energy is potential ; but it becomes kinetic again
as the stone commences to fall. In time it reaches the earth,
and as it lies there inert one might suppose that it had lost
all its energy. Kinetic energy it certainly has not, for it is
at rest. Nor has it potential energy, for it lies, by our
hypothesis, on a flat surface of earth. Yet the impact of
the stone with the earth has caused a certain amount of
heat to be produced. It would be difficult if not impossible
to measure the amount of the heat. No doubt, but everyone
knows that if we hammer a piece of iron on an anvil it will
become hot as the result of the blows which we give. As
the result of the blow which the stone gave to the earth
in falling upon it, heat also is produced ; the energy thus
exhibited is exactly equal to the kinetic energy which the
stone had in falling, and both of them are each equal to the
potential energy which it had at the moment of the zenith
of its flight. Not to multiply examples, " in every case,
without exception, it is found that the sum-total of all the
energy within any given boundary, through which energy
is not allowed to pass, remains constant, although the
energy within the boundary may be transformed into any
of the many forms in which it is capable of existing."1 And
"it follows that if the boundary considered includes the
universe, the principle of the conservation of energy amounts
to a statement that the sum-total of the energy of the
universe is a fixed unalterable quantity." That no doubt
is so ; but in connection with the statement just quoted we
must not forget that the amount of available energy is con
stantly if slowly decreasing. We have just seen that when
the stone fell upon the ground, its kinetic energy was trans
muted into another form, namely, heat. In a very short
time the exceedingly small amount of heat produced will
have diffused itself amongst surrounding objects, so as to
become what we call " lost." And lost it is to this extent,
that it can no more be utilised to do work. When a body is
much hotter than the bodies which surround it, it can be
utilised to do work, but generally diffused heat cannot be
used for this purpose.
1 Watson, " A Text-book of Physics," London, Longmans 1911, p. 8".

DIFFUSION OF HEAT 307
Now in every transformation of energy some of the energy
is converted into heat. For example, in the case of the
clock the friction between parts of the escapement and
between the wheels, etc., causes a certain amount of heat
and so with other operations which will occur to anyone.
Thus " since in every transformation of energy from one
form to another some of the energy becomes converted into
uniformly diffused heat, the total quantity of available
energy of the universe is continually diminishing. This
continual degradation of energy, which accompanies every
phenomenon with which we are acquainted, leads us to two
conclusions : Firstly, since the quantity of unavailable
energy is continually increasing, there must have been a time
when none of the energy of the universe was unavailable, and
before which no phenomenon,such as we are acquainted with,
can have occurred, for every such phenomenon necessarily
involves a degradation of energy. Secondly, there must
necessarily arrive a time when all the energy will be un
available, the whole universe having become a uniformly
hot, inert mass."1 I. admit that what has been stated in
the immediate context is somewhat in the nature of a digres
sion, but it is of such" importance in connection with other
portions of this book that it may be allowed to stand.
We must, however, return from it to the consideration of
the difficulties which this Law causes in the acceptance of
a vitahstic explanation of the riddle of life.
We have seen that energy appears to be indestructible :
some scientific men have even adopted the metaphysical
idea that it is a real thing or substance. Thus2 P. G. Tait,
one of the greatest physicists of the time, wrote : " The
only other known thing in the physical universe, which is
conserved in the same sense as matter is conserved, is energy.
Hence we naturally consider energy as the other objective
reality in the physical universe." If we are to accept the
Law of the Conservation of Energy as rigidly and completely
final, we must admit that a vitahstic explanation of life
does infringe that Law or appears to infringe it. If vital
1 Watson, ut supra, p. 88.
2 In the 9th ed. of the "Encyclopaedia Britannica," sub voce
" Mechanics."

308 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
or psychical influences can modify or direct the course of
physical processes, then such influences, it is argued, must
either increase or diminish the amount of physical energy
in the universe, and in so doing must violate the law with
which we are dealing. It has been urged by some that the
amount of the power which frees the energy under the
vitahstic theory is so small as to be negligible. That it is
small is clear — indeed it has been compared to the spark
which sets free enormous energies in the explosion of a
cannon. " As far as we can judge," writes Balfour Stewart,1
" life is always associated with machinery of a certain kind,
in virtue of which an extremely delicate directive touch is
ultimately magnified into a very considerable transmuta
tion of energy." But this explanation is not really satis
factory for, from the standpoint of the law, it is immaterial
whether it is grossly or almost unobservably transgressed,
in either case it is transgressed. Romanes, in his earlier
days, formulated the difficulty in his Rede Lecture : 2 "If
mind is supposed, on no matter how small a scale, to be a
cause of motion, the fundamental axiom of science is im
pugned. This fundamental axiom is that energy can
neither be created nor destroyed — that just as motion can
produce nothing but motion, so, conversely, motion can be
produced by nothing but motion. Regarded, therefore,
from the standpoint of physical science the theory of
Spiritualism is in precisely the same case as the theory of
Materialism ; that is to say, if the supposed causation takes
place, it can only be supposed to do so by way of miracle."
The reader, for reasons which will shortly appear, will be
careful to note the date of this pronouncement : but similar
statements are made to-day.
Thus Dr. Haldane, a vitalist with a difference, in his
recent book3 says that vitalism " implies a definite breach
in the fundamental law of conservation of energy. As
aheady mentioned," he proceeds, " every experimental in
vestigation has hitherto resulted in a verification of this
law in the case of physiological phenomena. Any ' guid-
1 " On the Conservation of Energy," p. 163.
¦ " Contemporary Review," 1885.
1 " Mechanism, Life, and Personality," p. 27 seq.

LAWS OF NATURE 309
ance ' of hving organisms by the vital principle would imply
a creation or destruction of energy ; and this would be the
case even if the energy created in the living substance were
again destroyed before it could escape to the outside and
so become measurable. The reply that this creation or
destruction of energy may be extremely small is not one
which can satisfy a scientific investigator. A principle
which has been verified again and again under all sorts of
conditions cannot be set aside except on definite experi
mental evidence ; and this is entirely lacking."
In considering this matter one must be careful to bear
in mind what a Law of Nature is. The point has been dealt
with in Chapter XIII, so that readers need only to be
reminded that what is meant by the term is a seemingly
orderly series of occurrences as observed in nature. Now as
they have' been observed by fallible human beings, there is
always the possibility that the observations may have been
inaccurate or incomplete. As they are repeated time after
time, experiments would seem to remove at least the danger
of inaccuracy. Yet we know that the emergence of new
facts does lead to an abandonment of views previously held
to be well — even finally — established, and to the modifica
tion of what had hitherto been taken to be completely and
definitely formulated Laws of Nature.
It was for this reason that attention was directed to the
date of Romanes's utterance ; for the time at which it was
given to the world was one when men of science thought
themselves much more certain of facts than they do now.
"Twenty years ago," writes Dr. McDougall,1 " the scientific
world was oppressed by the sense of the finality of its own
dicta. The indestructibility of matter, the conservation of
energy and of momentum, the eternal sameness of the
chemical atoms, the inevitable extinction of all life on the
earth by loss of heat from the solar system, the never-
ending alternation of evolution and dissolution of material
systems, all these had become ' axioms ' whose rejection
was said to be impossible for any sane mind. It was fell
that little remained for science to do save the working out
of equations to further decimal places. But now all that is
* " Body and Mind," London, Metliuen, igu, p. 2,1$,

310 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
changed,1 the scientific atmosphere is full of the hope of
new insight, the seeming boundaries of physical knowledge
have proved to be spectral creations of the scientific imagina
tion ; there is a delightful uncertainty about even so funda
mental a distinction as that between matter and energy ;
electricity, which was a wave-movement of that collection
of impossible attributes, the ether, is now said to consist of
corpuscles having mass ; and hght itself is in a fair
way to become once more a rain of particles. One even
hears whispered doubts about the law of the conservation
of energy."
It is then conceivable, though no doubt improbable,
that the law in question may turn out to be inaccurate. It
certainly may turn out to be incomplete, even if useful in
its incomplete state ; in support of this statement I may be
allowed to quote from Sir Oliver Lodge :2 " The term
' energy ' itself, as used in a definite sense by the physicist,
rather involves a modern idea and is itself a generalisation.
Things as distinct from each other as light, heat, sound,
rotation, vibration, elastic strain, gravitative separation,
electric currents, and chemical affinity, have all to be
generalised under the same heading [of the Conservation of
Energy] in order to make the law true. Until ' heat ' was
included in the list of energies, the statement could not
be made ; and a short time ago it was sometimes discussed
whether ' life ' should or should not be included in the
category of energy. I should give the answer decidedly No,
but some might be inclined to say Yes ; and this is sufficient
as an example to show that the categories of energy are
not necessarily exhausted ; that new forms may be dis
covered; and that if new forms exist, until they are
discovered, the Law of Conservation of Energy, as now
stated, may in some cases be strictly untrue ; just as it
would be untrue, though partially and usefully true, in the
theory of machines, if heat were unknown or ignored."
Mention has already been made of the fact that the
mechanico-physical explanation of life emanates for the
1 Readers are referred to the Presidential Address of Sir J. J. Thomson
to the British Association, 1909.
* " Life and Matter," p. 21.

CONSERVATION OF ENERGY 311
most part from biologists rather than from chemists and
physicists : this point will be still more clearly estab
lished in a later chapter. Meanwhile it may be well to set
down the following quotation from Dr. McDougall's work
already cited. On page 252 he says : " It is worthy of note,
.in this connection, that the exclusive sway in the organic
world of the principles of physical science is maintained in
a more confident and dogmatic manner by the mechanistic
biologists than by many of the leading physicists who have
enunciated these principles and taught them to the biologists.
It is perhaps worth while to enumerate here a few of these
physicists of the highest standing who, since the establish
ment of the law of conservation of energy, have expressed
or implied the opinion that physical science does not compel
us to believe that the evolution and life-processes of organ
isms are capable of being completely described in mechanical
terms ; such are or were Sir G. Stokes, Lord Kelvin, Maxwell,
P. G. Tait, Balfour Stewart, Sir W. Crookes, Sir O. Lodge,
Sir, J. J. Thomson, Sir J. Larmior, Prof. Poynting."1
There is one important point as to which a very mis
taken attitude is often adopted. Opponents of the vital-
istic explanation are rather inclined to take up the attitude
that it is we, not they, who must prove our position.
Common sense and common observation seem to go to
prove that this is not so. What we see all around us and more
especially in our own selves does make it clear or apparently
clear that what takes place in life is of a different character
altogether from what we see in not-living matter.2 We
may feel perfectly clear from what we know best ourselves
from our intimate and everyday experience — namely, con
scious human life — and from the processes which take place
in living matter, that life or the vital principle does modify
the forces, energies, and movements of matter. Is it not
perfectly obvious that the war-fever, religious revivals,
electoral excitements are all ideas ? Yet all exercise potent
influences over the energies and movements of matter in
1 References to the writings ad hoc of all these authorities are given
by Dr. McDougall, he. cit.
2 Here and elsewhere in this chapter I make use of passages from my
book " What is Life ? " without specific acknowledgement or citation
of page.

312 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
the shape of human beings, not to speak of all the material
activities which they control. What I maintain is that it
is not sufficient for our opponents to say, " The Law of the
Conservation of Energy, which we believe to be complete
and final, contravenes your conclusions." The reply is
that if we can show, as we believe we can show from other
evidence, that in no kind of way can the facts of hfe be
explained on purely chemico-physical lines, then, if the Law
in question contravenes our explanation, that Law must
be, so far at any rate, incomplete or perhaps imperfectly
understood. The onus probandi, as Dr. McDougall points
out, lies with the mechanist, not with the vitalist.
Whilst this is the case, it may be added that various
efforts have been made to explain the vitahstic theory in
terms of the Law in question. None of these are wholly
satisfying, though all of them show angles of the question
approachable perhaps as part of a final explanation. For
example, we are bound to recognise that in all material
activities there are two things to be taken into account.
First, there is the energy which is displayed ; but, secondly,
there is the directive power which, while it does not increase
or diminish the sum of the energy brought into action, does
exercise a very important influence on the sum-total of the
material activity in question. The path through the ocean
of a great liner is not explained merely by the many horse-
powered engines which drive it through the water, but at
least as much by the comparatively small amount of power
exercised by the helm — a power which is propelling the
vessel on its course. We must, therefore, recognise a qualita
tive element in all material operations, and this more especi
ally in all operations where a clear choice of alternatives is
open. In the case of a ship, it is at least conceivable that the
propelling force might be associated with a mechanism
which would keep it on a straight course ; but it is quite
inconceivable that it could be associated with a machine
with the power of deciding in an emergency whether the
ship was to be steered to port or to starboard. In the same
way it is inconceivable that a machine should be able to
decide how tp regenerate a lost part of the body, such as
the crystalline Jens oi the tritpn, In fact, it is not possible.

THE VITAL POWER 3*3
to explain mechanism, if we try to do so through mechanical
conceptions alone. We must recognise a dualism, though
this is precisely what the monistic school so much objects
to, as we shall later on have occasion to remark.
It is quite clear1 that an agent may modify the direction
of a force or moving particle without altering the quantity
of its energy or adding to the work done. That is to say,
it is possible to bring forward an example of a purely
quahtative influence : for a power acting at right angles to
the motion of a body can alter the direction of that body
without increasing or dimimshing the intensity of the
motion. The earth revolves around the sun in its elliptic
because the force of gravity holds it in that course. Suppose
the sun were suddenly to disappear Its attraction at an
end, the earth would rush away at a tangent. The energy
which it displays would not be altered in any way, but the
direction would be wholly changed.
It may be asked whether one can in any way show that
the Will or the Vital Power does act at right angles to the
forces of any material energy of the organism. That, how
ever, is an objection or an enquiry which we may rightly
consider to be unfair. All that we can be asked to do is
to show that there is a method by which an agent can
modify the action of physical energies without altering their
quantity. In the remarks which have just been made we have only
been dealing with the modification of a " force in being " ;
how about the initiation of the force or the initiation of
the change of energetic direction ? The pressure of the
button which completes an electric circuit may produce
prodigious effects, altogether out of proportion to the
power exerted in the preliminary pressure, but power there
must be.2
" It is in meeting this difficulty," says Fr. Maher,3 " that
1 I again quote from "What is Life ? "
B Here we may call to mind Kant's dictum (" Metaphysische Anfangs-
Griinde der Naturwissenschaft," ed. Hartenstein, Vol. IV, m. s. 440) that
"if we seek the cause of any change of matter whatever in life, we shall
have to seek it at once in another substance, distinct from matter, although
bound up with it-"
s " Life a«id tjie Conservation of. Energy in i,he Lower Animals/1

314 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
the Scholastic conception of the relation of Soul and Body
in the theory of Matter and Form is most helpful.1 In that
theory the vital principle is the ' form ' or determining
principle of the living being. Coalescing with the material
or passive factor, it constitutes the living being. It gives
it its specific nature, it unifies the material elements into
one individual. It makes them, it constitutes them, it holds
them a hving being of a certain kind. Biology teaches us
that the living organism is a mass of chemical compounds,
many in very complex and unstable equilibrium. They are,
many of them, tending of themselves to dissolution into
simpler and more stable substances, and when hfe ceases
the process of disintegration sets in with great rapidity. The
function, then, of this active informing principle is of a
unifying, conserving, restraining character, holding back
and sustaining the potential energies of the organism in
their unstable conditions. In this view of the relation of
the vital principle to the material elements of the organism,
it is obvious that the transformation of the potential energy
of the organism may be effected without any form of posi
tive pressure, however small. It will suffice simply to
' let go,' to cease to hold back, and the energies thereby
liberated will tend of themselves to issue from their unstable
conditions. Conceive a sack of potatoes or a bladder of
gas or water. Suppose that sack or bladder endowed with
the power of giving way in particular places. The contents
will at once issue forth into outer space by the force of
gravitation or of their own mutual repulsions. Somewhat
in a similar way the ' Soul,' ' Vital Principle,' or ' Form ' is
holding and preserving the material elements of the organ
ism, not in a particular space, but in certain states and
conditions of unstable equilibrium."
Such considerations as the above are helpful in dealing
with the difficulty which has been under discussion in this
chapter. No one wih claim that the last or even the pen
ultimate word has been said upon this subject. It, however,
once for all may be borne in mind that the onus probandi
lies with the materialists, and that they have singularly
failed to make good their position. For a time they seemed
1 See Chapter IX for the discussion of this question.

VITALISM 315
to prevail ; but the tide has turned and the weight of opinion
is once more on the side of the vitahsts. It is hard to see
how it could be otherwise ; hard to understand how any
person capable of taking and endeavouring to take a really
wide and complete outlook on the world of life and its
operations could imagine that all these innumerable, often
quite unaccountable, always widely varying operations
could possibly be explained in terms of a mathematical or
a chemical formula. That is what it comes to if materialism
is true ; and when thus stated the whole thing becomes a
reductio ad absurdum. If this be so, the difficulty with which
we have been dealing falls with the other solution.

CHAPTER XXX
THE ORIGIN OF LIFE
AS aheady mentioned, in his work on Darwinism,1 the
Ix. late Alfred Russel Wallace points out that there
are three stages in the development of the organic world
when some new cause or power must necessarily have come
into action. " The first stage is the change from inorganic
to organic, when the earliest vegetable cell, or the hving
protoplasm out of which it arose, first appeared. This is
often imputed to a mere increase of complexity of chemical
compounds ; but increase of complexity, with consequent
instabihty, even if we admit that it may have produced
protoplasm as a chemical compound, could certainly not
have produced living protoplasm — protoplasm which has
the power of growth and of reproduction, and of that con
tinuous process of development which has resulted in the
marvellous variety and complex organisation of the whole
vegetable kingdom. There is in all this something quite
beyond and apart from chemical changes, however complex ;
and it has been well said that the first vegetable cell was a
new thing in the world, possessing altogether new powers —
that of attracting and fixing carbon from the carbon-
dioxide of the atmosphere, that of indefinite reproduction,
and, still more marvellous, the power of variation and of
reproducing those variations till endless complications of
structure and varieties of form have been the result. Here,
then, we have indications of a new power at work, which
we may term vitality, since it gives to certain forms of matter
all those characters and properties which constitute Life."
We shall in due course return to two other stages alluded
to by Wallace ; but our present task is to attack the ques-
' Ms-cmillan, London, 1889, p. 474.
3?6

HOW LIFE ORIGINATED 317
tion as to whence this principle of vitality came and how it
originated on the earth. It cannot always have been here.
There was a period, as we have learnt already, when the
heat of this globe was such that nothing living, as we under
stand the term, could have survived upon it for a single
instant. It is, therefore, clear either that life must have
been imported into this planet or it must have originated
there. It has actually been suggested that the germs of life
may have been brought to this earth from some other
planet on a meteorite. This theory seems quite untenable,
having regard to the intense heat which is engendered in
a meteor in its rapid passage through our atmosphere — a
heat which, one would imagine, would certainly kill any
germ of life which it might possibly bear with it. But from
the point of view of this book it does not matter in the least
whether the theory is true or not. What we want to get at
is the origin of life ; and to tell us that it was brought from
another planet is no answer to the questiqn ; it only pushes
the origin a little further off. If I ask the origin of some
strange implement which is shown me in a museum, my
curiosity is in no way satisfied if I am told that it was brought
to this country by a ship.
There are two ways only in which the origin of hfe can
be explained : it originated spontaneously, or it was created
by God.
It is on this account that materialists have made such a
vigorous attempt to prove the truth of spontaneous genera
tion, and to assume its truth where it cannot be proved.
Weismann makes this quite clear when he states " Spon
taneous generation, in spite of all vain efforts to demon
strate it, remains for me a logical necessity."1
1 " Essays," Poulton's Trans., p. 34. Perhaps the present writer may
be permitted to quote, in a foot-note, his own comment on this statement,
published in " Facts and Theories," C.T.S., London, 1912, p. 86 : "A
logical necessity presupposes some sort of syllogistic treatment. Weis-
mann's major premise is perfectly clear : ' There is no such thing as a
Creator.' His minor term is, ' So life was not created ' : and his conclusion,
which follows, it is claimed, from the premises, is ' therefore spontaneous
generation takes place.' Many a false conclusion has followed from false
premises. But what is to be said of the arguments of a man of science
who is capable of putting forward, in effect, a syllogism of this kind where
the major premise begs the whole question at issue ? "

318 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
At the very beginning of this discussion it will be well
for us to bear in mind that no religious dogma is involved
in this question of Spontaneous Generation, though material
istic writers imagine that there is. To judge by their writ
ings, it would be enough to produce the tiniest fragment
of living protoplasm in a test-tube to knock the bottom
not only out of the Catholic Church but out of all revealed
religion. Such a conclusion is due to the dense ignorance
which prevails in the scientific world as to what the Church
teaches, and as to what her most distinguished writers
taught during the palmy days of the Scholastic Philo
sophy.1 Now in the days before the microscope was known every
body held that life did spontaneously generate itself : what
else could they have thought ? Maggots were found to
originate in the carcases of animals left exposed to the air.
Pools swarmed with life. Eels were said to originate in
vinegar. There was then no means of detecting the real
origin of these and many other manifestations of a hke
kind. Hence it was held that life was spontaneously gener
ated. St. Thomas and the Scholastics held this view, but
never for a moment imagined that it conflicted with their
belief in the existence of a Creator. When this argument is
used, the stock reply is that St. Thomas argued against
Avicenna, an Arabian materialist, who upheld the doctrine
of spontaneous generation. This attack is based on ignor
ance of the real meaning of the controversy. Both parties
to it, as a matter of fact, held the doctrine of spontaneous
generation. What Avicenna upheld was the doctrine of
the modern materialists — that spontaneous generation took
place by the powers of nature itself. St. Thomas argued
that it took place no doubt, but by means of powers given
to nature by the Creator for that very purpose. Supposing,
1 It is a most remarkable fact that in Driesch's "History of Vitalism,"
published 1914, the author should leap from Aristotle to Van Helmont with
out mentioning the names of St. Thomas Aquinas or any of the Scholastics.
This cannot arise from the valuelessness of their works, for no person who
was acquainted with the writings of this school on the subject of life
and its nature could regard them as unworthy of criticism. It arises from
pure ignorance, — an ignorance only explicable on the ground of that most
undeserved contempt, which so many modern writers have been taught
to feel and to exhibit towards everyone whose era falls within the period
of the so-called " Dark Ages."

BIOGENESIS OR ABIOGENESIS 319
therefore, that spontaneous generation were to be proved
to demonstration to-morrow — as is possible though very
improbable — our feathers would be quite unruffled. We
should be simply back again where we were in the times of
St. Thomas Aquinas. The chemists have had to take that
backward journey in abandoning the theory of the immut
ability of the so-called elements ; it would in no way hurt
us if we had to do the same as the result of the abandon
ment of the theory of biogenesis. The Rev. A. B. Sharpe1
says : " If, against all probability, life could be shown to.
be spontaneously generated from matter, this would merely
mean that the sentient or vegetative soul2 is a resultant from
certain chemical combinations, and not, as has been sup
posed, the direct work of the Creator. But there is no
more inherent impossibility in holding that animal life is
brought into being by a certain combination of chemical
substances than in the converse belief, which is incontest
able, that it is brought to an end by the dissolution, natural
or artificial, of that combination. If we can destroy an
animal's soul, as we certainly can, there is no a priori reason
why we should not be able to make one."
The question of Biogenesis or Abiogenesis — i.e. that of
non-spontaneous or spontaneous generation — can be at
tacked from a purely scientific point of view, and with the
feeling that whichever way it is decided our withers are
unwrung. We have seen that the facts of nature seemed, in the
early days of science, to establish spontaneous generation
on a secure footing. It was not until the time of Harvey,
tho, discoverer of the circulation of the blood, that the
doctrine was seriously .challenged ; but the first real attack,
which preluded by its methods and their success the final
downfall of the theory, was that made by Redi, an Italian
poet and physician.3 Redi adopted the very simple plan
1 " The Principles of Christianity," London, Catholic Truth Society,
P- 59- • Which one may also speak of as the vital principle or under any other
term which connotes the existence of an extra-physical agency in living
matter. 3 His results were published in a little work, " Francisci Redi Patritii
Aretini Experimenta circa generationem insectorum." The edition under
my hands is " Amstelodami sumptibus Andreae Frisii," M. DC. LXXI.

320 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
of putting gauze screens over meat and thus proving that,
when so protected, it did not develop maggots. This
hitherto held proof of spontaneous generation therefore fell
to the ground. We may roughly speak of Redi's method
as that of sterilisation, if by sterilisation we mean the con
tinued exclusion from a suitable pabulum of the living
organisms of decay. It was by this method in the future
that all great advances in this controversy were made.
Towards the end of the eighteenth century the con
troversy became more active ; curiously enough, the pro
tagonists were two Catholic priests. Needham (1713-1781)
supported the theory of spontaneous generation and Spal
lanzani (1729-1799), of whom we have already heard in
connection with his experiments on the salamander in the
direction of regeneration, opposed the doctrine. Moreover,
to Spallanzani belongs the credit of introducing the crucial
experiment on which all later work depends ; for it was he
who showed that if fluids, which would otherwise become
putrescent and be found to be swarming with life, were
boiled for a sufficiently long time and kept thereafter in
hermetically sealed vessels, no putrefaction took place and
no life was developed. Again the controversy went to sleep
until in 1858 Pouchet asserted that he had seen life develop
in a sterilised medium which had been exposed to what he
beheved to be pure air. The discussion which this assertion
provoked led the French Academy in i860 to offer a prize
to the person who could solve the riddle.
As we now all know, the answer, and that a most con
clusive one, was given by Pasteur, who worked on the lines
originated by Redi and perfected by Spallanzani. He showed
quite conclusively that the cause of putrefaction and the
appearance of living organisms in suitable pabula was not
spontaneous generation but contamination by microscopic
organisms, of which the air is full. Redi had commenced
the discovery by showing that gross causes, such as blow
flies, when excluded from the pabulum, excluded the pos
sibility of the formation of maggots. Spallanzani went a
good deal further than that, but the scientific instruments
of the day were not sufficient to enable him to complete his
thesis. Pasteur had the instruments and the genius and

PASTEUR 321
closed the question, so far as such a question can be closed,
for it must always be remembered that Pasteur did not
prove that spontaneous generation does not take place :
no man could prove a general negative of that kind. What
he did show was that none of the evidence which had hither
to been claimed to prove the reahty of spontaneous genera
tion did actually prove it. Hence the position in which he
left matters was this : Spontaneous generation may take
place and may even be going on all around us without our
knowing it ; but, if so, it is without our knowing it, for there
is not a single particle of scientific evidence in favour of
such an occurrence. There are perhaps still a very few who
cling to a behef in spontaneous generation, and think that
it has been demonstrated ; but there is no question that,
as far as they can be unanimous on any point, and indeed
with a unanimity more than remarkable in scientific con
troversies, men of science are convinced that spontaneous
generation has been entirely disproved. Securus judicat
orbis terrarum : the entire canning and bottling trade
depends upon the truth of Pasteur's experiments and does
not find them wanting. For a further account of Pasteur
and his work the reader may be referred to any of the books
and pamphlets1 — and there are a myriad of both — which
deal with the life and work of that truly great man. Mean
time one may allude to three other assertions in connection
with this matter — assertions which one comes across from
time to time, and which had better be dealt with before we
pass to the consideration of other questions.
The first of these may be thus stated : " It is true that
spontaneous generation does not take place nowadays, but
I feel quite sure that it did take place in bygone days."
Thus Herbert Spencer2 declared that " at a remote period
in the past, when the temperature of the Earth's surface
was much higher than at present, and other physical con
ditions were unlike those we know, inorganic matter, through
successive complications, gave origin to organic matter."
1 There is an excellent account of him by Professor McWeeney, in
" Twelve Catholic Men of Science," published by the Catholic Truth
Society. » " Nineteenth Century," May, 1886.

322 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
We may note the delightful nebulosity of the words
" through successive complications," which really beg the
whole question, and pass on to the classical utterance of
Huxley on the subject.1 Huxley thought that if it were
given to him " to look beyond the abyss of geologically
recorded time " he might " expect to be a witness of the
evolution of living protoplasm from not-living matter."
And though he admitted2 that the biogenists were vic
torious all along the line, he went on to claim that spon
taneous generation at some time or another must have
occurred because it was " a necessary corollary from Dar
win's views if legitimately carried out." Misplaced faith
could hardly go further. In connection with the hypothesis
of life having been brought by a meteor from some planet,
Reinke, the botanist, said that that idea would never have
been devised had not the theory of spontaneous generation
been regarded " as lost beyond all hope of recovery."3
Spencer's and Huxley's way of recovering that which is
" lost beyond all hope of recovery " was to refer it to a
period before the advent of man, as to which, of course,
there is not a single atom of proof or testimony. Virchow,
in an address delivered at Wiesbaden in 1887, said : " Never
has a living being, or even a living element — let us say a
living cell — been found of which it could be predicated that
it was the first of its species. Nor have any fossil remains
ever been found of which it could ever be likely that they
belonged to a being the first of its kind, or produced by
spontaneous generation." This statement holds good to
the present day.
Moreover, it may be remarked that the temperature of
the globe, though possibly higher than it now is when life
first appeared upon it, could not have been so very much
higher, or life could neither have appeared nor continued to
exist. There are no conditions, thermic, chemical or
physical, which can possibly have existed on this earth at
any period which cannot be perfectly reproduced on a
1 " Critiques and Addresses," p. 239.
2 In a letter to Charles Kingsley, published in Huxley's " Life and
Letters," i., 244.
3 As quoted by Fr. Wasmann, s.j., in " Modern Biology, etc.," p. 204.

ARTIFICIAL PROTOPLASM 323
limited scale in our laboratories ; yet no one has hitherto
succeeded in getting anywhere near the solution of the
problem of the production of living protoplasm.
The second assertion amounts to this : " We haven't
yet made living protoplasm artificiaUy, but we are on the
point of doing so," If prophesying is the most gratuitous
form of foolishness in any case, it certainly has so far shown
itself to be so here ; the hope has been expressed time after
time, yet, according to those best qualified to pronounce
an opinion, we are no nearer to its realisation than we were
years ago.
Sir Henry Roscoe in 18871 said : " It is true that there
are those who profess to foresee that the day will arise when
the chemist, by a succession of constructive efforts, may pass
beyond albumen, and gather the elements of lifeless matter
into a hving structure. Whatever may be said regarding
this from other standpoints, the chemist can only say that
at present no such problem lies within his province. Proto
plasm, with which the simplest manifestations of life are
associated, is not a compound, but a structure built up of
compounds. The chemist may successively synthesise any
of its component molecules, but he has no more reason
to look forward to the synthetic production of the structure
than to imagine that the synthesis of gallic acid leads to the
artificial production of gall-nuts."
Twenty years later another President of the British
Association2 arose once more to prophesy that living proto
plasm was shortly to be demonstrated. It has been noticed
that it is always biologists and never chemists or physicists
who draw extravagant cheques on the bank of Chemistry and
Physics. So it was in this case, and again the cheque was
returned marked "no effects" by the chemists and physi
cists, who with one accord declared that the solution of the
problem in question was no nearer than it had ever been.
With regard to the assertion with which we are now dealing,
it may be at least said that no one asserts that living matter
has been made by the chemist, and that it will be made
is a prophecy which may or may not come true.
1 Presidential Address to the British Association.
1 Professor, now Sir E. Schafer, in 191 1.

324 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
In the third place, it is occasionally asserted that though
living matter has never yet been made, something on the
way to being alive has been produced artificially. To this
it may be replied that a thing must be either living or not
living, and that it is impossible to conceive of a thing which
is half-and-half. This impossibility of conceiving such a
thing, by the way, is one of the best proofs of the abyss
which stretches between life in its simplest manifestations
and not-living matter. It may be added that these half
way houses have been shown to be purely physical mani
festations explicable on purely physical lines.
How then did life arise ? " God created it " is the
Catholic answer — indeed the answer of all Christians ; and
this simple and sufficient reply holds the field. Reinke, a
distinguished botanist, declares i1 " If we agree that hving
matter has at some time come from inorganic substances,
then, in my opinion, the Creation hypothesis is the only one
which meets the necessities of logic and of causality and
therewith answers to the needs of a prudent seeker after
Nature." With which statement we may leave the question of the
origin of life. 1 " Einleitung in die theoretische Biologie," s. 559.

CHAPTER XXXI
TRANSFORMISM— SOME PRELIMINARY
CONSIDERATIONS
IN the foregoing chapters we have endeavoured to dis
cuss two important questions in connection with Life.
In the first place, we had to consider whether there really
is such a thing as Life, or whether the manifestations which
we have come to connect with that name are in fact nothing
more than higher manifestations of those chemical and
physical processes with which in simpler forms we are
familiar in everyday existence. The answer suggested to
that question is that there is a radical difference between
the phenomena of Life and the phenomena of chemistry
and physics, and that the former cannot now be and never
can be stated fully in terms of the latter. The difference
lies in the existence in living matter of a vital principle
which dominates the material substance with which it is
associated. We next considered the origin of life, and found the entire
scientific world averse from the solution of spontaneous
generation, whether as an event of to-day or of the remote
past. Life, as far as we can trace it, has always come from
life : how then did it originate ? There is, of course, the
agnostic position which takes Life as an existing fact and
refuses to ask how it originally came into being, believing
that no answer to such a question can be expected. With
those who contentedly hold such a position there can be
no argument. All the theories which they may subsequently
weave are good, or may be good, so long as one is content
to remain within the system which they have set up and
within which they are working ; but they do not explain
32s

326 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
the system, still less anything which is outside it. Further,
it is obvious that if the system which they assume should
prove to have been falsely assumed, all that has rested on
that assumption must necessarily fall to the ground.
We may leave this attitude of mind on one side, since it
confessedly ignores the matter with which we are concerned.
We have agreed that there is such a thing as Life ; that it
differs in kind from what we may for the moment speak of
as Not-Life ; that it must have had a beginning. Taking
all these things into consideration, we can have little
difficulty in accepting, with a large number of scientific
persons, not to speak of all believers in revealed rehgion,
the statement that Life was created by an Omnipotent
Creator. In fact, things as they are necessitate our believing
in a Creator and in postulating such a Being in order to
explain them, even if we had no revelation to give us in
formation concerning Him. On this point something more
must be said when we come to deal with the so-called
Argument from Design. Meanwhile, it may be pointed out
that the belief to which we have been alluding is neither
the beginning nor the end of our idea of the powers and
actions of the Creator in connection with the physical facts
of this planet. It is not the beginning, because He created
Matter before He gave rise to Life ; and it is not the end,
for His action with regard to Life obviously does not end
with the origination thereof. The Creator of Life by that
very fact and in that very act must have foreseen,
intended and created all the manifestations of Life which
have been, are, or may yet be. This statement brings us
face to face with the Theory of Evolution, or Darwinism,
as it is commonly but, as we shall see, most erroneously
called — a title under which it has been misrepresented,
argued over, misunderstood, extolled and hated, perhaps
more than any theory which has ever been before the public.
It will be necessary to devote much consideration to this
matter, for reasons which will be perfectly obvious to all
readers. Before, however, getting to the heart of the contro
versy, there are certain preliminary considerations which,
as it seems to the present writer, must be taken into con-

THE CREATOR 327
sideration in any discussion of the matter ; the neglect of
which, in fact, has led to a good deal of misconception.
In approaching those which deal with theological problems,
no one can be more aware than the present writer of the
difficulty of the task. It is intensely difficult for anyone
who has not had a prolonged training in Theology even to
touch the fringe of comprehension of such questions as are
involved in the matter with which we are now concerned.
Huxley once exulted in having " plucked the heart " out
of Suarez during a summer afternoon spent in the library
of a Scottish University. He would have been deeply in
dignant if some theologian had ventured to make a similar
claim in connection with some profound embryological
monograph: how he would have derided the man who
imagined that, without learning the language of science,
he was yet able to penetrate the meaning of those who
wrote in that language ! But Scholastic Philosophy and
Theology have their own language, which is not to be
learnt in a day nor picked up "as one goes along." It is
ignorance or neglect of this simple but most important fact
which has led to so many misconceptions and misunder
standings, not only on the part of men of science but also
on the part of would-be defenders of the faith who have
at times done more harm to the cause which they desired
to support than has been effected by those whose aim in
life was to destroy it.
It is with this warning before my eyes and with every
submission of what I say to those who are far more conver
sant with the matter than I am or am ever likely to be,
that I venture to set down the following points, which seem
to me to assist in coming to a right conclusion on this
matter. It may seem like a platitude to remark in the first place
that the Creator is not a superior kind of human being.
Yet it is the cardinal point which we have to keep before
us. Of course, it is a commonplace of Theology, but I am
speaking of and to non-theologically instructed persons.
St. Thomas Aquinas says,1 " Nullum nomen univoce de
Deo et creaturis praedicatur." There is nothing; no, not
1 "Summa," Pars i., qu. xiii., art. v.

328 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
even existence, as regards which we can speak in common
terms of the Creator and the beings whom He has created.
Of course we cannot help thinking of the Creator in an
anthropomorphic manner. There is no moral delinquency
in doing so ; it is, in fact, impossible for us to do otherwise.
We cannot look higher than our eyesight will carry us.
Imagination will penetrate further than the most powerful
telescope ; and imagination will at least help us -to under
stand that whatever we may think of the Creator, the reahty
must far transcend our thought. And further, it Will
enable us to realise, what of course is the case, that our
inaccuracies are not only great but that they are inaccuracies
of quality far more than inaccuracies of quantity.
We have just seen that not even existence can be postu
lated of God and man in common terms, and this brings us
to the subject of Eternity. All of us, I suppose, think of
this as being a very greatly prolonged Time — prolonged
backwards and prolonged forwards, never having a begin
ning nor an end but always going on. According to the
teaching of Catholic Philosophy, Eternity is not this at all.
It is defined as " possession, without succession and perfect,
of interminable life." The life of God in Eternity, to use
our quite inadequate phraseology, is " not only without
beginning or end, but also without succession— tota simul —
that is without past or future ; a never-changing instant or
' now.' "x " In God," writes Fr. Boedder,2 " there is no kind
of succession, and where there is no succession there is no
time." It does not appear that in the controversy which we
are now commencing to discuss what I may venture to call
the " Nowness " of God has been sufficiently considered.
If it is difficult for the ordinary person to think of the
Creator in other than human terms, so also is it difficult
for him to think otherwise of the Creation. At the best he
is likely to think of a superhuman intelligence at work, but
only of a superhuman intelligence, a human intelligence
raised to the na power. Moreover, he is likely to think of
this intelligence as arranging things in a succession of events,
perhaps even at successive times, nay, perhaps even with
1 " Catholic Encyclopasdia," sub voce " Eternity."
! " Natural Theology," Stonyhurst Series, p. 158.

GOD THE INSCRUTABLE 329
reconsiderations at different epochs. Indeed, with all
reverence it may be said that those who think about' the
subject at all are tempted to think of creation as effected
by a very superior kind of man sitting down daily to con
sider the task that was accomplished yesterday, and that
which must be attacked to-day.
No doubt the position thus indicated is excused by the
fact that it seems to be that adopted by the writer of
Genesis ; and for very obvious reasons. The writer of that
book certainly intended to make it clear that God created
everything ; and, whatever other lessons he may have
desired to teach, it seems also clear that he desired to teach
mankind that there was a succession in the events of creation
(see Chapter XVI). These things the writer of the Sacred
Book had to bring before the simple people for whom he
wrote, in language which they could understand : any other
kind of account would have been quite incomprehensible
to them — in fact, the very statements about the Creator
which have just been made are incomprehensible to all of
us. This is no more than to say that God is inscrutable and
incomprehensible to His creatures : if He were not so,
they would be His equals and not His creatures.
To return to our main thesis, we must recognise that the
idea which, without putting it into so many words, one is
liable to form of God and of His creation — as that of a vastly
superhuman Being slowly evolving the course of Nature
by successive ideas and successive operations — is not only
inadequate but positively ridiculous. How ridiculous it is
becomes the more obvious the more we meditate upon the
fact that there is no succession with God but that every
thing is Now.
If we once get this .idea clearly into our minds and couple
with it the idea — very much less difficult to realise — of
God's Omnipotence, we can at once begin to look at the
controversy as to Evolution from a totally different angle.
We approach it from the standpoint of a Creator, and we
do so because the central and primary point of importance
is the acceptance of a Creator and the comprehension of His
attributes. Beside this all other matters are of secondary
importance. Whether the products of Life came into exist-

330 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
ence suddenly or slowly and gradually ; whether, in the
latter case, there were epochs of greater or lesser activity or
a constant steady stream of progress ; whether there were.
times at which fresh forms of hfe arose without connection
with those already in existence ; whether evolution, if
evolution there were, was mono- or poly-phyletic — all these
things sink into minor importance when we remember that
God is Omnipotent and that with Him there is no succession.
Whatever may have been the process of Creation, it was
a process of Creation ordained by the Creator. Assuming
that — to speak humanly — God had His plan ; that He saw
in His ideas countless possible worlds to their minutest
details ; that He selected one and said, " Let it be," then
this world would come into being and evolve as foreseen by
God, God Himself remaining unchanged during the process
of variation and evolution. Immediate Divine formation
and mediate production through evolution are equally
possible to God.
Another matter which requires mention is the statement
which is sometimes made that God " interferes " or " inter
venes " in the progress of natural operations. The terms
are inadequate, hopelessly inadequate, as are all terms
which we are obliged to use in this connection. Here again,
if we keep constantly before our minds the " Nowness " of
God, we shall be kept clear of the obvious absurdity of think
ing that He is called upon from time to time, hke the captain
of a ship or the generalissimo of some great army, to come
to a decision respecting some hitherto unexpected phase
of events. The terms just alluded to are reahy a matter
of that technical language of Theology which, as has already
been said, must be learnt before the content of the subject
itself can be appreciated. The Divine Act can be considered
in itself (entative, to use the theological term) or in the term
produced (terminative).
Considered terminative one could speak of a multitude of
divine acts ; but the Divine Act in itself, the Act that
produced all these terms or effects, is really one.1
1 I owe this explanation, and some of the other points in this chapter,
to a kind and erudite 'theological friend to whom my gratitude is due. He
adds in this connection an illustration which may be of as much value to

TIME AND ETERNITY 331
Creation — with that continuance of the stream of life
and its development, not to speak of the guidance of the
same which that word entails — is not, in our common
acceptation of the term, an " interference " with the laws
of nature. The point to keep constantly before our minds
is that creation really is the institution of those very laws.
The creation of Life and the formulation of the Laws under
which it was to work : each of these simultaneous operations
forms part of the Act of Creation. Again, to use our in
adequate terminology, we must not look upon what we may
call " interferences " as unpremeditated. As far as I know,
theological writers and the Fathers of the Church are never
tired of insisting on law and regularity and of warning us
against the idea of arbitrary interventions.
We cannot understand what is meant by Eternity : that
is obvious. But we can at least understand that it is some
thing wholly different from Time. Further, we can under
stand that if we try to think about Creation in terms of
Time when it is only comprehensible in terms of Eternity,
we shall find ourselves in impenetrable thickets of difficulty
and confusion.
So much has been said because the present writer has
often noticed that unnecessary difficulties arise in the mind,
as a result of the consideration of matters to be dealt with
in the next few chapters, for want of a due appreciation of
the points to which reference has been made above. So far
others as it has been to me, both in connection with the point under con
sideration as well as that of Miracles themselves, considered in Chapter
XIV. He says : "So one might speak of Divine ' interferences ' in
relation to miracles ; but the term always requires some explanation.
In relation to God we speak of the natural power and the obediential
power of things. They are convenient terms. If we take a field with its
natural elements and seed and moisture and the light and heat of the
sun, it has the natural power of bearing grass or some other crop. If we
suppose a field with its mineral and chemical elements, with moisture and
with the light and heat of the sun, but without any seed or germ of life,
leaving out spontaneous generation, it cannot vegetate ; it has not the
power of vegetation. But God could make it vegetate without putting
what we call ' seed ' into it, simply by His word. We say the field has
the capacity of ' obeying ' the word of God, and we call this power the
potentia obedientialis of nature. But God would have foreseen all from
eternity, and would have decreed one series of events as well as the other,
by the same Divine Act. Both series might thus be said to obey law, but
one series comes from the permanent powers of nature : the other series
does not ; and consequently when we see a miracle it brings vividly before
us the fact that there must be some Power other than created nature."

332 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
as we are concerned for the moment, the great fundamental
facts are that there is a Creator and a creation.
But it remains to be said that there are at least two con
ceptions of that Creator, a Catholic conception and another.
This not being a treatise of Theology, it may be sufficient
to warn readers, if indeed such warning be necessary, that
the God of Catholic Theology transcends His creation which
indeed is only the representation of the Divine Idea.
The God of such writers as Bergson in his " Creative
Evolution," a being immanent in the universe and ignorant
of the direction in which evolution is making its progress,
is not the God of Catholic Theology. Nor, we may perhaps
add, is this an idea of God which in any way satisfies the
limited conception which our imagination is alone capable
of forming. To the plain man it seems clear that God must
be greater than His work, and that He must know what He
is doing. A force — one cannot call it a Deity — which urges
matter on without knowing in what direction or to what
ends it is being urged may be called a God by those who
believe in it, but it is nothing else than our old friend Blind
Chance, posing under a new name.

CHAPTER XXXII
TRANSFORMISM AND CREATION
THERE are still quite a number of persons who suppose
that Darwinism and Transformism are exactly the
same thing, and that no one had ever thought of such a
thing as derivative creation, or of what is often called
evolution, until Darwin brought it before the world in his
famous book. Of course no educated person entertains this
idea, which has been exploded in numerous books for and
against the distinctive Darwinian views. From our point
of view, it is interesting to note that the question has been
one of debate amongst the Fathers of the Church from the
earhest times.
Reduced to its simplest form, transformism means that,
instead of making a sudden appearance from nothing, all
forms of hfe may have developed from other forms of life,
commencing with one simple undifferentiated form or per
haps with a few such forms. From such lowly unicellular
form or forms there would branch off on the one hand animals
and on the other plants : each of these would afford other
divergencies until the present state of affairs was reached.
The lines of developments, the branchings and dichotomies,
form the subject of the study known as Phylogeny. Such,
in brief, is what is meant by transformism.
Now, no believer in an Omnipotent Creator will doubt that
it was possible for Him in an instant of time to create the
world, animals, plants and all— nay, even the fossil remains
in the world — if He chose to do so. All this is involved in
the theory of an Omnipotent Creator. He could do this if
He chose ; but obviously He could. also by His fiat direct
that things should develop gradually and from one another
by a process of mediate creation. From Genesis we know
333

334 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
that the Creator did not create the world with its plants
and animals simultaneously — simultaneously, that is, from
our point of view, not from the standpoint of God, in whom,
as we have seen, there is no succession. What we do know
is that He created things or allowed things to come into
existence by stages. This matter has been already dealt
with in connection with the question of the Creation.1 The
question as to whether things living appeared suddenly
out of nothing, or whether, once life was created, they
developed from earlier forms is the question of immediate
or mediate creation ; and both of these, as we have seen,
are equally possible to an Omnipotent Creator. This topic
has been freely debated by the Fathers of the Church ever
since the time of St. Augustine. Though Darwin did not
originate the theory of transformism it was the influence
of his book that made it a really live question in modern
times. Prior to this, this matter had been one of httle more
than academic interest, and quite undebated by the man in
the street. Even the publication of Chambers's " Vestiges
of the Natural History of Creation," which appeared some
time before Darwin burst upon the world, had but little
real influence, and awakened comparatively httle interest
even in the minds of the reading public.2 After the issue
of Darwin's book a storm of controversy arose, and one of
its most effective critics was the late Professor Mivart.3
With the special criticism of Natural Selection with which
the book was concerned we need not deal. The point of
interest at present is the chapter entitled " Theology and
Evolution," of which some account may be given, as the
book is out of print and hardly likely to come into the
hands of most readers.
The writer first discusses what is meant by creation,
distinguishing between immediate and mediate or deriva
tive creation ; he then proceeds to show — what, at that
time at least, most persons certainly would hardly have
1 See Chapters XVI and XVII.
* This book was published anonymously in 1844 ; the " Origin of
Species " did not appear until fifteen years later.
3 " On the Genesis of Species." The author was then and for many
years later a devout Catholic. It is understood that he never deviated
from the views and criticisms expressed in the above-named work.

ST. AUGUSTINE AND TRANSFORMISM 335
expected — that doctrines indistinguishable from that formu
lated by Darwin as to descent — apart of course from his
subsidiary theories such as Natural Selection — were put
forward by some of the greatest ecclesiastical authorities.
St. Augustine, for example, speaks of a " potential "
creation of animals, the actual examples themselves only
to appear in later times.1 This " potential " creation,
which is the same thing as mediate or derivative creation
as spoken of above, is approved of by St. Thomas Aquinas,
by Cornelius a Lapide and by Suarez. I am well aware
that St. Augustine's assent to the theory of mediate creation
has been disputed ; as this is a question for theologians and
critics, I shall not venture to intervene in it beyond saying
that Mivart, with the authorities cited by him, certainly
read St. Augustine in this way. So did Peter Lombard, and
so, I understand, does the Augustinian School of Theology.
Further, to the plain man, any other explanation of St.
Augustine's writings seems forced if not impossible.2
But what is of real importance and what cannot be gain
said, is the fact that mediate creation has been a subject
of discussion amongst theologians since the time of St.
Augustine, if no earlier, and that it has been received with
approval by some at least of them. Again, it may be well
to call attention to the fact that the essential thing is the
word Creation — the method thereof, though vastly important,
being much less so than the central truth insisted on in the
1 " Terrestria animalia, tanquam ex ultimo elemento mundi ultima ;
nihilominus potentialiter, quorum numeros tempus postea visibiliter
explicaret," De Genesi ad Litt., lib. v., cap. 5 n. 14 in Ben. Edit., Vol. Ill,
p. 186. I give the quotation and reference on the authority of the book
from which I am quoting.
2 Those who desire to follow this controversy further will find it very
fully dealt with in " The Irish Ecclesiastical Record," Vol. V, January to
June, 1899. Fr. Burton, cm., denies that St. Augustine was an evolutionist.
Fr, p. F. Coakley, o.s.A., takes up and defends the traditional view as to
the Saint. Fr. Coakley, p. 353, submits that with regard to the passages
in question from the works of the Saint, " their natural interpretation, and,
consequently, St. Augustine's meaning, is that ' God, simultaneously with
the creation of the world, created all living things, not in the perfect
species now known to us, but in certain primordial forms, from which, in
the course of ages, under the administration of Providence operating
through secondary causes, all existing organisms are evolved.' That this
proposition faithfully represents the mind of Augustine will be evident
by comparing its various clauses with the passages quoted ; and by
comparing it with, say, Darwin's definitions, it will likewise be seen to
embody the essential elements of the evolutionary hypothesis."

336 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
function and work of a Creator. Perhaps here it may be
well to clear away another misconception. There were a
certain number of people who rejoiced in Darwin's theory
because they thought that it did away with the necessity
for a Creator. There are even to-day, incredible as it may
seem, ignorant people who suppose that Darwin " knocked
the bottom," as they would put it, out of revelation and the
belief in a Creator. Such persons can never have read
Darwin's best-known book — indeed it may be suspected
that many of those who talk most loudly (and often, it may
be added most ignorantly) about these topics, owe their
acquaintance, -such as it is, with Darwin and his ideas to
some one or more of the many misleading little manuals
which issue from the Press on the subject of evolution. At
any rate Darwin, himself1 concluded his work with the
following words, often quoted and now to be quoted once
more : " 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, whilst 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." It is of further
interest to know, as we do, that the words, " perhaps into
only one," were written into the original draft of the pas
sage in pencil — the rest being in ink — and were, therefore, in
the nature of an afterthought. Though his religious views
became more and more nebulous, as he himself admits,
until the end of his hfe Darwin allowed the quoted passage
to stand in his greatest work. He thus admits that the
possibility of a Creator and a Creation is in nowise lessened
by his theory. That Creation is quite compatible with trans
formism has been admitted by Huxley and indeed, it may
be said, by almost every scientific man who has written on
the subject.
We must be clear what this means : many of them do
not accept Creation as Catholics understand the word.
Such men would say that they do not know how things
began and care only to study them as they find them
1 In the " Origin of Species," etc., 6th ed.. Vol. II, p. 305. See also the
" Foundations of the Origin of Species," 1909, pp. 52, n. 2, and 254, n. 4.

WALLACE ON A CREATOR 337
existing. But there is not one man who can maintain, if
challenged, that the idea of Creation and a Creator is in
compatible with a belief in some theory of transformism.
Nay more, as we have already seen, it is claimed by some
of them at least (apart from behevers in a revelation) that
creation must be assumed, if we are to form any theory as
to how things began. Once for all, then, it may be laid
down that the doctrine of transformism does not and cannot
dispense with the need for or belief in a Creator : nor, it
may be added, do any or all of the doctrines, whether true
or not, included under the general term of Darwinism.
Further, it has been claimed by some of the most active
supporters of Darwin's views that mediate creation gives
a more elevated idea of the Creator than the other theory.
The late A. R. Wallace1 said : " Why should we suppose
the machine too complicated to have been designed by the
Creator so complete that it would necessarily work out
harmonious results ? The theory of ' continual interfer
ence ' is a limitation of the Creator's power. It assumes
that He could not work by pure law in the organic, as He
has done in the inorganic world."2 Charles Kingsley, who
was a firm believer in Revelation as well as an acceptor of
the theory of transformism, puts the point in question into
the form of an allegory in his .delightful book " The Water-
Babies " — a work which, though marred by some of the
characteristic gibes at Catholicity from which its writer
could never abstain, contains much wisdom and, for those
who can understand it, a very complete exposition of the
philosophy of a Christian man of science. When Tom, the
Water-Baby, reached the Peace Pool in the course of his
wanderings he found Mother Carey sitting in the centre
" making old beasts into new all the year round." She took
the form of " the grandest old lady he had ever seen— a white
marble lady, sitting on a white marble throne. And from
the foot of the throne there swum away, out and out into
the sea, millions of new-born creatures of more shapes and
colours than man ever dreamed. And they were Mother
> " Natural Selection," p. 280. .
1 The reader will note the confusion as to the word interference,
which has been dealt with in the preceding chapter.

338 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
Carey's children, whom she makes out of the sea-water all
day long. He expected, of course — hke some grown people
who ought to know better — to find her snipping, piecing,
fitting, stitching, cobbling, basting, filing, planing, hammer
ing, turning, polishing, moulding, measuring, chiselling,
clipping, and so forth, as men do when they go to work to
make anything. But, instead of that, she sat quite still
with her chin upon her hand, looking down into the sea
with two great grand eyes, as blue as the sea itself."
Tom told her that he had heard that she was " always
making new beasts out of old." To which she replied, " So
people fancy. But I am not going to trouble myself to make
things, my httle dear. I sit here and make them make
themselves."1 We may conclude, then, that a belief in transformism
does not in any kind of way exclude a behef in Creation
and a Creator, but that in the opinion of a number of
authorities it gives one, if possible, an even greater and
wider idea of the greatness and wisdom of the Maker of all
things. The erudite Jesuit Father Wasmann2 maintains, with
not a few other men of science, that " a reasonable theory
of evolution necessitates our assuming the existence of a
personal Creator " ; he sketches the outlines of the problem
which we have been discussing, introducing a further element
which must not be passed over in silence. He says :3 "In
order to explain the origin of the existing species of plants
and animals, we have to assume one of two things. We
may assume that the systematic species (e.g. lion, tiger,
polar bear) are invariable — apart from the formation of
1 The following parable addressed to those who hope to make a
" homunculus in a retort " may be quoted for the sake of any unfamiliar
with Kingsley's book. " There was once a fairy who was so clever that
she found out how to make butterflies. I don't mean sham ones ; no :
but real live ones, which would fly, and eat, and lay eggs, and do every
thing that they ought ; and she was so proud of her skill that she went
flying straight off to the North Pole, to boast to Mother Carey how she
could make butterflies. But Mother Carey laughed : ' Know, silly child,'
she said, ' that anyone can make things, if they will take time and trouble
enough : but it is not every one who, like me, can make things make
themselves.'" 2 In " Modern Biology and the Theory of Evolution," p. xxii (first
appeared in German in 1906), London, Kegan Paul, 1910.
» P. 255 seq.

MONO- OR POLY-PHYLETIC ? 339
varieties and breeds within the species — and that they
were created originally in their present form. Or we may
assume that the systematic species are variable, and
constitute definite lines of descent, within which an
evolution of species has taken place during the geological
periods. The first of these assumptions belongs to the
theory of permanence, the second to the theory of evolution
or descent. In the latter we must make a further distinc
tion between monophyletic and polyphyletic evolution.
According to the monophyletic theory, all organisms have
originated in one single primitive cell, or perhaps there is
one pedigree for all animals and one for all plants, each
having one primitive ancestor. According to the poly
phyletic theory there are several pedigrees for both plants
and animals, independent of one another, but each one going
back to one special primitive form as its starting-point.
In the following pages," he continues, " we shall see that
the latter assumption alone can claim to have any positive
scientific probability — and we shah see, moreover, that this
assumption is perfectly reconcilable with the Christian
doctrine of the Creation."
Into the discussion as to the two theories of evolution
just propounded it will not be possible to enter here, nor
would it be in place in what is avowedly only an outline of
the controversy as it affects religious ideas. From the
point of view urged in the previous chapter as to the absence
of succession in Eternity and the Creator, it makes httle if
any matter whether scientific men eventually accept mono-
or polyphyletic evolution as the better explanation. The
act of Creation was single in either case — indeed, in any
case — and may be thought of in that way, however the
consequences of that act may have extended over untold
ages. We may now pass from this comparatively simple matter
to consider some of the numerous theories and problems
included under the head of Darwinism — though some of
them were unknown to Darwin and others have been
modified so that he would hardly recognise them and would
possibly even have found it necessary to oppose them.

CHAPTER XXXIII
TRANSFORMISM— HEREDITY AND VARIATION
EVERY theory of transformism is based upon and
must take into account two prime factors : Heredity
and Variation.
To put the thing into simple language, it must be obvious,
even to the most unobservant, that the offspring of any
couple, whilst more or less resembling that couple, also
more or less depart from their standard. In other words,
they inherit a general resemblance but they have varied
slightly, so that they do not present absolute facsimiles of
their parents. Those who have not thought about the
matter may say that there are numerous cases in which
the offspring do not resemble their parents ; but that is
taking a narrow view of the matter. No one has ever heard
of a cat giving birth to a dog, nor would a coloured child
be expected to proceed from parents of unmixed European
blood. The real wonder of heredity, which has ceased to
be a wonder because it is so universal, is the fact that
species breed true.
That there are small differences, which may be either
absolutely or relatively small, is the result of the second
factor, that of variation.
There are only two ways in which the biologist can deal
with these problems : he can try to explain them, or he
can assume them and pass to the consideration of the laws
of both or of either of them so far as such can be observed.
Darwin — without better success than others, as we shall
see — tried to explain heredity whilst he assumed variation.
Lamarck, with whose theories we shall shortly be concerned,
tried to explain — some think did explain — variation, but
assumed heredity. It will be convenient to devote a short
340

DARWIN 341
time to these two factors before proceeding to discuss the
more important theories associated with the name of Darwin.
Let us commence with heredity, as to which it may at
once be said that whilst we know a good deal about its
operations, we know little or nothing about its mechanism.
If heredity acts through material mechanism, it seems prob
able that it may be the chromosomes (see Chapter XXV
and Note to Chapter) which are its vehicle. In the union
of a male cell with a female to form the fertilised ovum,
an equal number of chromosomes from the one unite with
the same number from the other. Thus the normal number
of chromosomes in a cell being — let us say — sixteen, the
fertilised ovum will contain the same number, of which
eight will have come from the male and eight from the female
cell. Moreover, in each of these cells there will have pre
viously taken place a reduction whereby the normal chro
mosomes of the cell have been reduced to half their number.
The union then of what we may look upon as two half-cells
constitutes once more a complete cell, with the full number
of chromosomes normal to the species ; and the cell thus
completed is the embryo from which the future individual
is developed. Evidently there is a profound significance
about the chromosomes, though at present we cannot prove
exactly what it is. It may be that its true meaning is im
penetrable by our methods or instruments.
Darwin was not aware of the facts concerning the chromo
somes which have been discovered since his time by the
use of more powerful microscopes and improved processes
of staining1 the objects which are to be examined. But he
assumed a mechanical vehicle for the transmission of
hereditary characters and gave his theory the name of Pan
genesis. In considering it or any other theory of heredity,
we must bear in mind the fact that extraordinarily trivial
defects or peculiarities of structure may be as faithfully
handed down as the grosser features, such as colour and the
like. Everybody has heard of the Hapsburg lip, and every-
1 The exceedingly thin slices or " sections " of animal tissues are
coloured or " stained " by various pigments such as logwood or aniline
dyes to render their various characteristic features more readily recogniz
able. The technique of staining has been brought to great perfection
since the days of Darwin.

342 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
body must be aware of other small characters — such as the
peculiar set of the hair, the eyebrow and the like — which
have been handed down for generations in the same family.
Darwin's theory assumed that extraordinarily small germs
or fragments from all parts of the body were collected into
the male and female reproductive cells, and that when these
cells had united, the infinitesimally tiny fragments started
to grow, and thus reproduced an individual similar to those
from which they had sprung. Others than Darwin have
looked favourably on the same theory, and it is certain that
no one can prove to demonstration that it may not be true.
But it is certain that biologists for the most part have
abandoned the micromerist theories, as Delage has named
those explanations which depend on the assumption of the
collection of minute fragments from different parts of the
body in the germ-cells.
In the first place, it has been calculated that it would
require some trillions of minute fragments to meet the
necessities of the representation of all parts of the body
capable of independent variation. Then again it has to be
remembered that heredity does not confine itself to the
characteristics of the immediate progenitors of the off
spring. Everybody knows that children may " throw
back " to a grandparent or even to a more distant ancestor,
and all breeders of dogs and cattle are aware that an
ancestor, tainted from the breeder's point of view, may
exhibit itself in the progeny of a generation much later than
that which immediately followed upon the taint ; and that,
although nothing but pure strains have been employed
since that period. Hence Pangenesis or any other micro-
meric theory demands a complexity so utterly beyond
conception as to defy belief. " Any theory which involves
the assumption of morphological units as representing
characters must bring us to an impasse in a very few genera
tions, as is demonstrated by the working out of such a
theory to comparatively few degrees upward from offspring
to parents, grandparents and so on."1
Whether it be the chromosomes or, as some think, some
1 Walker, " Hereditary Characters and their Mode of Transmission, "
London, Edwin Arnold, 191 o, p. is;,

UNCONSCIOUS MEMORY 343.
other constituent of the cell, the micromerist theory seems
to break down. Can it be replaced by any other of a material
character ? Samuel Butler, the author of " Erewhon "
and a number of other books far less well known than they
deserve to be, published in 1880 his " Unconscious Memory."1
In this he gives a translation of Hering's address of ten
years previously,2 in which he urges that it is the memory
of the past in the germ which causes the embryo to develop
into something closely resembling the stock from which
it sprung and which it unconsciously remembers. This
memory may be thought of as an immaterial or a material
phenomenon. The point, as indeed all the points which
we are considering in the present connection, is of purely
scientific and philosophical interest ; for whichever ex^
planation we accept, no religious difficulty is suggested. It
is quite clear that an immaterial explanation can be given,
and it is equally true that it can neither be proved nor dis
proved. Hering adopted a material explanation and. made
the mechanism of memory reside in certain " vibrations of
the protoplasm and the acquired capacity to respond to
such vibrations once felt upon their repetition."3
Butler adopted this material explanation even more
warmly than its parent had done. In his earlier writings
he certainly leant strongly to the side of dualism, but in
this book he appears as a materiahstic monist, since he
declares that the only thing of which he is sure is " that
the distinction between the organic and inorganic is arbi
trary." Now it is well known that there are certain physical
facts, such as the behaviour of wire which has been sub
mitted to torsion, which suggest something simulating
memory in non-living matter. This is not a philosophical
treatise, so that the question need not be further pursued
than to say that, as in the former case, it is not possible to
prove that transmitted vibrations of the protoplasm may
1 Republished in the Collected Edition of Butler's works, Fifield,
London, 1910.
2 "Das Gedachtniss als allgemeine Funktion der organisirter Sub-
stanz," given as an Inaugural Address to the Imperial Royal Academy of
Sciences at Vienna, in 1870. Eng. trans., Open Court Publishing Co.,
Chicago. 8 For a resume1 of the question see Hartog's excellent Introduction 01
Butler's Works in "Unconscious Memory."

344 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
not be the mechanism of a memory which controls and
directs heredity. Nor does this present any difficulty from
the vitahstic point of view, since it in no way accounts for
variation nor for the powers of modification which the
living thing has been shown to present. Nevertheless it
may be admitted that the so-called mnemic theory with
which we have been dealing has never as yet secured any
real support in the scientific world. This is in part due to
the fact that it is impossible to prove it : in part it is cer
tainly due to the unwillingness of many to adopt the
mnemic explanation on account of what they would call
its mystical character.
The upshot of the whole matter is that we know very
well that there is such a thing as heredity, but we do not
know what its mechanism is. It is a case exactly parallel
to that of Gravitation. This ignorance of the vehicle of
heredity is very clearly exemplified by the statements
made by Bateson in his Presidential Address to the British
Association.1 He says, " The allotment of characteristics
among offspring is not accomplished by the exudation of
drops of a tincture representing the sum of the character
istics of the parent organism, but by a process of cell-
division, in which numbers of these characters, or rather
the elements upon which they depend, are sorted out among
the resulting germ-cells in an orderly fashion. What these
elements, or factors as we call them, are we do not know.
That they are in some way directly transmitted by the
material of the ovum and the spermatozoon is obvious,
but it seems to me unlikely that they are in any simple or
literal sense material particles. I suspect. rather that their
properties depend on some phenomenon of arrangement."
It is worth while pausing for a moment to consider two
points in this utterance. In the first place, as regards
material and immaterial. " Particles " must be material,
though they might have immaterial connections, relations,
or perhaps guidance. But once we assume immateriality,
it is obvious that we are engaged in metaphysics ; indeed
in what many persons — including, we fancy, the author of
this address — would stigmatize as " mysticism."
1 1914, " Melbourne Address," p. 5.

INHERITANCE 345
Again, what is meant by " arrangement " ? The dis
position of the particles in the germ ? Who arranges them
and under what laws are they arranged ? To this no
answer is given. The whole matter is another example of
the impossibility of attempting to give a complete answer
to these difficulties without assuming the hypothesis of a
Creator and Maintainer of Creation and of Laws of Exist
ence founded and enforced by Him. It is the attempt to
turn the flank of this, theory which leads to explanations of
the kind quoted, which explain nothing, since they do not
explain who does the arranging or how the " arrangement "
takes place. The " explanation " thus becomes purely
verbal. x
Returning from this momentary digression we must,
before leaving this branch of our subject, consider one
further important point. Can all the features, natural and
acquired, which are presented by the progenitors be in
herited by the offspring ? Around this question there has
raged a vigorous and still undecided controversy, as indeed
is not wonderful having regard to the importance of the
matter in connection with certain grave problems. This
will shortly be made more clear. Let us take the problem
piecemeal. Suppose a man has had his leg cut off, is it
likely that his offspring will be one-legged ? To ask the
question is to answer it ; yet up to a recent time it was
scarcely doubted that mutilations of other kinds might be
inherited. As far as anything in the shape of a negative
can be proved, Weismann, in a series of papers, did in my
opinion prove that mutilations are not heritable.2 But
suppose a man has all his life exercised the muscles of his
1 Of course the familiar retort is that our explanation of a Creator
and that of a vital principle are equally " verbal." The reply to this is
that by a process of exclusion and by other lines of argument pursued
elsewhere in this book we can, so we maintain, show the existence
of a Creator and, by another line of argument, of a vital principle. If we
can do this we are entitled to argue that the Creator's power is manifested
in the directions under discussion, — in other words, that through His undying
laws He is the " arranger." Our contention has at least the advantage of
being logical and complete, neither of which epithets can be applied to
the other attempted solution.
2 In making this statement I am not ignoring the standard argument
of those who differ from me on this point, namely, Brown-Sequard's
epileptic guinea-pigs- This experiment does not in any way convince me.

346 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
arms as a blacksmith, is his son more likely to possess
muscular arms than the son of a literary man who has
never worked at anything more laborious than a type
writer ? Here we come to a more difficult question and one
far less capable of solution by experiment. And it becomes
still more difficult of solution if we extend the question :
is the son of a blacksmith, who is also the grandson, the
great-grandson and the great-great-grandson of blacksmiths,
likely to be born with better and more muscular arms than
the descendant of generations of writers ? Or take another
case, illustrating another form of environment. The emigrant
from England to some tropic clime gets a tanned face : in
the course of generations is this tanned face likely to become
a hereditary characteristic ? In other words, can the
environment, taking that word in its widest sense, produce
any effect on heredity ? Weismann and those of his school
answer definitely in the negative. According to their
view the germplasm is segregated from the plasm of the
body proper in the very earliest stages of development and
cannot be influenced by anything which affects the body
save such things as bacterial infection, : which may attack
it just as they may attack the child after it has been born.
When committing himself to this doctrine Weismann took
up a position which made it very difficult to account for
variation — impossible to do so in fact without appealing
to an internal impulse inexplicable on purely materialistic
grounds or without resorting (as we shall see that he did)
to a fantastic and utterly unprovable hypothesis.
If heredity were an absolutely rigid thing, then there
must result absolute and unvarying identity in a family
or a species. We know that this is not the case, but
that all sorts at least of minor differences are exhibited
which are the result of what we call Variation. How
does Variation come about ? Is the impetus from
without or from within or from both ? Weismannians
declare that it is not from without : Lamarckians and the
so-called Neo-Lamarckians claim that it may come from
without ; and indeed whatever may be said of the inherit
ance from one generation to the next, it is hard to believe
that the accumulated influence of the environment QYer

LAMARCK 347
several generations is unable to produce any effect upon
the germ and upon the offspring.1
We turn, therefore, to the question of variation. No one
doubts that the thing is there : can we in any way account
for it?
Lamarck was a distinguished French botanist and zoolo
gist born in 1744. He seems at first to have believed in
the fixity of species ; but after deserting botany for zoology
he changed his mind and in 1800 avowed his belief in trans
formism, saying that Nature, having formed the simplest
organisms, " then with the aid of much time and favourable
circumstances . . . formed all the others."2 Moreover, he
tried to explain how variation was brought about. Accord
ing to his view use and disuse in animals chiefly bring about
variations in organs, and new organs arise in response to a
physiological need. In reference to this we must be careful
to remember that it is not suggested that the animal thinks
a certain organ would be useful to it and sets about securing
it : such a suggestion would be ridiculous. What Lamarck
suggests is, that a new condition having arisen in connec
tion with a certain animal or group of animals of the same
species leads to a reflex action as a result of which the new
organ may arise. Further, he assumes that the new organ
once acquired may be inherited by the offspring and thus
handed down. When we come in the next chapter to dis
cuss the question of Natural Selection we shall see the
bearing of that theory on this suggestion. Meantime it
need only be said that Lamarck's theory at least offers an
explanation, whether true or false, of the origin of a varia
tion which Darwin's theory does not.
One of the most convinced of the Neo-Lamarckians
writes : " The theory of selection can never get over the
difficulty of the origin of entirely new characters. . . .
How can it be said that the horns of ruminants arose ?
1 Recent observations seem to indicate that the environment can and
does effect much more than has of late years been thought possible. See
Morgan's "Mechanism of Mendelian Heredity," Constable, London, 1915,
p. 38 seq.
> For an interesting account of Lamarck and other biological pioneers,
with the theories associated with their names, the reader may be referred
to " Biology and its Makers," by William A. Locy, New York, Henry
Holt & Co., 1908.

348 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
No other mammals have ever been stated to possess two
httle symmetrical excrescences on their frontal bones as an
occasional variation ; what, then, caused such excrescences
to appear in the ancestors of horned ruminants ? Butting
with the forehead would produce them, and no other cause
can be suggested which would." Further, he continues :
" There is evidence that physiological change precedes
morphological. There is a climbing kangaroo in Papua
which shows so little adaptation of structure to the chmbing
habit, that no naturalist would beheve from the mere study
of its body that it lived in trees. But as a matter of fact it
does live entirely in trees."1
Darwin seems to some extent to have accepted the
Lamarckian view, though he never made any real attempt
to explain the origin of variation. Weismann, having ex
cluded the Lamarckian explanation, and indeed any explana-r
tion which permitted the exercise of any external influence
to count, found himself face to face with the difficulty of
accounting for variation save by some internal impulse or
power — in other words, by some vital principle — or by an
explanation described in the language of his school as
" mystical." Hence he erected an enormous edifice of
assumptions2 consisting of imaginary physical entities none
of which are capable of demonstration under the microscope
or by other means.
There is no doubt that this explanation would explain
what requires to be explained ; but it cannot be too carefully
borne in mind, as already pointed out, that there may be
twenty explanations of a given series of events, nineteen of
which must be, and twenty of which may be utterly in
correct, though every one of them is capable of explaining
the events in question. There is not a shadow of real
evidence for Weismann's entities, and as a matter of fact
they have not won acceptance in the biological world except
with some few who, like Weismann himself, refuse to acknow-
1 From the Preface to Cunningham's Translation of Eimer's " Organic
Evolution," London, MacmiUan, 1890.
* This will be found in his " Evolution Theory," transl., Thomson,
London, Edward Arnold, 1904. For some criticism of the theory the
reader may be referred to an article by the present writer in " A Century
of Scientific Thought," London, Burns and Oates, 1915.

GERMINAL SELECTION 349
ledge the possibility of the action of external influences
or the other possibility of the potency of vital action from
within. Germinal Selection, Weismann's theory, can, as
he admits, " no more be proved mathematically than any
other biological process. No one who is unwilling to accept
germinal selection can be compelled to do so, as he might
be to accept the Pythagorean propositions. It is not built
up from beneath upon axioms, but is an attempt at an ex
planation of a fact established by observation — the dis
appearance of disused parts. But when once the inherit
ance of functional modifications has been demonstrated
to be a fallacy, and when it1 has been shown that, even
with the assumption of such inheritance, the disappearance
of parts which are only passively useful, and of any parts
whatever in sterile animal forms, remains unexplained, he
who rejects germinal selection must renounce all attempt
at explanation.2 It is the same as in the case of personal
selection. No one can demonstrate mathematically that
any variation possesses selection value, but whoever rejects
personal selection gives up hope of explaining adaptations,
for these cannot be referred to purely internal forces of
development."3 We must return to this when discussing the scientific
value of the theory of Natural Selection.
1 It may be noted that the writer assumes as proved in his favour the
very things which his opponents dispute.
! The reader will note that this triumphant assertion is made by the
author of the theory in question.
8 Op. cit., Vol. II, p. 121.

CHAPTER XXXIV
DARWIN AND NATURAL SELECTION
WE have seen that, in spite of the popular behef on
the subject, Darwin did not invent the theory of
transformism which has become so closely associated with
his name. It had been discussed more or less spasmodically
for centuries, but only by the learned and more or less
academically. It was Darwin's lot to accomplish what
Lamarck and Chambers had failed to do — namely, to focus
the public interest on the question ; to make the subject of
evolution into a battle-cry between materialists and non-
materialists — a position which it should never have occupied
— and even to make out of it a curious yet most dangerous
kind of rehgion or at least a rule of life.
That Darwin achieved this end quite unexpectedly to
himself and with results which he can never have foreseen,
was due no doubt in part to the fact that the " psychological
moment " — to use a hackneyed phrase — had arrived ; every
thing was ready for the coming of the idea. But, in large
measure, the cause of the success of the book was that it
offered, with magnificent wealth of proof of various kinds
laboriously accumulated during many years at home and
abroad, an explanation of how transformism might be
carried out — in fact that it professed to demonstrate the
mechanism of evolution. This is made quite clear by the
full title of the book, which though generally shortened
down into " The Origin of Species " and believed by many
to be that and no more, is really " The Origin of Species
by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of
Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life." In that title is
briefly summarised the entire teaching of a book of several
350

NATURAL SELECTION 351
hundred closely printed pages, which teaching we have now
to submit to a brief examination.
If we look out upon the world we see a vast number of
different species of plants and animals, all of them increasing
and multiplying at a rapid rate. Yet the world does not
become overfull of animals : if we look back over a number
of years, we shall recognise that there are about the same
number of birds of different kinds around us as there were
in our childhood, and that the country is not overrun by
the weeds which grow along the hedge sides ; yet these
birds and weeds multiply their numbers enormously every
year. The explanation, of course, is that whilst numbers
of new birds are hatched every year, numbers also die — so
many, in fact, as to keep the general average, in any par
ticular district which has not undergone great changes of
some kind, about the same in a series of succeeding years.
The careful farmer takes pains to see that the weeds do not
invade his grounds to any harmful extent, and thus acts
as an eliminating agent. An eliminating agent — that,
in some shape or form, is what keeps down the numbers
and prevents the whole face of the earth from being
covered by innumerable swarms of animals of all kinds.
If one-half or more likely three-fourths of these living
things perish in their early days, is it merely chance
or luck which leads to the survival of the remaining
one-half or one-quarter ? Darwin's theory was that, if one
may so put it, external luck had nothing and internal luck
everything to say to the survival of any particular individual
Individuals vary ; some of them will be stronger and better
able to resist a period of shortness of food ; some of them
will be swifter of foot and better able to escape from those
who would slay them. These favoured individuals would
survive in the struggle for existence, would hand on to
some at least of their progeny, and perhaps in an enhanced
condition, those gifts by means of which they themselves
had survived in the contest ; by a gradual accumulation
of small variations, first a " variety " and then a new
" species " would be formed. Stripped of all its smaller
details, this is what is meant by the phrase " Natural
Selection " : the selection made by Nature from amongst

35? THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
myriads of individuals whereby favoured individuals survive
in the struggle for existence. It may at once be said that,
if we grant tbat mediate creation is acceptable, there can
be no quarrel between religious dogma and this theory ;
for, as a mechanism devised by the Creator, it would fall
into its place with a number of other orderly arrangements
which we call Laws of Nature.
It remains to be seen whether it is or is not scientifically
sound and what it can and cannot do. In the first place, it
assumes but does not purport to explain the fact that
variations do occur. In this it differs from the Lamarckian
theory ; the often-quoted example of the giraffe will well
explain the difference which exists between the two. The
long neck of this animal on Darwinian hnes would be
accounted for by the fact that, in some prolonged drought
or other food-famine, those members of a species on the
road to becoming what we call giraffes which had the
longest necks could feed on leaves growing higher up on
trees than those less well-provided in this respect, and hence
would survive when their less favoured brethren must die.
The longer necks would become hereditary, and still further
elongate themselves and finally the giraffe, as it exists
to-day, be evolved. It will be observed that this theory
has to begin with a group of herbivorous animals alike
in most respects but differing in that some' of them have
shorter, some longer necks. In other words, this theory
" neglects " the origin of variation, which remains outside
its system. Further, it assumes that the longer necks will
be inherited — this is hardly an assumption, for abundant
proof that such might occur is available. Lamarck, on the
contrary, would explain the long neck by saying that the
particular species in question, by constantly stretching
after higher and yet higher branches, would, by the reflex
stimulus thus set up, actuaUy develop a longer neck. Here,
it will be seen, we begin with the development of the varia
tion — a point evaded by the Darwinian theory. On the
other hand, we assume what the Weismannians and some
at least of the neo-Darwinians would deny, namely, that
acquired characters are heritable. We now see the differ
ence between the two views, which are very sharply dis-

NATURAL SELECTION 353
tinguishable the one from the other. It may be added that
the supporters of either side wage war upon one another at
times with scarcely less bitterness than the odium theologi-
cum is said to provoke.
For a time Natural Selection simply swept the field. Its
more ardent and less well informed supporters claimed for
it a position which the author of the theory himself dis
claimed. It is difficult to understand how they could have
taken up such a position, but Darwin in later editions of
his book was obliged to point out that those who believed
that Natural Selection could account for the origin of varia
tions were labouring under a mistake. Thus he writes :
" Some have even imagined that Natural Selection induces
variability, whereas it implies only the preservation of such
variations as arise and are beneficial to the being under
its conditions of hfe."1 But apart from this fundamental
and indeed inexcusable error, great difference of opinion
exists to-day as to the real value of Darwin's theory. Some
sturdy defenders still proclaim that it is the great and funda
mental explanation of species ; others — though they are
few in number — hold that there is no substance in the theory
and that those who believe in it believe in a vain thing.
De Vries says : " Natural Selection acts as a sieve ; it
does not single out the best variations, but it simply destroys
the larger number of those which are, from some cause or
another, unfit for their present environment. In this way
it keeps the strains up to the required standard, and in
special circumstances may even improve them."2 With
that view probably the large majority of biologists would
find themselves in sympathy, and would agree that Natural
Selection is at least a potent agent, perhaps the most
potent agent in evolution. But it is most important to
understand its limitations, which have been very clearly
pointed out by many and by none more clearly than by
Driesch, to whose pages readers may be referred for a close
analysis of the theory in question. He writes :3 " It must
be certain from the very beginning of analysis that
1 " Origin of Species," etc., ed. vi.. Vol. I, p. 99.
» " Darwin and Modern Science," Camb. Univ. Press, 1909, p. 63.
* " Science and Philosophy of the Organism," Vol. I, p. 262.
2 A

354 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
Natural Selection, as defined here, can only eliminate what
cannot survive, what cannot stand the environment in
the broadest sense, but that Natural Selection never is able
to create diversities. It always acts negatively only, never
positively. And therefore it can ' explain ' — if you will
allow me to make use of this ambiguous word — it can
' explain ' only why certain types of organic specifications,
imaginable a priori, do not actually exist, but it never
explains at all the existence of the specifications of animal
and vegetable forms that are actually found. In speaking
of an ' explanation ' of the origin of the living specific forms
by Natural Selection one therefore confuses the sufficient
reason for the non-existence of what there is not, with the
sufficient reason for the existence of what there is. To say
that a man has explained some organic character by Natural
Selection is, in the words of Naegeli, the same as if someone
who is asked the question, ' Why is this tree covered with
these leaves ? ' were to answer, ' Because the gardener did
not cut them away.' Of course, that would explain why
there are no more leaves than those actually there,
but it never would account for the existence and
nature of the existing leaves as such. Or do we under
stand in the least why there are white bears in the Polar
Regions if we are told that bears of other colours could not
survive ? "
One of the results which undoubtedly followed on the
early and exaggerated acceptance of the doctrine of Natural
Selection was a great distrust or even denial of what has
long been known as the Argument from Design, which
potent piece of logic was supposed to have been completely
put out of action by the Darwinian broadsides. It is not
too much to say that the assumption of a large part of the
world of science, as shown by the writings, the correspond
ence and even the serious statements of the time, was that
believers in anything higher than Nature, and more especi
ally persons putting any faith in the argument from design,
were objects if not of contempt at least of pity. Yet Lecky,
when materialism was in its heyday, was telling its prophets
that they were wholly wrong and that their theories made
the postulation of a Creator more necessary if possible than

THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN 355
it had been before.1 As Mivart pointed out at the time,
Lecky says : " That matter is governed by mind, that the
contrivances and elaborations of the universe are the pro
ducts of intelligence, are propositions which are quite un
shaken, whether we regard these contrivances as the results
of a single momentary exercise of will, or of a slow, con
sistent, and regulated evolution. The proofs of a pervading
and developing intelligence, and the proofs of a co-ordinating
and combining intelligence, are both untouched, nor, can
any conceivable progress of science in this direction destroy
them. If the famous suggestion, that all animal and veget
able hfe results from a single vital germ, and that all the
different animals and plants now existent were developed
by a natural process of evolution from that germ, were a
demonstrated truth, we should still be able to point to the
evidences of intelligence displayed in the measured and
progressive development, in those exquisite forms so differ
ent from what blind chance could produce. . . . The argu
ment from design would indeed be changed ; it would
require to be stated in a new form, but it would be fully
as cogent as before. Indeed it is, perhaps, not too much to
say, that the more fully this conception of universal evolu
tion is grasped, the more firmly a scientific doctrine of
Providence will be established, and the stronger will be the
presumption of a future progress." These words are well
worth quoting again and may be read in connection with
the — also contemporary — parable of Charles Kingsley.2
Let us turn for a few moments to a consideration of the
Argument from Design.3
The high-water mark of the Argument in pre-Darwinian
days was certainly reached by a very remarkable though
now much neglected book — Paley's Evidences, of which
Darwin was a great admirer, claiming that at one time he*
could almost have repeated it by heart. Huxley also ad
mired it, and pointed out that Paley had, in many ways
foreshadowed the evolution hypothesis and had declared
1 In his " History of Rationalism," Vol. I, p. 316.
2 See p. 337.
3 I may refer readers to my volume " A Century of Scientific Thought
and other Essays," Burns and Oates, 1915, for a further discussion of this
matter. Part of this chapter is extracted from the essay in that book.

356 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
that when properly understood it was not really in opposi
tion to religion.
Paley starts with the famous simile of a watch found
by a traveller on a heath who recognises at once that it is
quite a different thing from the stones which he has hitherto
encountered on his way. It is, he claims, an inevitable
inference that the watch must have had a maker, " an
artificer or artificers, who formed it for the purpose which
we find it actually to answer : who comprehended its con
struction, and designed its use." Nor, in his opinion, are
the arguments weakened by the facts that : First we may
never have seen a watch made, or known an artist capable
of making one ; second, that the watch, sometimes, even
frequently went wrong ; third, that there were parts in it
which we did not understand. Further, he argued that the
finder of the watch could not be expected to be satisfied
by any of the following arguments : First, that it was one
of many combinations of matter, and might have been thus
or otherwise arranged ; second, " that there was a principle
of order which had disposed the parts of the watch into
their present form and situation " ; third, that the mechan
ism was not proof of contrivance, only a motive to induce
the mind to think so ; nor again by the argument that,
fourth, the watch was no more than the result of the laws
of metallic nature. Finally, he is not to be put off from his
behef by being told that he knew nothing of the matter.
It will be observed that in this parable Paley sums up all
the lines of argument which had been brought forward, or
indeed have since been brought forward or could well be
brought forward in favour of a materialistic explanation of
Nature. Having given his parable, he proceeds in great
detail to apply his argument to various contrivances through
out the animal kingdom. Thus he examines the eye and
its mechanism, and claims that if it presents lenses and a
focussing apparatus and other things of the kind just as a
telescope does, then, just as the telescope must have had
an intelligent maker who constructed it for the purpose
for which it is fitted, so also must the eye have had its
intelligent artificer.
Now the remarkable thing is that Darwin and almost

DARWIN ON PALEY 357
all his contemporaries seemed to be quite sure that Natural
Selection had utterly and for ever overthrown the argument
from design. Darwin himself wrote : " The old argument
from design in nature, as given by Paley, which formerly
seemed to me so conclusive, fails, now that the law of
Natural Selection has been discovered. We can no longer
argue that, for instance, the beautiful hinge of a bivalve
shell must have been made by an intelhgent 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."1 It is certainly a bold and also certainly a wholly
unwarrantable demand upon our behef that the doctrine
of Natural Selection was thus powerful, and it ignores the
fact that a powerful agent of its kind can only have come
into being in, one of two ways — by chance or by design. If
the former, we have to believe that by accident the particles
of matter in the universe formed a world, by accident also,
and, in some manner hitherto undreamt of by the modern
chemist, that the seed of life appeared on this accidentally
constructed world. Then, by pure, blind, blundering chance,
the law of Natural Selection came into effect and by its
action produces all living things, including the brain and
genius of man and every work of genius and imagination
that man has ever produced. The man who can beheve
this has certainly an enviable power of imagination and
credulity. Surely it must be obvious — indeed it is admitted by
even materialistic men of science — that a Law presupposes,
indeed compels, a belief in a Law-giver. We may say that
we know nothing of Him — that is the pure Agnostic attitude
— but we shall find it difficult to dispute the existence of
such a Being if once we admit the Law. It is once more
the case of the Being who makes things make themselves.
Certainly it does not give us a less exalted idea of the
Creator if, to take up Paley's parable once more, we look
again at the watch and consider that its artificer had not
made it himself but had so empowered things of his creation
1 " Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, "' Vol. I, p. 309.

358 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
that they could themselves make it and many another
wonderful work. These, under this hypothesis, would be
as much the product of His idea as if He had indeed called
them fully made out of nothing by immediate creation.
Thus, as Lecky told the men of his time, the doctrine of
the Argument from Design emerges from the struggle
stronger than it ever was, irrefutable indeed unless we are
to believe in Blind Chance, or to deny our own intellect
and attempt to hold that there may be a Law without a
Law-giver. There is a further matter in connection with Natural
Selection which must not completely escape notice. If
Natural Selection is a law of Nature, and, if, as some would
have us believe, there is no higher law by which our actions
should be governed, ordinary logic would seem to suggest
that we should do our best to assist the law of Natural
Selection and not to thwart them, as Charity, working on
the lines indicated by Christianity, is constantly endeavour
ing to do. Why should we not assist Natural by Artificial
Selection and arrange the matrimonial affairs of budding
youth according to the methods of the stud-farm ? Some
thing like this is the programme of the more advanced
Eugenists, and something like this has been proposed as
an ideal to be sought after, by a recent President of the
British Association in his presidential address.1 There is
one element in the calculation which seems always to be
omitted by the visionaries who are the parents of schemes
such as this : Human Nature, which, especially as manifest
in the young, is very unlikely to submit to its matrimonial
arrangements being made for it by a jury of matrons and
doctors and wholly without regard to such trifles as love
and mutual attraction. We need have no serious fears so
far as this proposition is concerned. One wonders, how
ever, whether those who refuse to believe in any higher
law than that of Nature, have ever thought out what would
follow upon a strict adherence to natural laws and what
sort of a world to live in would be one bereft of God, con
ducted in strict conformity with Nature as we see it around
1 Bateson, Part II of Address, delivered at Sydney.

NATURE AND CHRISTIANITY 359
us " red in tooth and claw." It is all very well to talk of
. the Survival of the Fittest in the Struggle for Existence, but,
if we invert the meaning, we may arrive at a better com
prehension of what it entails. The Survival of the Fittest
means the Extermination of the Less Fit. What would
this mean in the case of mankind ? Rigid extermination
of the feeble and unfit : the cripples, the sickly, and such
like, must wend their way to the lethal chamber for the
benefit of the race, or must at least be incarcerated so as to
cut them off from any prospect of propagating offspring
like unto themselves. Carried a step further, even the
stupid and the less active in body must be eliminated or
restrained, so that the race may become greater and more
powerful. So much for the inner life of the nation, but
what of the outer ? The more powerful nation is to wipe
out the weaker without any pity : why should there be any
pity when it is the Law of Nature that the Strong shall
inherit the Earth and that Might is Right ? Let any
person consider even for a few moments what a world
conducted on the lines of Natural Selection, unchastened by
any ameliorating influences of a religious character, would
be : he will not be long in coming to a conclusion that hell
itself could scarcely be a less comfortable place to live in.
It is perfectly true that neither Darwin — one of the kindliest
of men, as we learn from his life — nor his almost equally
kind-hearted followers for an instant contemplated such
infamies as those which have been suggested above. But
when we are told that Christianity is an exploded thing
and that we must decline upon the laws of Nature, it is
well to consider what that is likely to lead us to. Morahty,
as we understand it, is not to be learned from the laws of
Nature, nor the natural operations of the living world.
This fact alone ought to be enough to teach any rational
human being that there must be something higher than
Nature and the teachings of Nature ; since to trust merely
to the laws of Nature is to enter at once a lupanar and a
slaughter-house. Nor is it of any use to argue that the prophets of the
Gospel of Nature are not themselves brutal or uncharitable,
nor to urge that they are supporters of hospitals and other

360 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
good works of the kind. In that they are so they are belying
their own principles, for Nature teaches no such doctrine,
provides no hospitals for the sick and wounded but rather a
speedy death. It is the atmosphere of the Gospel of Christ
in which such persons live and in which they have been
brought up which, perhaps insensibly, influences them, and
not the Gospel of Nature of which they proclaim them
selves adherents.

CHAPTER XXXV
DOUBTS AS TO DARWINISM— MENDEL AND HIS
DISCOVERIES
IN his Presidential Address to the British Association
in 1913, Sir Oliver Lodge spoke of the characteristic
(so far as pure science was concerned), " of the promising
though perturbing period in which we live " as being
" rapid progress, combined with fundamental scepticism."
He further told us that " a critical examination of scientific
foundations " was going on, and that " a kind of philosophic
scepticism " was in the ascendant, " resulting in a mistrust
of purely intellectual processes and in a recognition of the
limited scope of science." x His successor, Professor Bateson,
looking at things from the standpoint of a biologist, delivers
himself in very much the same strain. " My predecessor,"
he says, " said last year that in physics the. age is one of
rapid progress and profound scepticism. In at least as high
a degree this is true of Biology, and as a chief characteristic
of modern evolutionary thought we must confess also to
a deep but irksome humility in presence of great vital
problems."2 We have seen in the last chapter that great doubts have
been expressed as to the value of Natural Selection by many
biologists, and by none more so than the author of the
address in question, which may be quoted as the latest
and most magistral utterance on the subject. " We have
come to the conviction that the principle of Natural Selec
tion cannot have been the chief factor in delimiting the
1 " Continuity," Dent, London, 1913, pp. 7, 11.
2 Bateson, " Presidential Address to British Association," Part I,
Melbourne, p. 9. 361

362 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
species of animals and plants such as we now, with fuller
knowledge, see them actually to be. We are even more
sceptical as to the validity of that appeal to changes in the
conditions of life as direct causes of modification, upon
which latterly at all events Darwin laid much emphasis "
(ibid. p. 2). " We go to Darwin for his incomparable col
lection of facts. We would fain emulate his scholarship, his
width and his power of exposition, but to us he speaks no
more with philosophical authority. We read his scheme
of Evolution as we would those of Lucretius or Lamarck,
delighting in their simplicity and their courage " (ibid. p. 8).
And the outcome of all this : " We are just about where
Boyle was in the seventeenth century. We can dispose of
Alchemy, but we cannot make more than a quasi-chemistry.
We are awaiting our Priestley and our Mendeleef " (ibid.
p. 19).1
It is not merely as to Natural Selection that doubt is
expressed, but as to other incidental portions of Darwin's
teaching. We have seen that this was the case as to Pan
genesis, and it certainly is with regard to his views as to
the cumulative value of small variations : for Darwin
taught that it was in this way that the origin of species
came about. It is true that at times he wavered towards
the view that larger changes — saltations or mutations as
they are now called — might stand for something in evolu
tion, but on the whole he was unfavourable to this view —
less favourable indeed than Huxley, who expressed the
opinion that Darwin had tied his own hands by too vigorous
a profession of faith in the formula Natura nonfacit saltum.
Nothing can now be more sure than that Nature does make
1 The reader who is unfamiliar with the stream of biological literature,
may be warned that the above views are those of one school and one school
only of biological workers. Diametrically opposite views are held by other
and equally distinguished biologists ; those who desire to study these in a
readable form may be referred to Poulton, " Darwin and the ' Origin,' "
London, Longmans, 1909 ; Ray Lankester, " The Kingdom of Man,"
London, Constable, 1907. It may be added that the confident language
of the address in relation to the all-powerfulness of Mendelism as a future
explanation of biological problems is the echo of the similar hopes expressed
as to Darwinism some forty years ago. It may quite well be re-echoed
forty years hence by some President of the same Association, proclaiming
the partial failure of Mendelism and extolling the coming conquest of the
scientific world by the fashionable theory of the day.

PHYLOGENY 363
leaps, and whether we accept the statements of de Vries1
to the full extent or not, it may safely be said that the
general opinion of biologists is entirely against the possi
bility of any process of evolution having taken place by
means of small, slowly accumulating variations. It is at
any rate obvious that when we look out upon Nature we see
not a continuous but a discontinuous picture. Further, we
now know or think we know — on this point, indeed, we have
perhaps attained to greater certainty than mere thinking —
that the series-scheme so dear to the hearts of phylogenists,
is a delusion ; there is no evidence that the various
forms which can be fitted so beautifully into a series were
ever terms of any such series. " Presented with a collec
tion of modern Sweet Peas, how prettily would the devotees
of Continuity have arranged them in a graduated series,
showing how every intergrade could be found, passing
from the full colour of the wild Sicilian species in one
direction to white, in the other to the deep purple of ' Black
Prince,' though happily we know these two to be among
the earliest to have appeared."2 Here is a case in which
we know that the arrangement in series which a phylogenist
most certainly would have made would have been wholly
incorrect. We have the same information as to other similar
and apparently attractive phylogenetic arrangements : how
are we to know that many, perhaps all, of the other series
which have been unfolded for us are not equally fallacious ?
Take that commonplace of the text-book, the favourite
example of the small manuals of Evolution, the pedigree of
the horse, proclaimed in one of them3 as " a conclusive
instance." Doubts had long ago been expressed as to this
series, and caution inculcated, by Sedgwick in his well-
known text-book of Zoology. 4 Is it not clear now that there
is some, perhaps much reason to suppose that this much-
lauded series is not a phylogenetic series at all ; not mono
phyletic but polyphyletic ? The whole teaching of the wing
of biologists represented by Professor Bateson is in favour
of a polyphyletic origin of species — a view in which Father
1 In his " Species and Varieties," Chicago, 1905. * Bateson, i., p. 15.
8 Saleeby, " Organic Evolution," London, Jack.
1 For a recent discussion of the phylogeny of the horse see "The Theory
of Evolution," by W. B. Scott; New York, the Macmillian Co., 1917.

364 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
Wasmann, a biologist of great distinction, poles apart from
Bateson in other directions, concurs.1
Then again it is more than doubtful whether any new
characteristics can be added in the process of evolution.
It has been pointed out that most mutations with which
we are acquainted are due to losses of one or perhaps even
more than one, of the characters of the wild type. De Vries
calls these "retrogressive mutations," and they appear. to
follow the Mendelian laws of heredity, of which more has to be
said. It is obvious that a thornless rose would be a different
thing from the rose of the hedges, but the difference would
be caused by the loss of something — in this case the thorns —
and not by the addition of any new feature. But surely
new features do appear ? They certainly seem to do so,
but according to the authorities on Mendel, they are not
really new qualities in any proper sense of the word. They
are qualities which have all the time been there, but have
been " inhibited," as it is called, by other qualities, which
have prevented them from corning to the front. Two or
three boys may pass wholly unnoticed in a school because
they are downtrodden and made to keep in the background
by bullies : on the departure of the latter, the hitherto
neglected boys may take a prominent place in the politics
of their school. In like manner characteristics latent in
living things are thrust into the background by other
factors : if these factors happen to be eliminated, the
hidden things are made plain. But it must be noted that
this is not the case of a gain. On the contrary, the trans
action which appears to end in a gain is really a loss, for
until the restraining qualities have been removed and thus
lost the hidden quahties cannot appear.
Finally, after a careful study of the vast field of experi
ment on Mendelian lines which has marked the years since
Abbot Mendel's discovery was rediscovered, Lotsy has
answered, in the negative, the question as to whether there
is any such thing as spontaneous variation. In his opinion,
all that we call variation is really due to the crossing of well-
marked varieties. Truly it is not wonderful if the searcher
1 See p. 339.

ABBOT MENDEL 365
of biological literature of to-day, in unison, so one gathers,
with the physicists, should exclaim in his despair, " AU that.
I know is that nothing can be known."1
It is now time to turn to the consideration of the real
disturbing element in aU this volte-face as to Darwinism.
That it is not a universal volte-face has already been admitted
and emphasised. What has caused the partial alteration of
opinion to which we have been calling attention ? We have
already seen that the discovery of radium at once produced
an extraordinary bouleversement of views in the physical
wing of science. The discoveries of Abbot Mendel have not
been as all-powerful as yet, since their significance is still
disputed by very competent critics ; but they have assuredly
worked a very remarkable change in scientific opinion during
the short time that they have really been before the world.
Mendel was an Augustinian monk and ended his days as
Abbot of Briinn. Prior to his election to that position, the
occupations of which most unfortunately put an end to his
scientific discoveries, he devoted a great deal of attention
to experiments in connection with inheritance. Unfortu
nately he buried these researches in the archives of a local
natural history society and they attracted little if any
attention, greatly to their author's chagrin, but with no
reduction in his confidence as to their ultimate success.
Mendel's papers were read to the society in Briinn in the
years 1865 and 1869. It will be remembered that the
" Origin of Species " appeared in 1859, some years before
the publication of Mendel's papers. It is curious but seems
nevertheless to be a fact that Darwin never heard of Mendel's
work. It has often been speculated as to the effect that Mendelian
discoveries might have had upon Darwin's views. Mendel
died in 1884, and his discoveries seemed to be buried, with
many a score of others, under the ever-accumulating cairn
of scientific papers. It was not until 1900 that three
1 After proclaiming his doubts as to biology, the writer of the address
in question does not hesitate to build on our foundation of ignorance some
of those political theories which were alludedto in chapter xxxiv, and to
deal in those onslaughts on " superstition " and " mysticism " which we
have been accustomed to hear for these fifty years past from the upholders
of totally different theories.

366 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
scientific workers, de Vries being one of them, called the
attention of biologists to his long-forgotten works. Since
that date the number of papers which have appeared on
the Mendehan theory and the experimentswhich have been
made in connection therewith have been alike almost count
less ; and it may safely be said that the discoveries of the
Augustinian Abbot have caused as much ferment in the
scientific world as those of Darwin did at the time of their
appearance. Like Darwin's theories, those of Mendel have
been acclaimed by their supporters as being the last pos
sible word of science on the subject and as a solid founda
tion of ideas not merely biological but political. It will,
therefore, be well to give some brief account of the theories
themselves and of certain important deductions in connec
tion with them.1
Mendel's experiments were made largely but by no means
exclusively on peas, but since his death they have been
applied to aU sorts of forms, vegetable and animal. In the
last analysis his method depends upon the segregation of
characters, not individuals. For example, peas may be
taU or dwarfish, their seeds may be smooth or wrinkled,
green or yeUowish, and so on. Mendel, by careful study,
directed to single characters, such as the above, arrived at
certain conclusions which form the so-caUed Mendelian
laws.2 Let us take the best-known example perhaps of his
theory, that of the tall and short peas. Mendel took two
varieties of peas, which he had already found to breed true,
as regards height. The normal height of one was six feet
(taU), and of the other, one and a half (dwarf). These two
strains were crossed with one another, sometimes the poUen
of the tall being used, sometimes that of the dwarf. The

1 The subject of Mendelism has developed an enormous literature and
a most complicated technical terminology. The classical work on the
subject is that by Bateson, " Mendel's Principles of Heredity," Camb.
Univ. Press, 1909, which contains a translation of the two original papers.
A good account of a less technical character will be found in Lock's inter
esting book " Recent Progress in the Study of Variation, Heredity and
Evolution," London, John Murray, 1906. A short sketch of Mendel's life
and work will be found in " Twelve Catholic Men of Science," published
by the Catholic Truth Society, 1912.
2 I give these as I gave them in my " Facts and Theories," p. 153, as
that explanation was made as simple and as complete as possible.

TALL AND DWARF PEAS 367
results were the same in both cases. In all cases the result
was that the offspring were all " tails," some of them even
taUer than the parent " taU." Mendel, therefore, called
" tallness," in this instance, the dominant, and " dwarfish-
ness " the recessive character. It might have been thought
by the hasty observer that dwarfishness had been wiped out,
but what was the result of the sowing of the seeds of the self-
fertilised hybrids ? A mixed generation consisting of " tails ' '
and " dwarfs," but — most significant fact — of no inter
mediate forms. Further, it was found that the " tan's "
were to the " dwarfs " as three is to one. The seeds from
this second hybrid generation were also saved, those from
each individual plant being carefully harvested and separ
ately sown. What was the result ? The seeds of the
" dwarf " recessives bred perfectly true, none but " dwarfs "
resulting. But not so the " tails." Some of these bred true, pro
ducing only " taUs," but some of them acted like the first
hybrid generation of " tails," and produced a generation
of " taUs " and " dwarfs " in the proportion of three of the
former to one of the latter. Further experiments with
other pairs of characteristics such as yeUow and green
colour, led Mendel to lay down the law that " in every case
where the inheritance of an alternative pair of characters
was concerned, the effect of the cross in successive genera
tions was to produce three, and only three, different sorts of
individuals, viz. dominants which bred true, dominants
which gave both dominant and recessive offspring in the
ratio of three to one, and recessives which always bred true."
What happens in the case of the true-breeding forms appears
to be that the opposite factor, of whatever kind that may
be, has become eliminated.
The supporters of the Mendelian law make great claims
for it, urging that it is on a level with the discoveries of
Newton and that it has been found apphcable to all kinds
of characters, mental as weU as physical. In considering
these claims and assertions the wise will remember the
chorus of approval from scientific men which welcomed the
" Law " of Natural Selection and the gradual waning of
that theory, and will " wait and see " before they come to

368 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
look upon Mendel as the discoverer of the key to all biological
riddles. This, however, can and should be said ; that, as
to the truth of the Mendelian law in certain cases at least it
seems as if there can be no doubt. Its opponents, I think,
admit this, but they claim that its applicability is not
universal, wherein they may or may not be right. Time
alone can show the result of long-continued experi
ment. Meantime this at least may be said that in common with
other Laws of Nature it compels us to recognise a Law
giver. This is even admitted by so firm a monist as Plate.1
Plate says we can know nothing of this Law-giver — his own
independent opinion — but the main point is that he admits
that if there is a Law there must be a source for that Law
in the shape of a Law-giver. One would have thought that
this was a self-evident proposition, but it is not so to some
minds. There is a curious passage in the writings of one of
the greatest Mendelians of the day — indeed the leader of
that body — to which I have elsewhere caUed attention.
He says that " with the experimental proof that variation
consists largely in the unpacking and repacking of an
original complexity, it is not so certain as we might hke to
think that the order of these events is not predetermined."2
It is a httle difficult to understand why " we " should not
like to think that things were predetermined. Science is
supposed to direct its attention to the elucidation of facts,
and above aU things to be entirely unbiassed by any parti
pris in her judgments.
Father Wasmann says in one of his books8 that " in
many scientific circles there is an absolute theophobia, a
dread of the Creator," which he regrets because he believes
" that it is due chiefly to a defective knowledge of Christian
philosophy and theology." Therein most people with any
knowledge of these subjects will agree with the learned
Jesuit. If there be a Predeterminer and a Law-giver, and
1 See his admissions in the discussion between himself and others on
the materialistic side and Wasmann for the opposite in Wasmann's
" Problem of Evolution," London, Kegan Paul, 1909. The passage in
question will be found on p. 108.
' Bateson in " Darwin and Modern Science," p. 101.
3 " Problem of Evolution," p. 47.

THE LAWGIVER 369
if, as Christians believe, He is the God in whom we place
our trust, it is not easy to understand why " we "
should not hke to think of Him, and why it should be
regarded as rather in the nature of an insult to suggest
that Science points Him out to us in the most unmistakable
manner.

2 B

CHAPTER XXXVI
TRANSFORMISM— A SUMMING UP
IN this chapter we shaU attempt to sum up the conclu
sions which we are entitled to come to respecting the
evolutionary theories of to-day and their relation — so dire-
fuUy misunderstood in the past — to religious dogma.
i. We must keep before our minds the fact that trans
formism, however probable it may seem, is not by any means
a proved fact. Perhaps it never will be proved : perhaps
it is insusceptible of proof : at any rate, it remains unproved
to-day, and this in spite of the absurdly confident state
ments of primers and smaU manuals never tired of pro
claiming that transformism is as much a certitude of science
as gravitation. It is quite certain that the overwhelming
majority of biologists accept transformism as the solution
of the question of species and their origin. Here and there
a voice, like that of Fleischmann, cries out against it, but
it cannot be said that such utterances have any effect upon
scientific opinion, though they lead men careful of science
to admit the unproved character of the evolutionary hypo
thesis. Thus Professor T. H. Morgan, whilst differing from
Fleischmann and admitting that his views have had little
if any effect in weakening the belief of the biological world
in the truth of evolution, adds : " He has done, neverthe
less, good service in recalling the fact that, however prob
able the theory [of evolution] may appear, the evidence is
indirect and exact proof is still wanting."1
In connection with the point now under consideration and
the probable impossibility of arriving at any time at what
could with any accuracy be described as a proof of evolu-
1 In his most interesting and suggestive book, " Evolution and Adapta
tion," MacmiUan Co., New York, 1903, p. 57.
370

THE FLY AND THE FLOWER 371
tion, the foUowing passage from one of Wasmann's works
is much to the point. The doctrine of evolution, he points
out, is " not an experimental science and can never be one.
It is essentiaUy a theory based upon a group of hypotheses
which are in harmony with one another, and .afford the most
probable explanation of the origin of organic species. We
cannot demand to see the evolution of species taking place
before our eyes, in such a way as to give us a direct con
firmation of the theory of evolution. Man was born far too
late, and, lives far too short a time, to be able to make such
a demand. Imagine a fly, destined to live but one day,
which comes to life one beautiful morning in spring, and sees
all around it the trees in full blossom. That the blossoms
came forth from buds which gradually unfolded, and that
the blossoms in their turn will lose their petals and develop
into fruit, aU this must remain hidden from the fly during its
few hours of life. It might therefore be tempted to believe
that the blossoms all around were created by the good
God exactly as it sees them, and will remain unchanged for
ever. The fly would be greatly mistaken, and even as an
ephemeral fly, if it had intelligence, it might perceive some
slight signs that the splendour of the blossoms was not
unchanging. It might see that, in the course of a few hours,
some buds had aheady opened more fully, some blossoms
had lost their petals either partiaUy or wholly. The opening
buds are those rare traces of modification of species which
we can still prove to have taken place, although within
comparatively narrow limits. If we continue the simile,
the falling petals are the species in process of extinction,
and the fallen leaves are the extinct specie's known to us
only as fossils, which reveal to us the fate of all organic
species on earth : they come and go and give place to their
successors, and though the duration of their existence may
be reckoned in thousands or even miUions of years — as is
that of many kinds of the brachiopod genus Lingula— -yet
for them, as for each of us, there is a beginning and an end."1
Fr. Wasmann from -his long and fruitful study of ants
and their inquilines,2 comes to the conclusion that "the
1 " Problem of Evolution," p. 6. • A term used for insects having
a common habitation and associated with the ants.

372 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
principle of the theory of evolution is the only one which
supplies us with a natural explanation " of the phenomena
in question, for which reason he accepts it "as far as its
application is supported by actual proofs."1 To this con
clusion the present writer has no hesitation in subscribing
and beheves that it would meet with acceptance from most
scientific biologists.
ii. We must further remember that some of the arguments
which at first seemed most potently to support the theory
of transformism have now broken down, either completely
or in part. For example, the phylogenetic argument which
arranges plants and animals in beautiful series on the assump
tion that a genealogical tree can be constructed for them,
as it can for some royal or noble family whose ancestry and
connections are set down in the Almanach de Gotha, seems
to have completely broken down in face of the facts brought
to light by Mendel and his foUowers, and briefly recapitu
lated in the preceding chapter. Driesch does not hesitate
to speak of the " phantasy christened Phylogeny." After
having pointed that " the gaUery of ancestors " which Lieb-
mann said was all that phylogeny provides us with, was not
even reliable, he proceeds : " Far more eloquent than any
amount of polemics is the fact that vertebrates, for instance,
have already been ' proved ' to be descended from, firstly,
the amphioxus ; secondly, the annelids ; thirdly, the
Sagitta type of worms ; fourthly, from spiders ; fifthly,
from Limulus, a group of crayfishes ; and sixthly, from
echinoderm larvae. That is the extent of my acquaintance
with the literature, with which I do not pretend to be
specially familiar. Emil du Bois-Reymond said once that
phylogeny of this sort is of about as much scientific value
as are the pedigrees of the heroes of Homer, and I think we
may fully endorse his opinion on this point."2
Then again there is the recapitulation argument, which
taught that the history of the individual represented or
reproduced that of the race. It too is badly damaged by
Mendelian principles and, apart from that, is abandoned by
1 Op. cit., p. 14.
2 The first quotation is from " History and Science of Vitalism,"
p. 140, the second from " The Science and Philosophy of the Organism,"
Vol. I, p. 256.

MENDELISM 373
others such as KeUogg, who says it " is chiefly conspicuous
now as a skeleton on which to hang innumerable excep
tions," and that " the recapitulation theory is mostly wrong ;
and what is right in it is mostly so covered up by the wrong
part, that few biologists longer have any confidence in
discovering the right."1 No doubt other biologists take up
a diametricaUy opposite position, but there is no denying
that the theory in question does not occupy the strong
position which it seemed to do during the years imme
diately succeeding its first promulgation by Haeckel and
Fritz MiiUer.
iii. It is now perfectly clear that, whatever may or may
not be its value, Natural Selection is in no sense the full
explanation of and justification for a transformist theory
that it was at first claimed to be. On this head sufficient
has already been said.
iv. Mendelism does not offer any very special support
to the transformist theory as commonly understood — indeed
it suggests this difficulty, that whilst evolution would seem
to assume an ascent from simplicity to complexity, Men
delism exhibits nature in the constant process of shedding
characters and thus proceeding from a greater to a less
complexity. Such at least would seem to be the teaching given us by
those who insist that even those characters which appear
to be new in a variety or in an individual are not really
so, were there aU the time in petto — " stopped down," so to
speak, by other and stronger characteristics, the removal of
which has permitted the appearance of those which up to
that time had been hidden. Professor Bateson discusses
this point in the address from which quotation was made
in the last chapter, and admits that it " involves a certain
effort " to " reverse our habitual modes of thought " and
ask ourselves whether " we are limited to the old view that
evolutionary progress is from the simple to the complex,
and whether after all it is conceivable that the process was
the other way about."2 And all this because, for other
1 " Darwinism To-Day," London, George Bell & Sons, 1907, pp. 18
and 21.
2 British Association Address, 1914, I, pp. 15, 16.

374 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
reasons of course, " we have got to recognise that there
has been an evolution, that somehow or other the forms of
life have risen from fewer forms." It is evident that we are
as far away from the explanation of the mechanism of
evolution as we were in pre-Darwinian days.
v. We get no certain teaching as to whether that was
monophyletic or polyphyletic. Darwin, as we have already
seen, was himself somewhat doubtful on this point,1 but
it is certainly true that whilst a monophyletic commence
ment of evolution was not exactly de fide amongst faithful
Darwinians it would for a time at least have been decidedly
daring to doubt it. Yesterday it was generaUy beheved that
life started from a single source ; to-day many would agree
that there were several such sources.
Wasmann2 says that " the assumption of a monophyletic
evolution of the whole kingdom of organic hfe is a delightful
dream without any scientific support," and that " the same
may be said of the assumed monophyletic evolution of the
whole animal kingdom on the one hand, and of the whole
vegetable kingdom on the other, from one primary form
respectively." Of course, it may be argued that Wasmann is
not only a believer in religion but a Jesuit,* and one must
therefore discount his opinion heavny. But he has witnesses
not thus discredited. Fleischmann, for example, says that
it is impossible to trace back the chief types of the animal
kingdom to one primitive form. Yes, but Fleischmann is
an opponent of evolution and therefore biassed. Of course
everybody is biassed who does not shout with the largest
crowd, but what about Oscar Hertwig, who is certainly un
tainted with any of the suspicious qualities of the two writers
last quoted ? Hertwig is thus quoted by Wasmann :
" Evidence of the monophyletic development of different
races is altogether wanting, and we are forced more and
more to accept the theory of development from a variety of
stocks." Further, he states that Boveri, and a number of
other zoologists, botanists and palaeontologists3 hold the
same view. Finally, Bateson,4 who certainly has no theo-
1 See p. 336. * " Problem of Evolution," p. 15.
• Fcr whom see " Problem of Evolution," p. i&,
? Address, I, p, 18,

CONVERGENCE 375
logical taint, and who is a stout supporter of the general
theory of evolution, says : " We should be greatly helped
by some indication as to whether the origin of life has been
single or multiple. Modern opinion is, perhaps, inclining
to the multiple theory, but we have no real evidence."
It ought not to be forgotten that it was Bateson how
in the great work which first caused a rift in the strict
Darwinian phalanx,1 set at the head of his Introduction the
pregnant text " AU flesh is not the same flesh : but there
is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another
of fishes, and another of birds."
vi. The remarkable facts connected with what is called
" convergence " are quite unexplained by Darwinian views
but receive or may receive an explanation in terms of
polypliyletic evolution. Some brief account of what is
meant by this term may here be given, since the subject
is one of great intrinsic interest, apart altogether from its
bearing on the point with which we are now concerned.2
Convergence is a term applied " to resemblances amongst
animals which are not due to direct relationship or genetic
affinity ; in other words, which are not derived by inherit
ance from common ancestors, but which result from inde
pendent functional adaptation to similar ends."3 Every
body knows that the hedgehog and the porcupine are both
of them covered with spines, yet the first is an insectivore
and the last a rodent, races widely separated from one
another. There are two kinds of flying fish — Exocetus,
which is a herring-like form, and Dactylopterus, which is a
gurnard.. These belong to different families, yet both of them
can pursue a limited flight in the air and both of them owe
this power to the fact that their pectoral fins are elongated
and expanded — a remarkable modification which cannot be
explained by any relationship between the two creatures.
Here is another and more remarkable example. Most
persons will be aware that mammalia are divided into
1 " Materials for the Study of Variation Treated with Special Regard
to Discontinuity in the Origin of Species," London, MacmiUan, 1894.
' For a careful and most interesting study of this subject the reader
may be referred to " Convergence in Evolution," by A. Willey, London,
Murray, 1911.
» Qft. eit., p. 5».

376

THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE

non-placental and placental divisions, the former having a
much narrower range of habitat than the latter, which are
aU over the world. On the old theory of phylogeny both of
these were thought of as arising from a common form which
dichotomised into the two great divisions. On this theory
it is certainly difficult to explain the curious series of re
semblances in habit and adaptation to which Mr. Wflley
draws attention in his book and which may thus be tabu
lated : Habit.
Carnivorous
Ant-eating FlyingSwimming
Burrowing
(Large-eyed forms)

Non-Placentals.
DasyurinaeMyrmecobineaePetaurusChironectes
Peramelidae

Placentals.
Carnivora
Myrmecophagidae
Pteromys LutraMuridae

Notoryctidae

Burrowing
(Small-eyed forms)

Talpidae

vii. It has been claimed that a belief in evolution under
any shape or form necessarily goes with a monistic view of
the universe, by which is meant that form of monism which
excludes all idea of a Creator. It has aheady been shown
that this is absurd, for all reahy instructed teachers of a
Transformist doctrine from Darwin onwards have been
insistent in their teaching that evolution does not account
for the beginning of things and makes no pretension to do
so. We must invoke some explanation, unless, with Huxley
and others, we are prepared for a perpetual confession of
ignorance : and we have seen that it is not only believers
in Christianity or in a religion of some kind who have come
to the conclusion that the theory of a Creator is that which
best explains things as they are. Once for all, then, it may
be said that the statement that monism logically foUows
upon Darwinism is not correct. Indeed it is difficult to see
how those who are so insistent on the fact that there are
laws of Nature which accomplish ingenious ends, can account
for them without postulating a Law-maker as the originator
of what must otherwise be assumed to be the work of bhnd
chance.

EVOLUTION AND THE FATHERS 377
viii. We have seen that some sort of evolution — any of
the forms discussed in the preceding pages — if looked upon
as a method of creation is not antagonistic to the teaching
of the highest doctrinal authorities in the Catholic Church,
such as St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, Suarez and
others (see Chapter XXXII). On this point I may conclude
with two quotations from Father Wasmann — who is far
better qualified to speak on this particular point than the
present writer — since they not only show his own views
but also illustrate the further point which has been several
times urged in these pages — namely, that the mediate
scheme of Creation gives us an even more exalted idea of
the greatness of the Creator than would be given by an
immediate form. " Personally," he writes,1 " I am firmly
convinced that the doctrine of evolution, considered as a
scientific hypothesis and theory, is not at variance with the
Christian theory of life, although the contrary is often
asserted. ... If we assume that God is the Creator of all
things, and that the world created by Him has evolved
independently and automatically, we have actuaUy a greater
idea of God than if we regard Him as constantly interfering
with the working of the Laws of Nature. Let us imagine
two billiard players, each having a hundred baUs to direct.
The one needs a hundred strokes in order to accomplish his
end ; the other with one stroke sets all the baUs in motion,
as he wUl : the latter is undoubtedly the more skilful player.
St. Thomas Aquinas stated long ago that the force of any
cause was the greater, the further its action extended.
God does not interfere directly in the natural order where
He can work through natural causes. This is by no means
a new principle, but a very old one, and it shows us that
the theory of evolution, as a scientific hypothesis and theory,
as far as it can be really proved, is perfectly compatible
with the Christian theory of the origin of things. Accord
ing to this view, the evolution of the organic world is but
a little line in the millions of pages contained in the book
of the evolution of the whole universe, on the title-page
of which still stands written in indelible letters : ' In the
beginning God created Heaven and Earth.' "
1 " Problem of Evolution," p. 18

378 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
ix. FinaUy, it may be pointed out once more that, for
Catholics at least, a number of difficulties of a minor char
acter seem to be completely overcome by ever bearing in
mind the teaching of our phUosophy and theology as to
the " nowness " of God. The laws, whatever they may be,
discovered or undiscovered, are His laws, and were made
operative at the moment (we are obliged to speak in the
inadequate words of time and space) that creation took
place. The whole scheme was one and complete at that
moment, and we have no more need to think, in the ordinary
significance of the words, of " interferences " than we have
to consider it an " interference " when a clock strikes twelve.
When the clock was made, it was intended to strike twelve
at the appropriate moment : when creation was launched
on its course it was equaUy intended that fishes should
appear at a certain moment and man at another. But all
were, in idea, created at the same instant, which with the
Creator has always been and always wfll be " Now."

CHAPTER XXXVII
MAN AND HIS ORIGIN— HIS BODILY PART
WE are now approaching the termination of oui
enquiry. Having dealt with the question of trans
formism as it applies to the lower creation we must now
turn our attention to man. Is there any real distinction
between the case of man and that of other hving things,
particularly other mammalia, to which order he belongs
anatomically ? Yesterday, so to speak, a large portion of
the scientific world would have rephed that there was no
distinction, bodily or mental, save one of degree ; to-day
the reply would hardly be so confident nor so unanimous.
For us Catholics there can, of course, be but one reply
that, whatever may be the case with regard to man's bodily
attributes, which form the topic of this chapter, there can
be no question as to his soul, which we shall consider in
the next.
We believe that the soul of man is a wholly different
thing from the " souls " of lower animals. Aristotle came
to this conclusion by pure reason and without the aid of
revelation. Our psychologists of to-day seem to be reach
ing it again — by devious paths no doubt, but still reaching
it — as we shaU see when that part of our subject comes
under consideration.
From the account of the creation of the world given in
Genesis one fact emerges with great clearness. The creation
of man was a dual event and is so described, whereas the
creation of all other things is, in each case, described as a
single event. Cardinal Newman emphasised this distinc
tion in one of his sermons : " Man was made rational after
he was made corporeal. ' The Lord God formed man of the
dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath
379

380 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
of life, and man became a living soul ' (Gen. ii. 7). Here are
two acts on the part of the Creator — the forming the dust
and the breathing the life."1
According then to what would seem the natural meaning
of the words of the Bible, it would appear that the Creator
first made a suitable habitation for the soul, and when that
habitation was made, infused the soul into it, when and
when only it became what can properly be called " Man."
There would thus, according to the language of the text,
seem to have been a time, however brief, when there was a
man-like organism which was not yet man. It is to be
noted that in the account of the creation of other hving
things, no such distinction is made as to a twofold operation.
From this we may be led to suppose that the creature and
its vital principle did not in these cases result from separate
acts of the Creator.
Let us now consider the body, the habitation of the
soul. Unquestionably man's body closely resembles the body
of other mammals and especially that of the ape ; indeed,
anatomicaUy, he is an ape : even the anatomy of his
brain presents great simUarity to that of the higher
apes. As we have yet to see, the more this particular
point is pressed, the stronger becomes the psychological
argument resting upon the mental differences between
the two.
This great anatomical similarity between man and other
mammals certainly strongly suggests a common physical
origin. It is not in itself a proof of such ; indeed there is
no conclusive evidence at present in existence for this
theory. Nevertheless the supposition of the common origin
of the body of man and of other mammals may be used and
is used by science as a working hypothesis to deal with the
morphological problems which arise in terms of that hypo
thesis — as was the theory of Copernicus when first put for
ward by him. It may then be found that an increasing
number of these morphological problems and what appear
to be their solutions, point in the direction of the working
1 " Sermons Bearing on Subjects of the Day," 1869, Sermon VII,
p. 101.

THE ORIGIN OF MAN 381
hypothesis thus adopted. This would gradually augment
its probability and indeed make it more of a fact to
us and less of a hypothesis. But it must not be for
gotten that an opposite result has occurred in the case
of many working hypotheses and may do in connection
with this.
We must always keep clearly before our minds that
very important truth which has been so often — but not
too often — insisted upon in this book — namely, that because
an explanation explains all the terms of the thing to be
explained, it is not, therefore, necessarily the true explana
tion but may be far removed from it.
Scientific investigators may, in this way, be on the track
of the true explanation of the origin of man's body or they
may not. Of only one thing can we feel absolutely sure, and
that is that down to the present moment science has arrived
at no conclusive proof of the common origin. "The only
statement, consistent with her dignity, that science can
make, is to say that she knows nothing about the origin of
man." So wrote Reinke in 1902, 1 and so must any honest
biologist write to-day, for no discovery has since been made
which affords unquestionable evidence for the opposite
statement. We have aheady seen that man, as we first know of him,
was skeletally identical with man as he now exists ; that he
was a skilful toolmaker in stone, the only lasting raw material
for tools with which he was acquainted ; that he knew how
to hght a fire ; that he beheved in a future state for his
soul, however vaguely he may, in his rudimentary psycho
logy, have understood this matter. Thus he was a man in
every sense of the word and would have been recognised
anywhere to-day as such, were he to appear in flesh and
blood in the streets of any great town.
Branco, the eminent palaeontologist, said in 1901 that in
the history of our planet man appears as a genuine Homo
novus and that, as to his ancestry, palaeontology tells us
nothing on the subject — it knows no ancestors of man.2
1 " Der gegenwartige Stand der Abstammungslehre," Der Tiirmer, v.
October, 1902, Part I, p. 13, teste Wasmann, " Modern Biology," p. 480.
* See Wasmann, " Modern Biology," pp. 477-8.

382 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
From the time of Darwin scientific observers have been
looking for what has been called " the Missing Link," but
have never succeeded in finding him. Sometimes he has
been thought to have been secured, as in the case of the
Neanderthal and, later on, of the TrinU, Heidelberg and
Piltdown remains ; but none of these give much assistance
to the seekers. Further investigations may throw hght
upon aU these things, but at the moment, those who have
written on the Piltdown skuU, the latest discovered memorial
of early man, are not in any way agreed as to how it should
be restored, what it would be like when properly restored,
nor what its cranial capacity may have been. Further
investigations may throw light on this matter. They may,
though for reasons yet to be given, it seems unlikely, afford
distinct — possibly even convincing — evidence in favour of
the common origin of man and mammals. So far the proof
is not there from the skeletal point of view. Of course there
are the fantastic pedigrees of Haeckel, with numerous purely
imaginary ancestors inserted wherever the gap was too
huge to be ignored. No one credits these things nowadays ;
indeed the old phylogenetic legends day by day tend to
become regarded with less and less favour and to have less
and less weight. Driesch, as we have seen, does not hesitate to
criticise with the utmost severity " the phantasy christened
Phylogeny." 1 Bateson derides the same system : 2 " Natural
ists," he says, "may still be found expounding teleological
systems which would have dehghted Dr. Pangloss himself,
but at the present time few are misled."3
All these phylogenetic legends arose from the obsessing
idea of series which Mendelian investigations have shown
to be almost certainly fallacious.4 Fallacious or not, there
is nothing at this moment resembling a series in connection
with man during the ages of his existence upon the earth,

1 See his " History of Vitalism," p. 140, and elsewhere.
2 In his " Presidential Address to the British Association in 1914," I,
p. 8. * He quotes, as an example of these, from a recent Croonian Lecture,
" On the Origin of Mammals," which shows high powers of imagination :
but it is a small thing in comparison with the Haeckelian pedigree
of man. 1 See p. 363 for Bateson's discussion of the sweet-pea and its varieties.

THE APE AND THE MAN 383
nor is there any series linking him up with any possible
ancestry which he may have possessed.
A good many of the ideas about man and his ancestry
are built upon the unsafe foundation which was laid down
when it was considered to be a canon of science that evolu
tion proceeded only by the gradual accumulation of smaU
variations. Were this the case we might reasonably expect
to be presented with a " series," if man's body had been
evolved from that of some lower mammal. But we have
seen that the " smaU variation " and " gradual accumula
tion " theories do not hold the field as they did. One of the
potent arguments against such a method of evolution is 1
that a slight modification or an accumulation of slight
modifications might very well reach such a point as to be
actually disadvantageous to their possessor, before they
could reach that further point where they might be reaUy
beneficial to him in the struggle for existence. It is no use
for me to congratulate myself on the fact that, if I reach a
certain spot, I shall be in complete safety and comfort, if
on the way to that spot I must necessarily pass through an
area where I shall almost certainly be destroyed, or, at best,
be in much greater danger than at the spot from which I
started. Now it so happens that this particular argument
can be pressed home more fully in the case of man than per
haps almost anywhere else. Let us suppose, for a moment,
that some ape-like creature is, slowly and by a minute
series of changes, tending to a man-like form ; what are
the things which would have to happen in the process of
his evolution ? We will consider these in a moment ; but
while we are doing so, let us not fail to note that with one
single exception, there is not one of the things which must
have happened that would not have been of such a char
acter as to have placed the ape-like creature, in the early
stages of his evolution, in such a position of disadvantage
amongst his fellow-animals as inevitably to have led to his
early extermination.
Man is weaker, less agUe, less fitted for rapid flight, less
weU-clothed with hair, less weU provided with strong canine
teeth, in every physical way a poorer, less powerful animal
than, say, a gorilla. Now, ex hypothesi, he gradually attained

384 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
to this position of physical disadvantage by slow degrees :
is it likely that he would have survived the process ? The
late Professor Dwight sums up this point so weU that I
shaU quote him in extenso.1 Speaking of man, he says :
" Not very strong of arm, not very swift of foot, without a
weU-developed hairy hide, or large teeth, or strong claws,
he seems as a mere animal an exceedingly unfortunate one,
good neither for attack nor defence, in short very unfit for
the struggle for existence, in that imaginary period of half-
fledgedness between brute and man. His instincts and his
senses, that of touch perhaps excepted, though in the savage
state undoubtedly greater than those of civflised man, are
by no means remarkable. Take him as a mere animal, what
is he but an egregious failure ? By what kind of evolution
could such a creature rise who shows throughout his body
only instances of the survival of the unfittest ? Let us try
to imagine him rising in the scale according to the dogmas
of evolution. Let us watch the arboreal monkey, weU-
fitted for his surroundings, graduaUy losing aU that fits
him for them. We see his coat growing thinner, his arms
shorter so that he loses his " reach," his legs longer so
that climbing becomes harder, and at the same time his
brain growing in some incomprehensible way, and for no
good reason, excepting that it is necessary for the theory to
believe that the brain-development went on so swimmingly
that it compensated for the physical degeneration."
There is of course one thing, and one thing only — the
" exception " spoken of a few lines above — which has given
man his predominance and enabled him, poor creature
though he is physically, to lord it over aU other hving things.
That one feature is the mental superiority which enables the
weak to overcome the strong. Now that form of psychology,
rapidly becoming extinct, which adhered to the foohsh
theory that the brain secretes thought as the liver secretes
bile, was (and is, so far as it exists) constrained to postulate
an early and, as Professor Dwight put it, " incomprehen
sible " development of the brain. Some theorists hold
or held that, for some reason unknown and unguessed at
1 " Thoughts of a Catholic Anatomist," Longmans, New York, rgn,
p. 158.

EVOLUTION BY SALTATION 385
man's brain began to grow because he began to assume
the erect posture, though it is not shown how the one event
depends upon the other. Other theorists hold an opposite
and equally unproved view that he took to the erect posture
because his brain began to grow. All these ideas are the
purest surmises ; there is not a shred of evidence for any
one of them. The fact is that the " smaU variation " and
" gradual accumulation " theory breaks down in detail and
hopelessly, as far as man is concerned, when it comes to be
criticaUy examined. Many zoologists to-day consider that
it has equally broken down in other cases with which we
are not now concerned. This method of explanation having
faUed, is there any other which can be put forward ? Yes :
recent science suggests that the theory of gradual evolution
may be supplanted by that of saltation or mutation. Ac
cording to this view a new organism considerably different
from the parental type is, from time to time, suddenly
originated by unknown causes, and perpetuates itself as a
new species. If adopted merely as a working hypothesis to
account for the common origin of the bodily part of man
and the lower animals, this might possibly lessen some of
the difficulties, even from the purely rational standpoint.
Some special intervention or supernormal causation would
have been required in any case to produce an organism with
brain and nervous system fitted for the reception of a
rational soul. From the scientific point of view such
mutations in the course of descent are not only conceivable
but seem to have been proved, by the observations of
de Vries, to have occurred in at least some species of
plants. The hypothesis of the development of man's body by
one or more considerable mutations, designed to take place
so as to provide a proper habitation for the human soul,
would also from the scientific point of view raise fewer
difficulties than the older theory of the accumulated small
variations. There is this final point to be remembered,
namely, that whilst it might have been conceivably possible,
under the older theory, to find a " series " which would
establish the common origin hypothesis, such a series could
not exist and could scarcely be expected to exist, under the
2 c

386 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
saltation theory. Hence the difficulty concerning the
" missing link " disappears. Hence definite proof that
things had happened in that way is perhaps scarcely to be
looked for, even if it were in that way that things did
actually happen. But the real fact is that, whatever sur
mises we may make, we know, as Reinke has asserted,
" nothing about the origin of man."
So much for the hypothesis of the evolutionary forma
tion of the first man's body, if assumed by scientific in
vestigators simply as a working hypothesis to co-ordinate
and rationalise certain morphological and physiologica
facts. How does it stand as a legitimate doctrine of Catholic
belief ? Mivart, as is weU known, first proposed in 1871
the view that Adam's body may have been mediately
created — that is formed by God not directly from the dust
of the earth, but indirectly by Him through the agencies of
evolution acting on the lower animals. What is the present
position of that doctrine ? Is it compatible or is it incom
patible with the teaching of the Catholic Church ? The
reply to this question is complex and needs accurate dis
tinctions. I learn from competent theologians that the
present position may be summed up somewhat as follows.
Mivart's theory was somewhat precipitately and over
confidently advocated last century by certain able theo
logical writers who were much impressed by the rapid
advance of the Darwinian theory. Apparently their writ
ings were brought under the notice of the Roman ecclesi
astical authorities and were disapproved by them : as a
consequence the authors in question retracted their advocacy
of the doctrine and matters were allowed to remain there.
Accordingly the present position is this : The mind of the
Church at the present time, as expressed in general in the
common teaching of theologians and as conveyed by the
communications of the ecclesiastical authorities at Rome
to the writers above alluded to, is adverse to the theory of
Mivart. In addition to the more obvious meaning of the
Bibhcal text, the commentaries of the Fathers, the language
of St. Paul and the intricate manner in which various
theological dogmas have been extrinsically connected with
or illustrated by the literal interpretation of the Scriptural

CREATION OF ADAM 387
account of the creation of Adam, have all combined to make
the authorities entrusted with the guardianship of the
Church's teaching very reluctant to admit that a new inter
pretation of a very important passage of Scripture may be,
freely taught, when there is no clear proof — which is the case
up to the present — that such an interpretation is necessitated
by actual facts of incontrovertible significance. Such neces
sity can scarcely arise until Science is in a position to with
draw the statement that she knows " nothing about the
origin of man."
The right and befitting mental attitude of the Catholic
then, in regard to this doctrine, is clear. He does not limit
his assent to the minimum of what is rigidly defined as
de fide. Whatever may be the attractiveness of the specula
tive opinions of philosophers, or of the working hypotheses
of men of science— whatever even may be their convenience
or instrumental utility in advancing human knowledge — the
loyal Catholic will constantly seek to adapt himself to the
mind of the Church and will accept her guidance even where
her teaching is not put forward as infallible or irreformable.
StiU, while this is true as to the filial duty of her children,
it is on the other hand supremely important in the interests
of the Catholic Church herself and of her infallible utter
ances, that the degree of authority, the nature of the cer
tainty and the character of the sanctions attached to
diverse ecclesiastical pronouncements on such questions,
should be accurately appreciated. A moment's reflection
on the possibUity of future scientific discoveries, coupled
with the experience of the Gahleo episode, makes this
obvious. Returning, then, to the question of the present theo
logical position of Mivart's hypothesis respecting the pos
sibility of the formation of Adam's body by divinely directed
evolution, we find that although the advocacy of this theory
has been discouraged by the Roman ecclesiastical authori
ties as above indicated, it has not, down to the present,
received any public official censure from any of the Roman
Congregations — still less has it been condemned as heretical
through the formal definition of the opposite doctrine as
de fide. Hence should real proof of the original evolution

388 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
of man's body ever come to light — which does not seem likely
at present — the Church would have no difficulty in accepting
that opinion, as she is not committed in any irrevocable
manner to the opposite doctrine.1
1 The theological friends whom I have to thank for the substance of
the latter part of this chapter inform me that those desirous of studying
the most recent exposition of this matter may be referred to Van Noort,
" De Deo Creatore," pp. 114 et seq.

CHAPTER XXXVIII
MAN AND HIS ORIGIN— HIS SPIRITUAL PART
IN the preceding chapter we saw that the dual origin of
man, as described by the Bible, not to speak of the
obviously dual aspect from which he must be regarded,
necessitated subdivision when he and his origin came
under consideration. NaturaUy we began with the lower
or corporeal part and we have now to turn our attention
to the higher or spiritual.
And here a few prefatory remarks may not be out of
place. It is not to be doubted that that often-quoted in
dividual "the man in the street," when he thinks about
Catholics at aU, thinks of them in a general kind of way as
a mind-enslaved body of people, shut up in a close cage of
dogma from which it is dangerous even to look out, and
utterly impossible to protrude so much as a finger. Persons —
better educated and informed than " the man in the street "
generaUy gets the credit of being — wiU be found obsessed
with the idea that everything theological is with us a closed
question ; that nothing is left for discussion nor is there
any room for difference of opinion. How absurd and how
ignorant this is need not be pointed out to those who belong
to the Household of Faith and who take the trouble to know
something about the religion which they profess. As a
matter of fact the number of things which a person must
believe or cease to be a Catholic — the things which are
defined as de fide — are far fewer than the " man in the
street " has generaUy thought.
This is not a treatise on Dogma, nor does it propose in
any way to encroach upon that ground. But of course
there are dogmas which every Catholic must hold or cease
to be a Catholic ; one of these is the existence of God and
389

390 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
His Creation of the world, another is the possession by each
person of an immortal soul created by God Himself.
Now it must be obvious to the most casual reader that
there are, outside our Church, quite a number of persons
who deny one or other of these dogmas and indeed aU other
dogmas. If we go down to first principles, we shaU probably
find that some of these start from the opinion that nothing
can be known : for such there is no hope, since they commit
intellectual suicide. There are others — the true agnostics —
who, without going so far as this, stiU think that it is im
possible to have any real knowledge of the fundamental
and first causes of things as they are ; who are content to
take them as they are and make a study of them as a going
concern, satisfied to watch the machine at work without
enquiring too curiously how it came to be in operation.
Now, as regards the question of the origin of things, we have
tried to show that, apart altogether from revelation, the
creation hypothesis does explain matters otherwise left
unexplained. It is, in fact, the only reasonable and tenable
explanation yet put forward and the sole alternative to
blank scepticism or the more modified form of agnosticism.
Yet we are perfectly satisfied to rest our belief on revela
tion, in this matter as in others. And so with the doctrine
of the human soul ; whilst the Catholic is content to accept
the fact on the strength of revelation, it can certainly not
weaken his faith and will undoubtedly help him to give
that reason for it which is recommended by the Apostle,
if he learns that the dogma which he has been brought up
to believe, or has come to believe, here as in the case just
quoted, does afford, even in the opinion of writers to whom
the voice of revelation in no way appeals, the most satis
factory, indeed the only satisfactory explanation of things
as they are.
It is not now suggested that aU of these writers, some of
whom will shortly be quoted, perhaps any of them, would
agree with us as to the attributes, stiU less as to the origin
of the human soul, though they postulate the existence of
such a thing. In a previous discussion we saw (p. 289) that
a decision as to vitalism was reached largely by a process
of exclusion. In a similar way, and also by a process of

ANIMISM 391
exclusion, some of these writers have arrived at a conclu
sion in favour of the existence of a soul, a theory now
called by them Animism.1
It has aheady been mentioned that the late A. R. WaUace,
who was the co-discoverer — perhaps one had better say co-
formulator — with Darwin of Natural Selection, was quite
clear that there were " three stages in the development of
the organic world when some new cause or power must
necessarily have come into action."2 The first of these
occasions was when the first living cell came into exist
ence : the second was the moment of the introduction of
sensation or consciousness, when the animal and vegetable
kingdoms became separated from one another : the third was
the differentiation of man from other animals, by his posses
sion " of a number of his most characteristic and noblest
faculties, those which raise him furthest above the brutes
and open up possibilities of almost indefinite advancement.
These faculties could not possibly have been developed by
means of the same laws which have determined the pro
gressive development of the organic world in general, and
also of man's physical organism.'r
In expressing the opinion that man possesses amongst
his higher attributes, characteristics which could not pos
sibly be of service to him for purposes of survival — which
might even be disadvantageous from this point of view
and which could not, therefore, come under the operation
of Natural Selection — WaUace agreed with Huxley, who was
obliged to admit that such things as a love of beautiful
scenery or of music, indeed the whole gamut of artistic
interests, had no survival value and could only be spoken
of as " gratuitous gifts."
Now it is quite clear that the transport of joy into which
the sight of a magnificent prospect wiU throw the properly
tuned observer cannot possibly be of any assistance to him
1 To avoid any confusion it should be pointed out that the term
" Animism " is used in two very different senses. Here, and in the writings
of the persons alluded to above, it is employed as a term connoting the
belief in the existence of a soul in man. But it is also used by anthro
pologists to connote beliefs met with very commonly amongst savage
races as to which nothing need here be said.
2 " Darwinism," London, MacmiUan & Co., 1889, pp. 474 seq.

392 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
in the struggle for existence. It might even be directly
disadvantageous, since it might divert his attention front
the machinations of his foe at the critical moment and thus
lead to disaster. Hence it — and of course other similar
aesthetic pleasures — cannot come under the operation of
Natural Selection. We have already seen that a large
number of biologists would be unwilling to assign to Natural
Selection an importance so great as Wallace, very naturally,
attached to it. StUl it may fairly be said that if Natural
Selection cannot — as admittedly it cannot — account for
these things, much less can any other purely materialistic
theory as yet promulgated.1
Wallace, then, came to the conclusion, apart altogether
from any recourse to revelation, that man's mental char
acteristics could only be accounted for by the fact that he
possessed what we agree to call a soul ; nor is he by any
means the only one who has arrived at this conclusion and
by a similar method of reasoning. Without unduly multiply
ing instances of the evidence from outside the ranks of
Catholicism I may draw particular attention to a very
remarkable work which recently appeared.2 Dr. McDougaU
admits that he approached his subject with no prejudice in
favour of the doctrine of a soul, but rather with that dis
tinct leaning to the opposite pole of thought which still
lingers as a legacy from the materialistic days of the Vic
torian era. He even makes a half-humorous apology for
1 Wallace in the Preface to " The World of Life," London, Chapman &
Hall, 1 910, complains that he was accused of dishonesty for his adoption
of anti-materialistic theories and adds : " I also wish to point out that,
however strange and heretical some of my beliefs and suggestions may
appear to be, I claim that they have only been arrived at by a careful
study of the facts and conditions of the problem. I mention this because
numerous critics of my former work — ' Man's Place in the Universe ' (to
which this may be considered supplementary) — treated the conclusions
there arrived at as if they were wholly matters of opinion or imagination
and founded (as were their own) on personal likes or dislikes, without any
appeal to evidence or to reasoning. This is not a method I have
adopted in any of my works." It will be remembered that Haeckel tried
to belittle Virchow (a much greater man of science) when he was unable
to confute the arguments of that very distinguished anthropologist.
2 " Body and Mind," by Dr. McDougaU, f.r.s., a medical man who is
Reader in Mental Philosophy in Oxford. London, Methuen & Co., 1911.
I very strongly commend this book to readers desirous of following a com
plete and exhaustive consideration of the whole of this subject from a
standpoint outside tbat of religion and revelation.

THE SOUL 393
the opinion at which he has arrived when he says, as he
does in his preface, that " to many minds it must appear
nothing short of a scandal that anyone occupying a position
in an academy of learning other than a Roman Catholic
.seminary should in this twentieth century defend the old-
world notion of the soul of man." Yet, after a most pro
longed and careful examination of aU the alternative
solutions, he finaUy gives his verdict in favour of the exist
ence of the human soul, on the fines familiar to Catholics,
in and out of seminaries.
Any, adequate discussion of this question is impossible
in this book : aU that can here be attempted is to set out
briefly the Catholic view and to indicate equally briefly
the line of argument in opposition to what are commonly
called monistic views.1
In the first place it will be well to make clear what the
Catholic means — perhaps still more what he does not
mean — by the soul, and what is his idea as to its relation to
the body. The " Catholic Encyclopaedia "2 defines the soul
of man as " the ultimate internal principle by which we
think, feel, and will, and by which our bodies are animated."
The soul is not to be thought of as detached from the body,
or as located in any special portion of the body. A good
deal of confusion as to the proper ideas concerning it arises
from Descartes' theory that the soul was located in the
pineal body — a smaU mass of tissue, often containing a
calcareous deposit, near the centre of the brain.3 Descartes'
idea is absurd — as absurd as the ignorant remark said, but
surely untruly, to have been made by some man of science,
that he refused to believe in the soul because he had never
been able to expose it with his scalpel. * The soul is a simple,
1 Those who desire to pursue the matter further may be referred to
Fr. Maher's work on Psychology, published in the Stonyhurst Series, by
Messrs. Longmans.
2 Sub voce Soul. The writers of the article are Frs. Maher and Bolland.
3 Morphologists have claimed that it represents the third eye found in
certain lizards, but its physiological significance, if any , is at present unknown .
4 Ex hypothesi the soul leaves the body at the time of death so that,
even if it were material, which it is not, the anatomist could hardly expect
to find anything but its prison, not itself. But though the story is probably
apocryphal, the sort of argument implied in it sometimes has a certain
effect upon shallow and ill-educated minds, and deserves passing mention
here.

394 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
unextended substance which in scholastic language acts as
the " Form " of the body. We have already considered
(Chapter IX) what is meant by Matter and Form, and have
seen that it is conceived that Matter can never exist without
Form. Form can exist by itself in the case only of the
higher forms, " formae spirituales," such as angelic spirits
and the human soul, these being spiritual and immortal.
Otherwise Form cannot exist by itself, and Matter and Form
may be looked upon as inseparable. If then the Soul be
the Form of the body and Matter cannot exist without
Form, what happens at death, when the soul escapes from
its life-long prison ? Here the scholastic philosopher has
recourse to the further theory of subsidiary forms. When
the soul leaves the body and this ceases to be a hving thing,
the subsidiary and latent chemical " forms " of oxygen,
nitrogen, carbon and the rest pass from potentia to actualitas
in the material constituents of the dead body. We can see
this for ourselves, or rather we can see the effects of it.
What guards the body from corruption and prevents the
chemical constituents thereof asserting themselves and
destroying it, as they promptly proceed to do after death
has taken place ? It is the soul or dominant " form " which
overrides them and forbids them to act untU its influence is
removed. These minor and subsidiary forms are, of course, there
aU the time but in petto, " stopped down " so to speak like
the hidden characteristics under the Mendelian doctrine — ¦
when the Master-form is gone the " stopping-down " ceases
and the lesser formae come into operation.
Yet, as the Form of the body, the soul, though unex
tended, pervades the whole body and makes it what it is.
Such is the Catholic view ; when it is rightly understood,
it is also in a true sense a monistic view, since the Soul and
the Body, the Form and the Matter, make up one single
thing. " Though the phUosophers of former days were un
aware of all the departmental detaUs of brain activity, they
understood as well as we do the essential point, that in our
composite nature soul and body form one being, whose
every operation is of mixed character like itself. The soul
alone is the intelligent principle, yet all objects of knowledge

THE SUBSTANTIAL FORM 395
must come to it through sense, and in the senses it can be
reached only by the mechanical media of light or sound or
touch. So firm was their grip of this principle that the
Schoolmen styled the soul the ' substantial form ' of the
body, and in their mouth this term expressed a union more
essential and intimate than modern philosophers can
perhaps imagine."1
We leave the question of the Catholic idea of the human
soul with the final remark that it is patent that some of
those who write most glibly on the materialistic side have
never taken the trouble to master the Catholic view of the
matter. It is also clear that some of those who from out
side have unconsciously adopted the Catholic view on this
point are only dimly aware, if aware at all, that the ideas
which they set forth have been known to and adopted by
Catholic philosophers for centuries past.
1 Gerard, " The Old Riddle and the Newest Answer," London, Long
mans, 3rd ed., 1907, p. 132. There is a sixpenny edition of this admirable
answer to the Haeckelian "philosophy."

CHAPTER XXXIX
MAN AND HIS ORIGIN— HIS SPIRITUAL PART
(concluded)
HAVING studied the Cathohc view of the soul, we may
briefly turn our attention to some opposition theories,
commonly caUed monistic, in opposition to our view, which
some of our opponents describe as dualistic. Of the false
ness of this description we have spoken in the last chapter.
The views we are now to consider are caUed Monistic
because they reduce everything in man to a single explana
tion or fact, instead of postulating a Soul and a Body, how
ever closely united.
Of Monism there are two great forms with numerous sub-
forms, for an account of which readers must be referred to
more voluminous and speciahsed works than this. There
is Ideahstic Monism and Materialistic Monism, as to both
of which a few words must be said.
Idealistic Monism has been already touched upon in the
earlier pages of this book (p. 8). It gets over the difficulty
as to the relation between the body and the mind by boldly
denying that there is any such thing as matter outside the
mind : thus the seemingly independent material world is
to be looked upon as an nTusory creation or emanation of
mind. Further, this doctrine teaches that aU minds are
reaUy one, aU being drops in the great ocean of universal
consciousness. On hearing things thus stated and learning
that, according to this school, there is no such thing as matter,
the " man in the street " wiU probably be tempted to answer
as contemptuously, and, it may be added, as ignorantly, as
Dr. Johnson did when Boswell propounded to him Bishop
Berkeley's idealistic solution. " After we came out of the
church we stood talking for some time together of Bishop
Berkeley's ingenious sophistry to prove the non-existence
396

IDEALISTIC MONISM 397
of matter, and that everything in the universe is merely
ideal. I observed, that though we are satisfied his doctrine
is not true, it is impossible to refute it. I never shaU forget
the alacrity with which Johnson answered, striking his foot
with mighty force against a large stone, till he rebounded
from it, ' I refute it thus I'"1 Nevertheless the fact is that
our own personal experience teaches us that I am I, and that
my personality is mine and no one else's. Further, if I am
to admit that there are other men, I must accept the fact
from them that their experience is identical. These things
place the idealistic theory in direct conflict with our experi
ence^ — the one thing in the world which we know best.
Looked at from this point of view the impulse of Johnson
and of the " man in the street " is justifiable. But it does
not dispose of the question, for the theory has its reply to
many of the objections brought against it.
We may say, for example, that a dose of strychnine
secretly and without his knowledge administered to a man
and, therefore, never mentalised by him, wiU nevertheless
kiU him ; and we may ask whether, in face of this fact, it
is possible to argue that the strychnine has not extension
and a real existence. The reply would seem to be that the
strychnine — and aU other things — are present to the mind
of the Universal Consciousness and so far have such exist
ence as things can have. From the ideahstic standpoint
this no doubt is an answer ; but it involves a further
question, which cannot so easily or indeed satisfactorily be
solved. For if aU consciousness is part of the Universal
Consciousness, which is a pantheistic solution : then either
there is no such thing as Sin, or the Universal Consciousness
is sinful or at least partakes of the nature of Sin.
Since the latter horn of the dilemma is unthinkable, the
former must be accepted. According to this there is no
such thing as sin ; there is only imperfection. The seducer
of innocent chUdren, " the snulere with the knife," the traitor
— these are not sinners ; they are only low down the ladder
of perfection. Since in the last analysis, under its teaching
1 Boswell's " Johnson," ed. Birrell, Vol. II, pp. 133-4. Of course
neither Berkeley nor any other philosopher of his school ever denied that
man has the sensation of solidity.

398 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
the blackest crime is at least situated upon the pathway of
good, this system would seem to exclude any idea of morality
from its scheme, and thus" to pronounce, from the ethical
point of view, its own condemnation.
Materialistic Monism in its simplest expression teaches
just the opposite — namely, that there is no mind, but that
matter, looked at from the other side, so to speak, is
possessed of consciousness. As has already been stated
(Chapter XII) this point of view was admirably put by two
great physicists when declaring it to be an utterly untenable
theory.1 These two authorities are dead, but the doctrine
which they derided is not, for it is precisely that which has
been put forward by Haeckel. As summarised by Wallace,
this theory teaches that "matter," i.e. the material
universe, is infinite, that so is the " ether " ; that they fill
infinite space, and that both are " eternal " and both are
" alive."2 It is further argued by the materialistic school that the
brain, without a soul, is capable of explaining aU the psy
chological problems of hfe. We have seen that some have
even spoken of thought as secreted by the brain in the same
way that bfle is secreted by the hver — the absurdity of this
remark clearly appears when it is remembered that bfle,
like all other secretions, is extended or material, which
thought being spiritual most assuredly is not ; this absurdity
has led to the position now being regarded as untenable.
Yet the idea which underlies this statement is necessarily
that of the materialistic monist. It is the brain, the actual
grey and white matter of the brain, which thinks : it must
needs be, since there is nothing else to think. Yet men of
1 Stewart and Tait asserted, as quoted in Chapter XII, that " the only
reasonable and defensible alternative " to their hypothesis of the soul
was " the stupendous pair of assumptions that visible matter is eternal
and that it is alive " — a pair of assumptions which they laughed to scorn.
(Italics and capitals as in original.)
2 " The World of Life," p. 7. Wallace adds that " none of these things
can possibly be known, yet he (Haeckel) states them as positive facts."
And, he adds, this is " surely not science and very bad philosophy."
Haeckel's exact statement is that " the two fundamental forms of sub
stance, ponderable matter and ether " (which, by the way, is a distinction
without a difference according to physicists of to-day), " are not dead and
only moved by extrinsic force, but they are endowed with sensation and
will." See Gerard, " The Old Riddle," for a full discussion of Haeckel and
his views.

THE PHYSICS OF THE BRAIN 399
science, with and without any leaning towards revelation,
have proclaimed their behef that so great a gulf exists
between the mechanical processes of sensation and rational
perception — not to say thought and more especially abstract
thought— as to be utterly impassable. Thus Tyndall in
1874 in his address at the British Association, said that " the
passage from the physics of the brain to the corresponding
facts of consciousness is unthinkable. Granted that a definite
thought and a definite molecular action in the brain1 occur
simultaneously, we do not possess the intehectual organ,
nor apparently any rudiments of an organ, which would
enable us to pass by a process of reasoning from one to the
other. They appear together, but we do not know why.
Were our minds and sense so expanded as to enable us to
see and feel the very molecules of the brain, were we capable
of foUowing all their motions, aU their groupings and
electrical discharges, if such there be ; and were we intim
ately acquainted with the corresponding states of thought
and feehng, we should be as far as ever from the solution
of the problem — ' How are these physical processes con
nected with the facts of consciousness ? ' The chasm be
tween the two classes remains still intellectually impass
able." It is now nearly fifty years since these words were
uttered, fifty years of more strenuous scientific research
than the world has ever previously known : yet the state
ment embodied in them remains as absolutely true as it
was on the day on which the Address was delivered.
The crowning difficulty alluded to therein may be supple
mented by yet another difficulty which has been discussed in
another connection in a previous chapter. This is the want
of agreement between the theory in question, that the brain
alone is responsible for thought, and the actual and un
disputed anatomical facts. Let us look more closely at this
point. Human beings and the higher mammals, indeed aU
mammals, are, anatomicaUy speaking, constructed upon
similar, indeed one might say identical, hnes ; from this
point of view their differences are of degree not of kind.
Thus, all have a vertebral column, a central nervous system,
highly similar arrangements of muscles, nerves, blood-
1 Which, by the way, still remains unproved.

400 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
vessels and so on. Further, and in this connection far more
significant, the brains of man and of all mammals conform
to a similar plan, possessing a two-lobed cerebrum, a
cerebellum, a medulla and so on, even agreeing in far more
minute details. On these points all anatomists are agreed.
Thus the brain differs only in degree and not in kind from
that of other mammals, and as regards the higher apes
differs but little even in kind.
Now if " the brain secretes thought as the liver secretes
bile," how is it that there is such a wide difference, such an
impassable gulf between the brain-secretions of man and
the apes and so very trivial a difference between — say, their
liver secretions ? We may develop this point a little further.
The elephant has a larger brain absolutely than a man.
Yet, though no doubt the elephant is a wise beast, he is
certainly not the mental superior of man. Hence it cannot
be absolute size of brain which is correlated with thought,
nor can it be relative size, for the relative size of man's
brain is less than of some of the smaUer birds. If size has
nothing to do with it, can it be the thickness and com
plexity of the convolutions, the ridges, separated from one
another by furrows, into which the surface of the brain is
thrown ? Can it be the amount of grey matter which it
possesses or the percentage of phosphorus which it con
tains ? It may at once be said that there is no evidence in
support of the materialistic theory to be obtained in any of
these directions ; indeed we may rest assured that facts in
no way fit in with the theory.
Take the brain of the anthropoid ape. It may at once
be admitted that its anatomy most closely resembles that
of the human brain. What then ? Does that advance in
any kind of way the materiahstic argument ? Quite the
contrary. One remembers the time — it is almost incredible to
think of it — when it was reaUy thought that the reverse was
the case, and when people seemed to imagine that supreme
importance was attachable in this connection to the ques
tion as to whether an ape had or had not in his brain that
anatomical object known as the " hippocampus major."
Kingsley in his " Water Babies " satirised this absurd state
of mind so well that the passage wUl bear quotation. Speak-

BRAIN AND BRAINS 401
ing of one of his characters, he says : " He had even got
up once at the British Association, and declared that apes
had hippopotamus majors in their brains just as men have.
Which was a shocking thing to say ; for, if that were so,
what would become of the faith, hope and charity of im
mortal millions ? You may think there are more important
differences between you and an ape, such as being able
to speak, and make machines, and know right from wrong,
and say your prayers, and other little matters of that kind ;
but that is a child's fancy, my dear. Nothing is to be
depended upon but the great hippopotamus test. If you
have a hippopotamus major in your brain, you are no ape,
though you had four hands, no feet and were more apish
than the apes of all aperies."
Here you have two brains — two musical instruments, let
us say — not very markedly dissimilar from one another so
far as even a minute examination can show — which, in a
word, differ and that only slightly ; in degree and not in
kind. Yet one of these can produce heavenly music, whUst
the other can never rise above jangling discords. Surely
there must be a difference somewhere : if it is not in the
instruments, it must be referred to the performers thereon.
With a quite reasonably good brain, from the morphological
point of view, with a brain not so very inferior anatomically
to that which Aristotle and Shakespeare possessed, the ape
remains still the aimless ape of " The Jungle-Book," far
less intelligent even than animals not so well provided,
from the cerebral point of view, as he is. Size of brain in a
comparison between man and mammals, then, has nothing
to say to the question of inteUigence. Nor has it in a
comparison between man and man. Since there is no
reason to doubt that his cerebral cavity was occupied by
brains and not by water, and since we know that palaeolithic
man had as large a brain mass and in some cases larger,
than we have, we must, if brain-mass be everything, admit
that he was a man of higher inteUect than his degenerate
descendants of to-day. Of course he may have been so
and only repressed by lack of opportunity, but, if so, what
an anti-evolutionary argument is that ! It has already been
pointed out that Gambetta — no fool, whatever else he may
2 D

402 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
have been — had a singularly small brain : a dwarf with a
brain about the size of that of a large dog may have com
plete intelligence and be able to speak several languages.
All these things show that the theory which teaches that it
is the brain which thinks and nothing higher than the brain
does not fit in with the facts of anatomy as now very fully
known to us. If the anatomical facts seem to negative the
materialistic conclusions so popular in the Victorian era,
what is to be offered in their place ?
Writers, as we have seen, who are unaffected by the
teachings of revelation, are now returning to the temporarily
discarded theory of the soul which the Catholic Church has
ever held. We began by stating that for the Catholic the
question of the existence or non-existence of the soul was
closed. The object of this and the preceding chapter has
been to show that, supposing it were not a closed question,
this theory still would have to be accepted as the only
rational explanation of the facts which have to be taken
into consideration.
This may be emphasised and the matter brought to a
conclusion by briefly summarising the conclusions recently
arrived at in the most important book of its kind which
has appeared in late years, viz. that of Dr. McDougaU,
already mentioned.1 After showing that the decision lies
between Parallelism (a form of Materialism) and Animism
(the doctrine of the Soul) he proceeds to show that " the
mechanical principles are not adequate to the explanation
of biological phenomena, neither the phenomena of racial
evolution nor those of the development of individual
organisms, nor the behaviour of men and animals." Further,
from the psychological point of view, " evidence was ad
duced which conclusively proves that a strict paraUelism
between our psychical processes and the physical processes
of our brains does not as a matter of empirical fact obtain ;
and it was shown that facts of our conscious hfe, especially
the fact of psychical individuality, the fact of the unity
of the consciousness correlated with the physical manifold
of brain-processes, cannot be rendered inteUigible (as ad
mitted by leading Parallelists) without the postulation of
1 " Body and Mind," pp. 355 seq., Methuen, 1911,

PARALLELISM AMD ANIMISM 403
some ground of unity other than the brain or material
organism." " The empirical evidence," he concludes,
" seems to weigh very strongly against Parallelism and in
favour of Animism."
Dr. McDougaU further points out that though, whichever
horn of the dilemma we accept, we find ourselves with un
solved difficulties before us and with strange consequences
forced upon us, yet " Animism has this great advantage
over its rival, namely, that it remains on the plane of em
pirical science, and, while leaving the metaphysical ques
tions open for independent treatment, can look forward to
obtaining further light on its problems through further
scientific research. It is thus a doctrine that stimulates
our curiosity and stirs us up to further efforts ; whereas
ParaUehsm necessarUy involves the acceptance of meta
physical doctrines which claim to embody ultimate truth and
which set rigid limits to the possibilities of further insight
into the nature of the world, and it finds itself forced to
regard certain of its problems as ultimately inexplicable.
" FinaUy, we have seen that Parallelism rules out all
religious conceptions and hopes and aspirations, save those
(if such there be) which are compatible with a strictly
mechanistic Pantheism — a Pantheism which in no way
differs from rigid Materialism in respect to practical con
sequences for the life of mankind ; whereas Animism in
this sphere leaves open the whole field for further specula
tion and inquiry, and permits us to hope and even to
believe that the world is better than it seems — that the
bitter injustices men suffer are not irreparable ; that their
moral efforts are not wholly futile ; that the life of the human
race may have a wider significance than we can demonstrate ;
and that the advent of a ' kindly comet,' or the getting out
of hand of some unusually virulent tribe of microbes, would
not necessarily mean the final nullity of human endeavour.
These," he concludes, "seem to me to be overwhelmingly
strong reasons for accepting, as the best working hypothesis
of the psycho-physical relation, the animistic horn of the
dilemma." With this summary of the conclusions of this
remarkable book we may end this section.

CHAPTER XL
A FEW FINAL CONSIDERATIONS
THE topics with which this book is concerned having
now passed under consideration, and such attention as
was possible having been bestowed upon them, it only
remains to emphasise some of the points to which atten
tion can hardly be too much directed, since it is owing
to a neglect of these considerations that people form false
and dangerous ideas as to science and, it may be added, as
to religion also.
In the first place, then, let us get firm hold of the fact
that with the legitimate field of science rehgion has nothing
whatever to do, and should not, and we beheve does not,
wish to interfere. By the field of science we mean the field
of observed facts, a thing apart from religion. It is when
scientific men begin to phUosophise that conflict may arise.
It is well to emphasise the word may, for here again it may
safely be said that ninety-nine per cent of the phUoso-
phisings of science do not in any way come in contact with
theological considerations : when they do so it is weU to
remember what these phflosophisings amount to.
It is of the first importance not to be led away by the
hot-gospellers of the daily and weekly press, or by the
enthusiasms of ardent and sometimes ignorant disciples.
It is equaUy of the first importance to remember that these
philosophisings are working hypotheses and nothing more —
perfectly legitimate as working hypotheses, often useful
to the progress of science, but hot to be held up to us as
facts which we are compelled to accept. For example :
anatomists tell us that the bodily construction of men
and apes is almost identical : that is a positive fact which
can be proved to demonstration and theologians have no
404

WALPOLE AND SCIENTIFIC THEORIES 405
reason to dispute it, nor the slightest desire to do so. But
when an anatomist comes along and says : " This similarity
and certain other facts known to us show that men and
apes have had a common ancestor," it is fair to reply that
while the matter may be as suggested, it is equally true that
it may not, since it is perfectly clear that what is alleged
as proof in no way amounts to what is required for purposes
of demonstration. Hence the theologian is acting well
within his limits when he says : " You have by no means
proved that point : untfl you do, you cannot expect me to
believe it nor, what is more, can you expect me to teach it
nor to approve of its being taught as fact." Further, he
might reasonably add, that aU history teaches us that
things have been constantly put forward as true which were
afterwards withdrawn as having no sufficient foundation.
This is the second point which we have to bear in mind :
scientific theories are always coming and often going. Nor
is this only the case to-day : it has been so ever since men
began to work at science and to form scientific hypotheses.
Horace Walpole, whose letters have been the delight of
so many readers besides those for whom they were originally
designed, was no doubt an airy trifler, but no one wUl deny
that he was a shrewd observer of men and things. In a
letter to the Earl of Strafford1 he writes, after alluding to
some rumour of an earthquake in London : " In my youth
philosophers were eager to ascribe every uncommon dis
covery to the deluge ; now it is the fashion to solve every
appearance by conflagrations. If there was such an inun
dation upon the earth and such a furnace under it, I am
amazed that Noah and company were not boiled to death.
Indeed, I am a great sceptic about human reasonings ; they
predominate only for a time, like other mortal fashions, and
are so often exploded after the mode is passed, that I hold
them httle more serious, though they caUed themselves
wisdom. How many have I hved to see established and
confuted ! For instance, the necessity of a southern con
tinent, as a balance, was supposed to be unanswerable —
and so it was, till Captain Cook found that there was no
such thing. We are poor silly animals : we live for an
J pated August 6, 1784^

406 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
instant upon a particle of a boundless universe, and are
much like a butterfly that should argue about the nature
of the seasons, and what creates their vicissitudes, and
does not exist itself to see one annual revolution of them."
It is a hundred and thirty years since this was written ;
yet that lapse of time has only intensified its truth. If
everybody had only remembered that working hypotheses
are a necessity of scientific progress but are only hypotheses
and nothing else and are just as likely as not to be dis
carded, almost all the trouble which has arisen in the past
would have been avoided. Of course the trouble is mainly
caused by the ignorant on both sides — by the scientific man
ignorant of theology, its claims and its limits, and by the
theologian too often in the past ignorant of what is meant
by a working hypothesis. Misled by the outcries of popular
writers, he is told that God and the Bible and religion are
once and for all cast into outer darkness by the epoch-
making theories of Professor X who, good, honest man, is
in all probability not bothering his head in the least about
theology but is trying to make one group of physical facts
fit in with another.
These constant changes of opinion — and in our own time
we have seen several of extraordinary significance — ought
to teach us another lesson, the greatest that science can
teach, and that is humUity. If a hundred times things have
been put forward as the last revelation of science and if on
ninety-nine subsequent occasions it has been found that the
supposed revelation was only a dream, let us on the one
hundred and first occasion have the humUity to say— as
indeed most of the real learned framers of hypotheses have
said : " This is a possible explanation of the facts to hand ;
let us see how it will fit in with later discoveries." It is
abundantly clear that we are not familiar with anything
but the fringe of science. Facts of all kinds are yet awaiting
discovery, and when discovered it may be found that they
upset some of our most cherished beliefs, as radium did.
Moreover, of the most fundamental things, how little we
.really know ! Take the nature of the ether and the electrical
theory of matter — two, I suppose, of the most fundamental
problems underlying the physical sciences. How much do

SCIENCE AND HUMILITY 407
we really know about them — know, that is, as incontro
vertible truth? I leave it to any physicist to reply. Or
turn to the biological side : what about heredity and
variation which underlie all the biological problems : how
much do we really know about them ? Honesty compels
us to reply — Very little.
It must not be supposed that an attempt is here being
made to belittle science, or the progress of science, or the
work of scientific men. The present writer, whose life has
been largely devoted to scientific work, is not going thus to
stultify himself or his labours, such as they are. No : the
progress of science during the last fifty years especially,
has been something extraordinary. The briefest and most
cursory survey of what has been done during that time
would occupy a volume as large as this is, and even then
would leave part of the story untold. But this advance has
only opened the doors of new chambers of knowledge, and
has shown us that, whether we consider the problems of the
universe — of this little fragment of dust which we know as
the Earth or of the most minute fragments of which it is
composed, the atoms — we are confronted with problems
which if they are ever solved, which seems doubtful, wUl
never approach a solution during the lifetime of the infant
of to-day, even if he lives to become a centenarian. WhUst,
therefore, we learn humility let us also learn patience,
especially those of us who are interested in the progress of
religion. If we wait patiently we shaU find that what has
appeared to be threatening was not reaUy so : it was either
a cloud to be dispelled by the rising sun of knowledge or a
familiar friend half seen in the darkness. Science is not a
monster, as some ignorant people imagine, neither is religion
a monster as other ignoramuses suppose. Let us be humble
and let us be patient.
And above all, let us exhibit humility when we come to
regard God as well as His creation. Catholics, of course,
exhibit such humility in face of the mysteries of their Faith ;
but there is a kind of shallow mind, which thinks — and even
sometimes says — that one should not believe anything one
cannot understand — an attitude of mind which would cer
tainly limit one's beliefs. It is only common sense to say

408 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE
that if we could understand God and all His ways, either
He would not be God or we should all be gods. Tennyson's
phUosophy on that point was accurate and sound : —
" Flower in the crannied wall,
I pluck you out of the crannies ; —
Hold you here, root and all in my hand,
Little flower — but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is."
The quotation may be hackneyed but it is none the less
apposite. Let us learn humility and patience from Science if we
learn nothing else : but we shall miss its greatest lesson if
it fails to teach us the greatness of the Creator, from whose
Idea aU these wonders took their origin.

INDEX

Abbeville, 193
Abiogenesis, 319
Accompanying gifts, 198
Acheulian civilization, 232, 249
Adam, creation of, 55, 386
Adams, g
/Eneolithic age, 206, 230
" ^Eterni Patris," Encyclical, 34
Age of man, 256 ; of the earth, 256 ;
of the moon, 258 ; of the ocean,
259
Agency of water, 161
Agnosticism, 118, 135
Akikuyu, 195
Alchemy, 67, 362
Alpha Centauri, 99
Amoeba, the, 282
Amphioxus, the, 293
Anabolic processes, 284
Anatomy, Popes and, 23
Ancient races, 238
Animal life, creation of, 181 ;
traces of ,164
Animal soul, 95
Animism, 275, 391, 402
Anthropomorphism, 172, 328
Ants, 371
Ape, man and, 380, 383, 404 ;
brain of, 400
Aquinas, St. Thomas, 16, 34, 35, 37,
41. S3. 88, 93, 119, 142, 274, 283,
318, 327. 335. 377
Archaean rocks, 163
Archa?ological time, 203
Archaeology, prehistoric, 193
Aristotle, 25, 34, 39, 42, 67, 90, 119,
274. 379
Aristotelomania, 26, 39
Armstrong, H. E., 296
Arrowheads, stone, 194
Arrows, wooden, 27
Art, prehistoric, 234
Artefacts, 193
Artificial protoplasm, 323
Ascidians, 301
Assyrian account of creation, 176
Astronomical distances, 101
Asylian Period, 254

Atoms and atomic theory, 68, 70,
73, 120, 407
Augustine, St., 29, 52, 187, 191, 335,
377
Aurignacian epoch, 233
Australian Stone Age, 207
Authority, 37
Autonomy of life, 304
Avicenna, 16, 318
Axe, stone, 195

Bacon, Francis, 27
Bacterial infection, 346
Balfour, A. J., &
Balfour, Stewart, 308, 311
Barysphere, 109
Bateson, Prof., 344, 358, 361, 363,
366, 368, 373, 382
Bathybius, 19, 47
" Batons de commandement," 235
Belloc, Hilaire, 149
Bergson, ng, 139, 332
Berkeley, Bishop, 8, 396
Bernard, Claude, 275
Bible, the, 37, 53, 84 ; account of
Creation, 172-191 ; and geology,
54 ; miracles, 152
Bichat's definition of life, 272
Bicycle, evolution of, 196
Biogenesis, 319
Birds, first appearance of, 167
Blastula, 291
Bonney, Canon, 23
Boucher des Perthes, 193
Bourgeois, Abbi, 211
Boyle, Richard, 67, 80, 92, 362
Brachiopods, 164
Bradley, and aberration of light,
96
Brain, the, 221, 384, 399 ; of ape,
400 ; of dwarfs, 222 ; of elephant,
400 ; of Gambetta, 222, 401 ; of
man, 384 ; of palaeolithic man,
401
Brain '* secretions," 398 ; physics,
399 ; weight of, 222
Branco, 381

4°9

410

THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE

Breuil, Abbi, and eoliths, 212 ;
period of man, 269
Bronze Age, 205, 230
Brown, Robert, and plant classifica
tion, 49
Brown-Siquard' s guinea-pigs, 345
Bunge, Von, 277
Burdon-Sanderson, 277
Burke, J. B., " radiobes," 16
Butler, Samuel, 343
Buttercup, the, 48
By-products of body, 284

Cainozoic rocks, 168
Cajetan, Cardinal, on Genesis, 187
Calaveras skull, 238
Calvin and Servetus, 28
Cambrian rocks, 163
Carboniferous epoch, 165
Catabolic processes, 284
Cave drawings, 234
Caves, prehistoric, 226, 230, 248,
250, 254, 259
Celestial photography, 99
Cell, the, 50, 280 ; development of,
291 ; and machine, 291
Centrosomes, 280
Chalk, 167
Chambers, " Vestiges," 334, 350
Chance, 140
Chapelle-aux-Saints, 198, 208, 217,
228, 231, 263
Chellean civilization, 224, 231, 249
Chemical elements, 67, 83, 94
Chesterton, G~K., 153
Chosen race, the, 171, 185
Chromatin, 281
Chromosomes, 281, 341
Chronology, 200 ; the Church and,
269
Church, authority of the, 37 ; and
chronology, 269 ; and learning,
22
Cissbury, 254
Clavellina, 301
Clays, laminated, 264
Clerk Maxwell, 74, i8g
Coal Measures, 165
Coffey, Prof., 34, 36
Colloids, 295
Commission, Pontifical, for Biblical
Studies, 172
Consciousness, universal, 397
Conservation of energy, 80, 123,
131, 276, 305
Convergence, 37s
Copernicus and Copernican Theory,
*8, 30, 40, 96, 380

Copper period, 206
Corkscrew nebulae, 112
Cornelius a Lapide, 335
Cortie, Rev. A. J., S.J., 99, 102
Cranial capacity, 221
Creation hypothesis, 324, 326, 330,
377 ; of man, 379 ; days of, 171,
187, 190
Creator, postulate of a, 133, 136,
326, 377 ; anthropomorphic view
of, 328
Cretaceous rocks, 167
Crinoids, 164
Croll's theory of glaciation, 242
Crusaders and burial, 24
Crustacea, 164
Cryptogams, 166
Crystals, 287
Cunningham, 347, 348
Cures, miraculous : Marie Lebran
chu, 146 ; M. Gargam, 149 ;
Marie Lemarchand, 150 ; Pierre
de Rudder, 150
Cycads, 167

Dalton, 68
Darwin, Charles, and Darwinism,
275. 322, 326, 333, 340, 350, 365,
. 374. 386
Darwin, Sir George, 258
Dawson, and Piltdown skull, 223
Days of Creation, 173
De Jussieu, 49
De Rudder, case of, 150
Degradation of Energy, 123
Delage, 342
Deluge, the, 54
Denudation, 160 ; solvent, 259
Descartes, 40, 393
Design, Argument from, 354
Determinism, 139
Devonian rocks, 165
De Vries, 353, 363, 385
Diffusion of heat, 306
Disintegration theory, 75
Dissection, Popes and, 23
Distances, astronomical, 98
Dog-burial with the dead, 198
Dog-star, the, 99
Dominant and recessive characters,
3^7
Driesch, 275, 301, 353, 372, 382
"Drift " implements, 214
Dual creation of man, 379
Dubois, E., 219
Du Bois-Reymond, 118, 121, 372
Dwight, Prof., 384
Dynamical Geology,- T 56

INDEX

411

Early Iron Age, 206
Early man, 192
Earth, the, 109, 124 ; creation of,
176 ; age of, 256. See " Matter "
Egg of frog, 294
Egyptian chronology, 202
Electrical theory of matter, 69
Electrons, 69
Elements, chemical, 67, 83, 94
Elephant's brain, 400
Eliminating agents, 351
Embryology, 291
Energy, 79, 305 ; conservation of,
80, 123, 131, 276, 305 ; degrada
tion of, 123 ; from sun, 112 ;
transformation of, 307
Enigmas, the seven, 118
Entelechy, 274, 279
Environment, 546
Eocene rocks, 168 '
Eolithic period, 204
Eoliths, 193, 212
Erosion, 257
Eternity, 328, 331
Ether of space, 58, 63, 85, 398, 406 ;
and electrons, 70
Eugenics, 358
Eustachius, 24
Evidence, objective, 37
Evolution, 326, 339, 37 j, 374 ; and
the Fathers, 377 ; by saltation,
385
Experiment and prayer, 137
Extermination of unfit, 359

Fdbri, P., S.J., 31
Fact, the central, 48 ; and theory,
82
Faith, loss of, 17
Fallopius, 18, 24, 173
" First Cause," a, 127
Fleischmann, 370, 374
Flying fish, 375
Forms, accidental, 94 ; substantial,
95
Fossils, 18, 162, 174
Fourth Dimension, the, 39
Francis, St., Stigmata of, 144
Free Cause, a, 127
Free will, 138
Fresnel's laws of reflection, 81
Frog, egg of, 294
Frost, action of, 161
Future Life, belief in, 197

Galileo, 23, 27, 42
Galley Hill skeleton, 251
Geikie, Prof., 246, 248, 254, 267
Generation, spontaneous, 318
Genesis, Book of, 329, 333, 379 ;
and Creation, 171 ; interpreta
tion of, 187
Geology, 156; and the Bible, 54;
geological strata, 163, 260 ; geo
logical time, 203
Gerard, Father John, S.J., 39
Germinal selection, 349
Giraffe, evolution of, 352
Glacial period, 240, 263
God, existence of, 85, 105, 126.
See " Creation," " Creator "
Graptolites, 164
Gravitation, 48, 51, 59, 131,
gravitational shrinkage, 114
Grotto of Mas d'Azil, 254
Guinea-pigs, epileptic, 345

Haeckel, Prof., 119, 122, 135, 373,
382, 398
Haldane, 278, 308
Hann's glacial theory, 241
Hapsburg lip, the, 341
Harmonious-equipotential system,
302
Hartog, 283, 285
Heat, 123, 306
Heidelberg jaw, 225, 233, 382
Helium, 109
Helmholtz, 114
Heredity, 340 ; Mendel's laws of,
564
Hering, 343
Hertwig, 374
Hiatus, the, 253
Hinks, 26, 100
Hoernes, and glacial periods, 249,
254
Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 5, 174
Homo primigenius, 226
Homosimius, 211, 213
Horn implements, 236
Horns of ruminants, 347
Horse, buried with dead, 197 ;
pedigree of the, 363
Hrdlicka, Dr., 238
Hull, Father E. R., S.J., 23, 31, 54
Hume, 8, 146
Huxley, 4, 16, 19. 3°. 47. "8. 135.
146, 226, 276, 280, 322, 327, 336,
355. 362, 376. 391
Hydra, 300
Hypothesis, genesis of, 47
Hysteria and miracles, 149

412

THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE

Ice Age. See Glaciers
Icenian implements, 213
Idealism, 9
Ignatius Loyola, St., 106
Immortality of the soul, 197
Implements, prehistoric, 193, 205,
211, 229, 250
Index, the Roman, 32, 93
Infallibility, Papal, 13, 30
Inheritance in offspring, 345
Inhibition of characters, 364
" Interference " by God, 330
Interments, prehistoric, 198, 208,
217, 228, 263
Ionium, 75
Iron Age, 206, 230
Irritability, 283, 286

Johnson, Samuel, 20, 396
Johnstone, 124, 289
Joly, Prof., on solvent denudation,
259
Joshua and the sun, 29, 55
Jussieu, de, plant-classification, 49
Kangaroo, climbing, 348
Kant, 104, 106
Keith, Prof., 223, 226, 232, 251, 263
Kellogg, 373
Kelvin, Lord, 121, 128, 176, 311
Kent's Cavern, 257
Kepler, 5, 28, 40, 80
Kinetic energy, 395
Kingsley, Charles, 337, 355, 400
Lamarck, 352
Laminated clays, 264, 347
Lamp, evolution of the, 196
Lancelot, the, 293
Lankester, Sir Ray, 14, 213, 362
Lansing skull, 238
Laplace, no, 112, 115
Lapparenl, A. de, 21
Latent characters, 364
Law-Giver law requires a, 133, 136,
357. 3^8, 376
Laws of nature, 5, 80, 108, 131,
3°9. 352
Lebranchu, Marie, case of, 146
Lecky, 354, 358
Le Dantec, 273, 277, 286, 295
Leduc, 296
Lemarchand, Marie, case of, 150
Lens of eye, 299
Leo XIII, Pope, " ^terni Patris,"
34 ; " Providentissimus Deus,"
?9. 52. 5«. »4

Lias, 167
Life, appearance of sentient, 181 ;
and death, 273 ; autonomy of,
304 ; nature of, 271 ; origin of,
316
Light, aberration of, 96 ; creation
of, 177 ; speed of, 99 ; trans
mission of, 60
Linnaean system, 49
Locke, 8
Lockyer, Sir Norman, 3, 108
Lodge, Sir Oliver, 7, 59-64, 69-73,
80, 91, 305, 310, 361
Lotsy, 364
Lotze, 275
Lourdes, miracles at, 145-151
Luck, 351
Luminiferous ether, 58
Lyell, 241, 265

Magdalenian period, 250-254
Maker, Rev. M., S.J., 9, 65, 272, 313
Mammalia, divisions and habits of,
376
Mammoth, the, 247
Man, 90 ; brain of, 133 ; and ape,
380, 383, 404 ; origin of, 379 \
prehistoric, 192 ; soul of, 95
Marsupials, first traces of, 167
Mas d'Azil, Grotto of, 254
Materia prima, 67, 90
Matter, 59, 66, 89, 119 ; creation
of, 176, 183 ; electrical theory of,
69 ; nature of, 71 ; scholastic
philosophy of, 87 ; texture of,
71 ; and form, 87, 314, 394
Maxwell, Clerk, 74, 189
McDougaU, Dr., 309, 311, 392, 402
McEnery, Father, 257
Measurable knowledge, 7
Memory, unconscious, 343
Mendel and Mendelism, 364, 372,
382, 394
Mendeleff, 69
Mesozoic rocks, 166
Meteoric hypothesis, 113; theory
of life, 317
Micromerist theories, 342
Milky Way, the, 102
Miocene rocks, 168
Miracles, 142 ; Biblical, 29, 55,
152 ; at Lourdes, 145, 149 ; at
Oostacker, 150
" Missing Link," the, 382
Mississippi, erosion by, 257
Mivart, 334, 355, 386
Molecules, 67
Monism, 8, 376, 396

INDEX

413

Monists and agnostics, 135
Monophyletic theory, 339
Monotheism, 190
Moon, the, 180, 258
Morality, nature and, 359
Morgan, T. H., 281, 370
Mortillet, de, 211, 220, 230
Morula, 291
Motion, atomic, 73 ; origin of, 119 ;
power of, in living things, 272,
283
Mousterian period, 210, 232
Mozley, 15, 45
Munro, Dr., 220
Mutations, 272, 364
Mutilations, inheritance of, 345

Naegeli, 354
Natural Orders, 50
Natural selection, 51, 83, 133, 350,
361, 373
Nature, laws of, 5, 80, 131, 309,
352 ; and morality, 359
Neanderthal skull, 210, 222, 225
Nebular theory, 108, 112, 178
Nebulium, log
Needham, 320
Neolithic period, 204
Neptune, discovery of, 9
Newlands, 68
Newman, Cardinal, 189, 379
Newt, experiment on, 299
Niagara, 165
North or Pole-Star, 100
Nucleus of cell, 280

Obermaier, Dr., 269
Objective evidence, 37
Ocean, age of the, 259
Ochre, red, 198
Octaves, law of, 68
Old Red Sandstone, 165
Oolite, 167
Oostacker, miracle at, 150
" Origin of Species," the, 350
Owen, Sir Richard, 273
Oxygen, 285, 288

Palaeolithic period, 204, 231
Palaeontology, 161
Palaeozoic rocks, 163
Paley, 355
Pangenesis, 341
Papal Infallibility, 13, 3°
Parallelism, 402

Pasteur, 320
Paulina, Princess, 222
Peas, Mendel's experiments on, 366
Penck, 245, 264, 267
Pengelly, 258
" Period," definition of, 128
Periodic law, 69
Periods, prehistoric, 229
Permian rocks, 166
Peter Lombard, 335
Petrie, Flinders, 202
Pfiiiger, 281
Philosophy, scholastic, 33, 39, 92
Photography, celestial, 99
Phylogeny, 278, 333, 363, 372
Physical basis of life, 280
Physics of the brain, 399
Piltdown skull, 223, 225, 382
Pithecanthropus erectus, 220
Planaria, experiments on, 300
Planets, the, 9, 96 ; distances of,
98
Plants, classification of, 49 ; crea
tion of, 179 ; Leduc's artificial,
296 ; plant-soul, 95
Plate, Prof., 135, 368
Pleistocene period, 169
Pliocene rocks, 168
Poincari, 57, 8r
Pole-star, 100
Polyphyletic evolution, 339, 363
Pope, Rev. Dr., 171, 184, 270
Popes and science, 22 ; and ana
tomy, 23
Potential energy, 306
Pottery, primitive, 195
Pouchet, 320
Pragmatism, 10, 57
Prayer, 137
Predetermination, 368
Prehistoric animal life, 164-168 ;
archaeology, 193 ; art, 234 ;
caves, 226, 230, 248,- 250, 254,
257 ; implements, 193, 211, 229 ;
interments, 198, 208, 217, 228,
263; man, 192, 211, 226, 256;
periods, 229 ; skeletal remains,
208, 219, 251 ; skulls, 48, 210,
219-225, 233, 238, 382
Pre-palseolithic period, 229
Prestwich, 269
Prothyle, 67
Protoplasm, 6, 280 ; artificial, 323
Prout, 68
" Providentissimus Deus," 29, 52,
84
Pterodactyle, 167
Ptolemy, 28, 40
Puy Courny, 211

414

THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE

Quaternary Period, i6g
Radiation, 61, 123
Radioactivity, 75/260
Radiobes, 16
Radium, 75
Rahilly, A. J., 128
Ramsay, Sir William, 109
Recapitulation argument, the, 372
Recent period, 169, 252
Red Crag formation, 213
Redi, 319
Reflection, laws of, 81
Regeneration, 297
Reindeer, the, 247
Reinke, 322, 324, 381
Religion, its scope and meaning, 12,
404 ; of prehistoric man, 197 ;
and scholastic philosophy, 92
Renan, Ernest, 186
Resurrection, the, 154
Retrogressive mutations, 364
Rickaby, Rev. John, S.J., 88, 91
Rickaby, Rev. Joseph, S.J., 191
River-gravels, 160
Rock-shelters, 230
Romanes, Prof., 17, 183, 308
Roscoe; Sir Henry, on protoplasm,
323
Ruminants, horns of, 347
Rutherford, 75
Salamander, experiments on, 298
Saleeby, 363
Saltation, 362
Sanday, Dr., 152
Sandstone, Old Red, 165
Sayce, Prof., 176
Schafer, Sir E., 323
Scheiner, Father, S.J., 25
Scholastic philosophy, 33 ; deca
dence of, 39 ; of matter and
form, 87 ; and religion, 92
Scholastic theology, 34
Schuster, 57
Schwalbe, 226
Science, its scope and meaning, 3,
404; enigmas of, 118 ; method
ology of, 7, 44 ; Popes and, 22
Scotist theory of human soul, 90
Scrapers, 233
Scripture. Vide " Bible "
Sea-urchin, 301
Secchi, Father, S.J., 128
Selection, artificial, 358; germinal,
349; natural, 51, 83, 133, 350,
361. 373
Sensitive soul, 95

Sentient life, 181
Servetus, Calvin and, 28
Sharpe, Rev. A. B., 319
" Shooting Stars," 115
Silurian period, 165
Sin, 397
Sirius, 90
Skeletal remains, 208, 219, 251.
See " Heidelberg jaw "
Skulls, prehistoric, 48 ; Calaveras
skull, 238 ; Lansing skull, 238 ;
Neanderthal skull, 210, 222, 225,
382 ; Piltdown skull, 223, 225,
233, 382; Trinil skull, 219;
cranial capacity of, 221
Soddy, Prof., on radiations, 37, 61,
75
Solar system, 96, 123, 178
Sollas, Prof., 198, 213, 237, 243, 260,
¦263 .
Soul, the, 90, 95, 197, 274, 314, 379,
390, 402 ; of animals, 95, 379
Sound, 61
Space, 57, 65, 103 ; ether of, 58,,
398, 406 ; and time, 174
Spallanzani, 298, 320
Specialisation, 5
Spectroscope, 109
Spencer, Herbert, 19, 126, 273, 321
Spinoza, 153
Spontaneous Generation, 318
Stalagmite, 257
Stars, 40, 99, 129 ; " shooting,"
115 ; spectroscopy of, 109, 128
Stensen, Nicolaus, 20, 24, 174
Stewart, Balfour, 120, 308
Stigmata of St. Francis, 144
Stokes, Sir G., 128, 311
Stone Age, 204, 229
Strata, decisions of, 163 ; thickness
of, 260
Stratigraphical geology, 158
Substance, Haeckel's law of, 120,
122, 135
Substantial forms, 95
" Suggestion," 148
Sun, the, 59, 114, 178, 180, 241 ;
sun-spots, 25, 40
" Survival of the Fittest," 359
Sweden, geological researches in,
264
Sweet-peas, 50, 363 ; Mendel's
experiments with, 366

Tactisms, 286
Tait, P. G., 120, 307
Tennyson, 408
Tertiary Period, 168

INDEX

415

Thenay " implements," 211
Theology, scholastic, 34
Theophobia, 17, 368
Theory, definition of a, 47
Thomson, Sir J. J., 72
Thought-" secretion, "398
Time, archaeological, 203 ; geo
logical, 203, 258 ; historical,
201 ; and eternity, 331 ; and
space, 103, 174
Tourassian Period, 254
Transformation of energy, 307
Transformism, 325, 333, 370 '
Trembley, Abbi, 298, 300
Triassic rocks, 166
Trilobites, 164
Trinil remains, 219
Trinity, the Blessed, 126
Tundra conditions, 246
Turton, Lieut.-Col., " The Truth of
Christianity," 175, 180, 183
Tycho Brahe, 5
Tyndall, 399
Tyrolian period, 248

Unconscious memory, 343
Units, astronomical, 98
Universal consciousness, 397
Universe, the, 73, 87, 96 ; origin
of, 107, 121
Uranium, 75
Ussher's chronology, 201

Vacuoles, 280
Variation, 340, 347, 383
Verbal explanation, 345
Victoria Cave, 248
Vigouroux, Mgr., on Genesis, 186
Virchow, Prof., 226, 322
Virgin Birth, the, 154
Vitalism, 274, 290

Walker, 342
Wallace, 97, 102, 281, 316, 337, 391
398
Walpole, Horace, 405
Walsh, Dr. J. J., 23
Wasmann, Father, . S.J. , 17, 135
338, 364. 368, 371. 374. 377
Water, action of, 159, 257 ; coi
position of, 68
Watson, 306
Weismann, 119, 317, 345, 352
Willey, A., 375-6
Wilson, Prof., 278, 295
Wolff, 299
Woodward, Dr. Smith, 223
Wright, G. F., 244, 263, 265
Wright, W. B., 253
Wulf, de, 33, 35, 43

Zola, on Lourdes, 146, 150
Zoroastrianism, 176

AND PUBLISHED BY THE CATHOLIC TRUTH SOCIETY, tOMttUK.

B T THE SAME AUTHOR
Cloth. Crown &vo. 2s. net.
FACTS AND THEORIES
BEING A CONSIDERATION OF SOME
BIOLOGICAL CONCEPTIONS OF TO-DAY
On "Bias"— On "Dogma" and " Dogmatism "—On "Nature" and
"Science," and on "Facts," "Laws," and "Hypotheses" — On Life
and the Explanations offered thereon — On the Origination of Life :
Biogenesis and Abiogenesis — On the Variability of Living Things, and
on " Darwinism "- — What Darwin himself held — The Origin of Man —
" Darwinism " and certain Superstructures : Morality and Morals —
some other " Isms."
"This book should be placed in every convent-, school-, parish-, and private-library
... it should be given as prizes, and quoted from the pulpit, and thumbed in lecture-
rooms and study-clubs. For it diffuses the clear, steady light of reason, reason sure of
its grounds, but conscious of its limitations, throughout a world obscured by the mists
of rationalism." — Month.
"An eminently instructive book. . . . The more wide circulation the volume
obtains, the better in this period of 'popular literature ' and 'popular science.' "
Irish Catholic.
Cloth. Crown %vo. With Portraits. 2s. 6d.
TWELVE CATHOLIC
MEN OF SCIENCE
Edited by Sir BERTRAM WINDLE, M.D., F.R.S.
THOMAS LINACRE— ANDREAS VESALIUS— NICOLAUS STENSEN
— ALOISIO (LUIGI) GALVANI — RENE THEODORE LAENNEC
—JOHANNES MULLER— SIR DOMINIC CORRIGAN— ANGELO
SECCHI, S.J.— JOHANN GREGOR MENDEL— LOUIS PASTEUR-
ALBERT DE LAPPARENT— THOMAS DWIGHT.
" The Society has produced no more timely or helpful volume than this, which,
written by experts and edited by a master, appeals to learned and unlearned
alike."— Tablet.
"Perhaps, if more books of the sort under consideration were written, a better
understanding between science and religion would result ... no longer would we hear
the hoary remark that religion is an insuperable obstacle to the full play of scientific
thought." — Interstate Medical Journal (U.S.A.).

Catholic Truth Society, 69 Southwark Bridge Road, London, S.E. i.

3 9002 00556 8150