Darwin
THE JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLOGICAL MEDICINE AND MENTAL PATHOLOGY. Art. I.?. :Author: J. M. Winn, M.D., M.K.C.P., &c. There is little to be said respecting the private life of this distinguished naturalist. He was born at Shrewsbury; his father was Dr E. W. Darwin, a Fellow of the Koyal Society, and the son of the celebrated Erasmus Darwin; his mother was the daughter of Josiah Wedgwood, the inventor of the valuable, pottery wares which still bear his name. After studying medicine at Edinburgh, he went to Christ’s College, Cambridge, with a view of entering the church, but he soon abandoned this intention and devoted all the remaining days of his life to the study of natural history. His elaborate researches in this branch of science were prosecuted almost solely with a view of establishing the wild and visionary hypothesis of evolution. This was-the dominant idea of his life, and as his reputation rests chiefly on his supposed solution of the mysterious problem of creation, our remarks will be confined especially to this question, and we hope to show that all his attempts to establish the baneful doctrine of evolution have been utterly in vain.
The Darwin furor, which was gradually subsiding under the sobering influence of time, has burst forth with redoubled force since the death of the great apostle of evolution. The fanaticism of his enthusiastic admirers knows no bounds, and it would be enough to create a smile, if the subject were not too serious for mirth, to read the extravagant encomiums they have lavished on their idol. Since his apotheosis in Westminster Abbey, the pceans of bis worshippers have been loud and incessant; not content with the unmerited honour conferred upon liim by his interment in the closest proximity to Newton, they have had the presumption to rank him equal to this natural philosopher, the greatest the world has ever known, and to compare the vague, unverified, and most improbable hypothesis of evolution with the immutable law of gravitation !
It would seem, judging from the nonsense which lias lately passed current as science, that common sense has taken flight. If it should hereafter again visit the earth, future generations will wonder, on reading the following inflated encomiums on Darwin, at the mental obliquity and credulity of the scientific and literary men of the nineteenth century. We will now subjoin a few only of the extravagant and unwarranted panegyrics, with which the papers have lately teemed: Knowledge* in a leader entitled ” Newton and Darwin,” makes the following hyperbolical remarks : ” In Charles Darwin science has lost one who has done more than any since Newton to extend men’s recognition of the wideness of the domain of law I do not know whether the grandeur of the universe, as pictured by Newtonian astronomy, or the vastness of past and future time, as pictured by the Darwinian system, is the more impressive. Certainly there can be imagined nothing much more wonderful than those vast depths of space in which we are absolutely compelled to believe since Newton established the great law which bears his name. But if there is aught grander than this, aught more solemn in its impressiveness, it is the thought of the immeasurable vistas of past time, during which the races inhabiting earth came into being under the action of the laws assigned to them.” Mr. Proctor, the Editor of Knowledge, in an article on Darwin, in the Contemporary Review for June 1882, has the temerity to speak of the law of Biological Evolution, as if it were an unquestioned truth. ” The course ” of folly ” can no further go.”
The Standard furnishes us with the subjoined opinions of the continental press on Darwin and his speculations:? The France observes : ” Darwin’s work has not been merely the exposition of a system, but, as it were, the production of an * Mr. Proctor seems to imply, in giving his journal the presumptuous title of Knowledge, that all other journals are in a state of Egyptian darkness. We fear, however, that his views arc one-sided, for ho excludes from his publication facts that are unfavourable to evolution. In an oarly number of the journal, wo observed that, he refused to insert a communication from a correspondent which contained arguments adverse to Darwinism. This is the usual practice of evolutionists, and reminds us of the Welsh Judge, who said ho never wished to hear more than one sido of a case, as otherwise, he got bothered and could not come to a decision.
epic?the great poem of the genesis of the universe, one of the grandest that ever proceeded from a human brain?an epic magnificent in its proportions, logical in its deductions, and superb in its form. Darwinism may be disputed, but if it be true that, according to Greek etymology, 4 poet’ means ‘ creator,’ how can the name of poet be refused to him who intellectually has created a world, and has propounded so wonderful a theory of its origin and development. Darwin deserves not only a place by the side of Leibnitz, Bacon, or Descartes, but is worthy to rank with Homer and Virgil.”
” The whole Vienna press assigns a prominent place in its columns to the news of the death of the great English philosopher, Darwin, and to their notices of his eminent services to Natural Science.”
The Vienna Allgemeine even says : ” We must apologise for touching on political matters on a day when humanity has suffered so great a loss. It seems to us that the world has become gloomier and grown greyer since this star ceased to shine. Our century is Darwin’s century. We can now suffer no greater loss, as we do not possess a second Darwin to lose.” The Neue Freie Presse says: ” Darwin’s death causes lamentations as far as truth has penetrated, and wherever civilisation has made any impression. Darwin advanced the progress of mankind. Although his peculiar work was determining man’s real position in Nature, the life of Darwin had far greater importance in point of culture than the life and work of many more exalted personages who were interred with pomp.”
” Almost all the other Vienna papers publish notices of the deceased philosopher of an equally eulogistic character.” Almost all the German papers publish obituary notices of Darwin, and agree in regarding him as one of the greatest men of the nineteenth century. The Cologne Gazette calls him ” a man of science who made a mark upon his times in a manner unparalleled by any of his contemporaries. He compelled every branch of science to acknowledge his revolutionising discoveries. The completion of his gigantic system will give abundant occupation to the remotest generations; but the memory of the founder of this prodigious scientific structure will remain imperishable to all time.”
The adoration of the Times for Darwin is unbounded: ” At least for the next century it may confidently be predicted that biological science will do little more than work upon Mr. Darwin’s line. If the ‘ Origin of Species,’ had never been written, if there had been no 4 Darwinian hypothesis,’ the actual work he did would have been enough to gain him a reputation among the highest. His books on the voyage of the ‘Beagle,’ on minute vegetable anatomy … and lastly, that marvellous book on earthworms, form a host that would of themselves adorn the name of any other man of science. Joined to his great philosophical achievement, they place him beyond rivalry among the men of to-day, and side by side with two or three great discoverers of the past, whose names are household words.” ?Times, April 21st, 1882.
The West/minster Review, in an article on Darwin says: “The life of Dai win is an epic …. Enemies opposed his progress, and assailed him with every weapon in their power; but, like a skilful general, he allowed them to spend their strength in vain, upon a fortress which he knew to be impregnable, and it triumphed.” The Medical News speaks in the same strain of the supposed triumph of Darwinism : ” The death of Charles Darwin has called forth a universal expression of regret, which cannot fail to be especially gratifying both to the intimate friends of the deceased naturalist and to every disciple of the school he in reality created. How marked the change that has come over the opponents of Darwinism they only can fully appreciate who preserve a recollection of the torrent of abuse with which the theory and its author were ruthlessly bespattered on the first appearance of the ‘ Origin of Species.’ The ultimate triumph of the evolutionary hypothesis, however, was from the outset a foregone conclusion; and none saw more clearly than the noble old man who now lies in the midst of England’s most honoured sons, how far-spreading and all-embracing his immortal conception really was. Invulnerable in the strength of assurance lent by the testimony his incessant labour had extracted from the realms of nature, he could well afford to wait while his followers slowly grew from a few to a multitude; and we cannot but be thankful that ere the sands ot his life had fully run, he was enabled to witness the submission of even his most bitter opponents, while with perfect simplicity and honesty he welcomed them as fellow-travellers with himself through the country he himself had opened up.”
Had the writer of this article fully understood the question on which he speaks so dogmatically, he could not have uttered an opinion so completely at variance with recognised facts. He would have known that even Professor Huxley, one of the strongest advocates for Darwinism, had been obliged to confess that evolution could not, as yet, be considered a thoroughly established fact. The theory is based on false premises; if so and so is true, then Darwinism is true. This is the key-note to all their loud songs of triumph.
We will now proceed to show by the irresistible logic of facts, the fallacies and absurdities of that modern fiction of scientific atheism?the theory of evolution. To prove this position, it will be necessary to refer to many of the facts and arguments which we have published in The Journal of Psychological Medicine during the past seven years. Philosophical and scientific truths will not, however, lose their weight by repetition; and if the infatuated believers in Darwinism will persist in bandying their old and oft-repeated arguments, we are perfectly justified, at the risk of being tedious, in again arraying against their flimsy sophisms, ? our phalanx of irrepressible truths, which strike at the very root of evolution. These facts could be multiplied to almost any extent. We shall only mention some of the chief objections to Darwinism, but enough, and more than enough, to convince any unprejudiced inquirer, with a modicum of common sense, that evolution which assumes to be a law, is absolutely at variance with the recognised laws of nature.
1. The infertility of hybrids as a general rule, with a very few equivocal exceptions, is universally acknowledged, and is utterly irreconcilable with flie theory of evolution. Can a better reason be given for this truth, than the one commonly received, that the great Lawgiver has established a law to prevent the confusion of species ? If the law of evolution had been true, the animal and vegetable world would have become, ere this, a vast chaos of bizarre varieties, incapable of definition or classification.
2. It is a fact that the forms and features of men and animals are the same now as they were thousands of years ago, tis depicted on the Egyptian monuments, or as still traceable in the mummies of the pyramids, and that the intellect of man has never been developed in a higher degree than it was in the days of the Hebrew prophets and Greek poets. The only answer offered is, that evolution requires not only thousands, but billions upon billions of years for the development of a new species. This is dreaming and not sober reasoning. The palaeontologists can read the records of the past, stamped on the crust of the earth, but who can read the future of a million years to come ? The mind of man has not only a limited field of observation, but has also limits to its own power, and it is not a healthy exercise for the mind to indulge overmuch in the pleasures of the imagination. Professor Tyndall has strongly advocated what he terms the ” scientific use of the imagination.” It would have been far better for mankind if he and the evolutionists had paid more attention to the cultivation of their reasoning powers, and less to that of the iMi-scientific use of their imaginations.
The periods required for the evolution of one species into another are infinitely longer than the time, as calculated by the physicists, which has elapsed since life first appeared on the face of the earth. It has been estimated that a period not much exceeding one hundred millions of years must have passed since the earth was sufficiently cooled down to support life. This is not nearly long enough for the imaginary law of evolution to produce all the species, living and extinct, that have been discovered; for the Darwinites are obliged to admit that a fabulous time is required for the development of even a single species by evolution.
3. Species have maintained their distinctive peculiarities since they were first created. Darwin laboured in vain to upset this fact, and confounded races with species. It was known to all breeders of animals and common gardeners, long before Darwin’s work on ” The Descent of Man ” appeared, that an enormous variety of animals and plants can be produced by careful selection, crossing, &c., and yet the worshippers of Darwin will talk of these trite facts as if he had been the discoverer of them. Frank Buckland’s bright and genial spirit? combined as it was with good sense and thorough knowledge of natural history?recoiled from the teaching of evolutionary atheism. He often amused himself by giving exceedingly droll and imaginary transmutations of species, after the fashion oi evolutionists. But setting this apart, we defy them, as we have often done, to inform us whence, or through what channel, the nightingale derives her song ? Are the wings of birds derived from the quills of the porcupine ? Whence does the beaver obtain his constructive power, the spider learn to spin her geometric web, or the carrier pigeon acquire her wonderful instinct ? Are the beauty and scent of flowers, which are the grace and ornament of the earth, due to natural selection? They have not deigned to answer these questions, simply because they cannot do so. Their grand and immutable law of evolution is utterly incapable of explaining these wonderful mysteries. 4. Very many years previous to the publication of Darwin’s works, naturalists had observed the gradations of organisms, on which evolutionists lay so much stress, as well as the similarity of the bodily functions and conformations of animals ; but this is nothing more than that archetypal unity, which is found throughout all nature. Would it be reasonable to say that because a pig’s liver and a man’s are anatomically and physiologically alike that they have the same pedigree? 5. Mr. William Carruthers, keeper of the Botanical Department of the British Museum, and a high authority on subjects connected with natural history, made mention at the opening of the Geologists’ Association in November 1875, of the following facts which the evolutionists are unable to contradict: ” The plants portrayed on the ancient paintings and sculptures of Egypt; the fruits placed in coffins with embalmed bodies, and the fruits and seeds found in ancient lake dwellings, all belong to existing species, with which they agree in the most minute and apparently accidental particulars. The existing order of plants if it be due to generic evolution supplies no proof of it… . The cellular algoe preceded the vascular cryptogams, or the gymnosperms of the newer palaeozoic rocks, and these were speedily followed by monoctyledons, and at a much later period by dicotyledons. But the earliest representatives of those various sections of the vegetable kingdom ivere not generalised forms, but as highly organised as recent forms, and in many cases more highly organised; and the divisions were as clearly bounded in their essential characters, and as decidedly separated from each other as they are at the present day. … Is it possible from the record of organic life preserved in the sedimentary deposits, to discover the method or agent through the action of which the new forms appeared on the globe ? The rocks record the existence of the plants and animal forms, but as yet they have disclosed nothing whatever as to how these forms originated.”
6. We have much pleasure in adding to the testimony of Mr. Carruthers, that of Mr. Thomas Davidson, F.R.S., Y.P.P.S., derived from the animal kingdom. He stands unrivalled for his knowledge of the bracliiopoda. He was the friend of Darwin, at ivhose particular request he undertook the task of minutely examining the characteristics of the bracliiopoda (a very small shell, of which there are three thousand species), with a view of testing the truth of the theory of evolution. In the Geological Magazine for 1877, Mr. Davidson gave the following opinion, which is decidedly adverse to the views of Darwin: ” We have no positive evidence of those modifications which the theory invokes, for types appear on the whole to be permanent as long as they continue, and when a genus disappears there is no modification, that T can see, of any of the forms that continue beyond, as far as the bracliiopoda appear to be concerned; and why should a number of genera, such as lingula, discina, crania, and rhynchonella, have continued to be represented with the same characters, and often with but small modification in shape during the entire sequence of geological strata ? Why did they not offer modifications or alter during those incalculable ages ? Limiting myself to the brachiopoda, let us see what further they will tell us on this question. ^ Taking the present state of our knowledge as a guide, but admitting at the same time that any day our conclusions and inductions may require to be modified by fresh discoveries, let us ascertain whether they reveal anything to support Darwinian ideas. We find that the larger number of genera made their first appearance during the palaeozoic periods, and since they have been decreasing in number to the present period. We will leave out of the question the species, for they vary so little that it is often very difficult to trace really good distinctive characters between them ; it is different with the genera, as they are, or should be, founded on much greater and more permanent distinctions. Thus, for example, the family Spiriferidse includes genera which are all characterised by a calcified spiral lamina for the support of the brachial appendages ; and, however varied these may be, they always retain the distinctive characters of the group from their first appearance to their extinction… . Now, although certain genera, such as terebratala, rhynchonella, crania, and discina have enjoyed a very considerable geological existence, there are genera, such as stringocephalus, uncites, porambonites, koninckina, and several others, which made their appearance very suddenly and without any warning; after a while they disappeared in a similar abrupt manner, having enjoyed a comparatively short existence. They are all possessed of such marked and distinctive internal characters that we cannot trace between them and associated or synchronous genera any evidence of their being the result of descent with modification.”
7. The fossil Trilobite crops abruptly, at the close of the carboniferous epoch, with the eye perfectly formed. 8. No breeding has yet been able to produce, by selection, two animals of such specific differences that they can generate hybrids. Moreover, there is a limit to the variability of species. 9. The faculty of language places an impassable barrier between man and the brute creation. This distinction has been scientifically advocated by Dr Bateman in his valuable work, “Darwinism Tested by Language.”
10. It has been asserted that the distinguishing characteristics observed in animals in various countries are due to their environments?to use a newly-coined word. How does it happen then, that in parts of South Africa and Australia, alike in soil and climate, the species are entirely different ? 11. Evolutionists have never informed us which was developed first, the male or the female of animals. A man and woman are very different, and yet one mother produces both. How can this be ? Again, hew is the balance of the sexes pre* Rivington, London. served? These are mysteries which the materialist can no more explain than lie can the mystery of life.
12. It is impossible for the evolutionists to explain by insensible gradations or fortuitous changes the origin of the electric battery in the torpedo. Would they presume to say that if Galvani was able to perfect his battery in a few years, the Great Mechanician required billions of years to complete the wonderful weapon of defence with which the torpedo is endowed ? 13. Another point on which great stress has been laid is the resemblance in appearance between the human embryo, and that of various animals, during its development in utero. But a little consideration will show that the similarity is partial, and is not carried so far as to lead to any doubt as to the existence of that law which prevents the confusion of species ; and without which the world would long ago have been filled with legions of monstrosities.
14. It is affirmed that the human embryo, when in utero, passes through successive forms of organisation analogous to those of a fish, a reptile, a bird, and the inferior mammalia. But if it is fish-like at one period of its growth, how does it not sometimes come to pass that it is developed into a perfect fish. There must be a fundamental difference between the germ of a man and that of a fish from the very beginning, which no microscope has yet been able to detect. Moreover, physiological observations have led to the probable inference that the brain of the human foetus does not at any time exactly resemble that of any inferior animal. Merely vague resemblances are very imperfect data on which to form a theory.
15. With reference to the two principles?”the struggle for existence ” and ” selection in relation to sex “?nothing more need be said here than that they would be of no avail with regard to those animals that are destitute of the power of locomotion. Beauty can have no place in the scheme of the evolutionist, for it is impossible to believe that the lowest grades of animals acquired it by the assumed law of natural selection. 16. Although twenty-three years have elapsed since the publication of the ” Origin of Species,” the missing link between man and the ape has not yet been discovered, in spite of the unwearied search for this mythical animal by the bigoted believers in Darwinism; and we have not yet heard whether Mr. Pengelly has found the remains of primitive man in Kent’s Hole.
17. “Design in Nature,” which affords the most grand and unanswerable argument against atheism,is utterly opposed to Darwinism. We have now to learn that the admirable Bridgewater Treatises, by Sir Charles Bell and others, are fallacies, and that the prosaic process of development effects all that is seen in animated nature, and that we are to shut our eyes to the endless wonders of design, as exhibited by the manner in which the requirements of the species are suited to the circumstances in which they are placed. Are not the wings of the eagle adapted for an elevated flight, and the fins of the trout to darting through the water ?
The striking facts we have enumerated, which are utterly irreconcilable with the theory of evolution, ought to be amply sufficient to convince anyone of average and unprejudiced intellect that Darwinism, logically speaking, has completely broken down. If more facts are needed, they will be found in the works of Dr Bree,* Quatrefages,f Flourens,^ and the Rev. F. 0. Morris.? The writings of these distinguished naturalists contain innumerable instances of the fallacies and inconsistencies of the popular evolutionary delusion.
It may be naturally asked if evolution is such a self-evident absurdity why expend so much labour in confuting it ? Simply, because it is not merely a scientific blunder, but a mischievous and atheistical doctrine which, by destroying the idea of a ruling Providence, must be subversive of the very fundamental principles on which all our morality and policy are based. It has no doubt poisoned the minds of thousands in consequence of its advocacy by many leading scientific men of the day whose materialistic views have become universally known through the medium of the public press.
Many timid clergymen?some holding a high position in the Church.?have materially helped to propagate the infidel doctrine of evolution by their attempt to adapt this unverified theory of pseudo-philosophy to Christianity. They imagine that all may be made smooth by admitting that the primordial germ was created?not produced?by spontaneous generation or the potentiality of atoms. They do not seem to be aware that if they admit the first germ was created billions of years ago, and was sufficient to develop all the endless and complicated forms of life which are found at the present day upon the earth, it must follow that the necessity for a watchful and superintending Providence is done away with. This Theistic form of evolution removes the Creator so far from us and our sympathies that He becomes a mere vanishing point in the dim vista of * An Exposition of the Fallacies in the Hypothesis of Mr. Darwin, by C. R. Bree, M.D., F.Z.S., London. Longmans, Green & Co., 1872. | The Human Species, by A. de Quatrefages. C. Kegan, Paul & Co. London, 1879. t Exam&n du Livre de M. Darwin sur 11 Origine, Par P. Flourens, Paris. 5 All the Articles of the Darwin Faith. London, W. Poole, Paternoster Row, infinity. They have recently had recourse to another expedient. They attempt to draw a line between the evolution of animals and the origin of man. The latter, they say, was produced by a special creation, the former by development. This is virtually a surrender at discretion, for if evolution could produce all the animals in the world, why not man ?
It is a mistaken policy for the clergy to succumb to their antagonists at the present time, when the discoveries of science are more than ever opposed to the fatalistic doctrine of Darwinism in every form. It would have been far better if they had kept a dignified silence whilst the question was being thoroughly discussed by all the leading science men of the day. The speculations of the modern materialistic school of philosophy are permeating all classes of society, which is to be expected, when leading members of the British Association and influential public lecturers are doing their utmost to imbue the minds of the rising generation with the notion that all our time-honoured creeds are the assumptions of credulity and folly. They would substitute for these creeds the fantastic hypothesis of evolution, potentiality of atoms, spontaneous generation, &c., which must inevitably, if not checked, sooner or later make shipwreck of the highest hope and noblest aspirations of our nature.
The works of Herbert Spencer have probably done more than those of any other disciple of Darwin to disseminate the irreligious doctrine of evolution. They have been translated into most of the continental languages, and strange to say, one of his works has been chosen as a text-book at an English university. Nothing can more clearly indicate the modern decadence of thought than the fact that the pseudo-philosophical discourses of this writer have been placed in the hands of youth by their alma mater. It is, indeed, a most extraordinary circumstance that the illogical lucubrations of Herbert Spencer should be regarded with such general admiration. Dr Tyndall called him ” The Apostle of the Understanding.” Does he think that what he says of life, which he defines ” as a continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations,” has won that title for him ? Can anything be more indefinite than such a definition ? This is what he says of evolution : “Evolution is a change from indefinite incoherent homogeneity to a definite coherent heterogeneity, through continuous differentiations and integrations. * We first drew attention to this literary curiosity in an article published in the Journal of Psychological Medicine, for April 18/5. Since then, we have frequently asked, what great moral or scientific truth Herbert Spencer had originated or established, which should entitle him to bo ranked as one cf the greatest philosophers of the ago. We have not yet had a reply.
Can such expressions as these be considered indications of a master mind, and do they entitle him to be looked up to as a guiding star? Asa writer, he is obscure and pedantic, and his style forms a striking contrast to the simplicity and perspicuity of our greatest authors.
Evolution has been a favourite theory of the scientific atheists for several years, and we can readily understand how loath they must be to abandon a theory which chimed in so harmoniously with the materialistic hypothesis of potentiality of atoms, bathybius, spontaneous generation and materialistic physiology?but happily these fanciful, atheistical notions have been scattered to the winds, and their last stronghold, Darwinism, is doomed. Inductive reasoning has completely failed to prove it; and if we argue from assumed causes to effects, the result is a complete reductio ad absurdnm. The chain of evolution which was supposed to be constructed of links of iron is no better than a rope of sand. The scientific objections to Darwinism are innumerable, and it would be well if its supporters would wait until their theory is proved, before boastfully speaking of it as a verified fact. A fixed law gains by investigation, but this has not been the case with Darwinism. Every year some fresh defect is revealed, and it is wonderful that there should still remain any who believe it to be standing on as firm a basis as the law of gravitation. Hackel goes so far as to propose that it should be accepted as the basis of education ! Can this extravagance be exceeded ? Irrefragable arguments are unheeded by the enthusiastic believers in scientific atheism. We want a Swift to hold up to ridicule the pseudo-philosophy now so rife. The speculations of the philosophers of Laputa were not more visionary than those of the evolutionists.
Since the advent of Darwinism, the importance of natural history?now inappropriately termed biology*?has been greatly overrated. The evolutionists think it ought to take precedence of all other branches of education. A magnificent building has been erected at South Kensington for the glorification of dead animals, which remind one of an Egyptian monument. Natural history is a delightful pursuit, and increases the relish for existence by widening the prospect of nature around us ; but * Tho term biology is now very commonly misapplied to the science of natural history, by materialistic _ evolutionists. Every collector of bees or butterflies is called a biologist. This is all very wrong and unphilosophical. Natural history is generally understood to be that branch of knowledge which describes the objects of nature, the habits of animals and plants, &c. Biology, as its derivation signifies, is the science of life; it is therefore extremely illogical for that large section of the evolutionists, who ignore the vital principle, and consider vital phenomena to bo the effect of mechanical and chemical forces, to make use of this term. there are few who have the taste and leisure for its cultivation when once the business of life has commenced. We are quite at a loss to understand why it should have been recommended to School Boards as an essential branch of education for the children of artisans. We are still old-fashioned enough to think that “the noblest study of mankind is man.” The modern materialistic school has done incalculable mischief, morally and scientifically, not only to the dissemination of flimsy hypotheses, but they have corrupted the English language itself by the scientific jargon they have adopted in the endeavour to make the new theories intelligible. We have already referred to Herbert Spencer’s incoherent definition of evolution. A glossary of the new terms will soon be required. The modern scientists call poetic emotion, ” the thrill of a ganglion ” ; thought, ” cerebration “; life, ” molecular force ” ; creation, ” evolution ” ; the Deity becomes ” a primordial germ”; crime, ” cerebral disease ” ; and the soul is described as ” the non-atomic centre of psychic force.” Another writer says: ” The development of human thought is conditioned by the development of organism and cosmic environment.” This is a fine specimen of one of ” the fruits ” of evolutionary ” philosophy.” We shall soon have a treatise written on what Blackwood humorously called “the moral attributes of the physical forces.”
The late Gr. H. Lewes, who had a host of admirers?but on what rational ground we could never discover?used the following unintelligible metaphysical verbiage. In speaking of the question of objective and subjective laws, he said: “Biology presents it in a peculiar Light; for here for the first time the twofold aspect of phenomena become conspicuous, our interest in the subjective side, that of feeling, being as great as our interest in the objective side, that of force. It also takes place among the subjective sciences, since its phenomena include those of mind. In its evolution it passes from vegetality to animality; and through animality to humanity, With animality a new factor, sensibility, becomes conspicuous. With humanity another factor emerges?sociality.” Was there ever a greater jumble of ideas?mind and matter confusedly mingled together ? Evolution seems to be the drift of the argument. He should, like one of the spiritualistic writers (who talks of materialising spirits), have gone so far as to assert that the last step of evolution was to develop the human spirit. Lewes should have said, ” first vegetality, then animality,” and lastly, soulality.
No hypothesis was ever more open to ridicule than Daiwinism. It is easy to imagine the curious questions which Hackel s embryo class of evolutionists would have to answer: for instance?describe the various transmutations required for the development of a worm into a man? How many billions of years would be required for the metamorphosis ? Grive an account of the various species which intervened between a periwinkle and a peacock, a flying fish and a swallow, and between a maggot and an alligator, &c. &c.
Sir John Lubbock, a zealous evolutionist, has taken great pains to endow the ant with all the moral and intellectual attributes of the human mind, but he did not see that in doing so he was breaking the ingenious train which was to link the anthropoid ape with man. Sir John admits that, although the anthropoid ape approaches next to man in bodily structure, the ant claimed the next place to him in intelligence; therefore, inasmuch as mind is superior to matter, it happens after all, that it is not the monkey but the ant who is our immediate progenitor: if not, man must be a cross between the ant and the baboon, or, as a late popular novelist might put it: In the morning of life the industrious married the grotesque, and their offspring was the human mind. This is only one of the endless absurdities which follow in the wake of Darwinism. Sir John thinks so highly of the reasoning powers of the ant, that he believes that if its space of life were not so brief, and it had time to cultivate its intellectual powers, it would rise in the scale of civilisation. He also estimates its moral goodness equally high, and it might be inferred, from his reasoning, that it was the original primitive Christian.
We have shown that the theory of evolution is utterly untenable, from whatever point of view it is contemplated. How, then, does it happen that a hypothesis so groundless should have taken such a stronghold of the public mind ? The chief causes appear to be the following: 1. It is the pet theory of the positivists and scientific atheists, who naturally cling with desperate tenacity to a doctrine opposed to the idea of an ever-ruling Providence ; especially when the allied notions of potentiality of atoms, bathybius, spontaneous generation, the fabulous antiquity of man, and physiological psychology,* have been completely disproved by the inextinguishable logic of facts. 2. Its advocacy by presidents of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, and other leading scientific men who, however distinguished for discoveries in their special pursuits, have nevertheless displayed a lamentable ignorance of the first principles of mental philosophy and logic. Their writings. abound with examples of the petitio principii fallacy. These scientists have numerous imperfectly educated admirers, who consider them omniscient, and accept their teaching with unbounded faith. 3. There is also a conceited superficial class of atheists who are but too well pleased to seize hold of evolution, or any other plausible irreligious dogma, on the authority of a popular lecturer. 4. The prevalent craving for sensational lectures and addresses. In referring to the sensational addresses at the meeting of the British Association in 1881, we made the following remarks in Vol. VII., Part 2, of The Journal of Psychological Medicine: ” It is a notorious fact that sensational lectures with a spice of wickedness in them attract the largest audiences. We have no doubt that if some one were to announce an address entitled ‘ The existence of a Deity disproved by the spectrum analysis,’ or something equally impious or absurd, that the draw would be immense. There is nothing like ad captandum atheistical rhetoric to attract a thoughtless crowd.” 5. The unfortunate fictitious halo which has surrounded evolution, owing to the miserable attempt of many of the clergy to adapt Christianity to evolution. It is a curious fact in the history of evolution, that Mind, an evolutionary and materialistic journal, in the recent number for July, admits that Darwin cannot be ranked as a philosopher. In this article on Darwin the following observations occur: ” The great scientific genius who has just been arrested in the work he was continuing, at the age of seventy-four, was not a philosopher, as every generation has need of such to probe the foundations and direct the issues of its thoughts. He was not even a psychologist. The present age is not devoid of such … to apply the new scientific principle of evolution to the disentanglement of the whole complex web of mental processes.” This is sheer nonsense. We cannot look upon Darwin as equal to Bacon or Newton. He was, nevertheless, an accomplished naturalist and an original observer. But if hb did not establish a great general principle, he never said anything so unphilosopliical as Mind’s remark about the “disentanglement of mental processes by means of evolution.” This achievement was left for Herbert Spencer to accomplish. Moreover, if Darwin had established the fact of evolution, he would have been entitled to rank as one of the first natural philosophers of the age.
Mind was started about seven years since, under the editorial auspices of Mr. George Croom Robertson, who belongs to the so-called advanced school of philosophy. The title is singularly anomalous, as the object of the publication is to ignore mind and exalt matter. Its dull and dreary articles have consisted of little more than a rechauffe of the dangerous dogmas of the positivists, and the contributors to it imagine that the use of obscure and pedantic phraseology is adding to our knowledge of the operations of the human mind. Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bain, Gr. H. Lewes, and Wundt, the leader of the school of physiological psychology (a new variety of phrenology), ‘and others of this class, are the authors who have been held up to admiration in this journal. I have frequently, but fruitlessly, asked what have these writers done morally or intellectually for the cause of truth ? Evolution and physiological psychology were to explain all the mysteries of life and mind, but after seven years of ponderous verbosity Mind leaves the questions precisely where they were when the journal was started. So confident was Mr. Gr. C. Eobertson, several years since, that physiological psychology was ” to open a new vista of philosophic thought,” that he advertised a new work, entitled A Psychological Manual. We have been constantly on the look-out for this work, and although we have made numerous inquiries respecting it, have never been able to gain any tidings about it, we are therefore forced to conclude that he has suppressed it. From all the facts we have adduced, it must be obvious to every candid inquirer, that the theory of evolution has not been proved, but had the converse been true, the merit of having conceived the hypothesis was not due to Charles Darwin. Diderot, Lamarck, and the author of “Vestiges of Creation” have been severally supposed to be the author of it. Erasmus Darwin, however, was no doubt the originator of the theory. Charles Darwin, with a frankness which did him honour, set this question at rest by publishing, in the interesting life of his grandfather, a translation of Ernst Krause’s work.* The following extract from this publication shows incontestibly that it was Erasmus and not Charles Darwin who suggested the idea that “we are merely an immense chain of material progression ” f;?”Almost every single work of the younger Darwin may be paralleled by a chapter in the works of his ancestor ; the mystery of hereditary adaptation, the protective arrangements of animals and plants, and the analysis of the emotions and sociological impulses, nay, even the studies on infants, are to be found already discussed in the writings of the elder Darwin.”
Before concluding the subject of evolution, it may be as * The Scientific Works of Erasmus Darwin. Translated from the German, by W. S. Dallas, F.R.S.
t We are indebted to Mrs. Fanny Kemble for this happy expression. It will be fonnd in her charming ” Iiccords of Later Life.” (Eontiny, London.) Her genius intuitively perceived at a glance the hollownoss of the atheistical doctrine of evolution.
well to say a few words on sexual selection, the struggle for existence and pangenesis. Sexual selection was an important factor in the theory of the descent of man; in fact, Darwin could have given but little plausibility to his speculations, had he not ingeniously invented this hypothesis. We have previously mentioned an insuperable objection to it, that it would be of no avail with regard to those lower grades of animals, who have not the power of locomotion. This objection applies also to the struggle for existence.
I have been informed that it was proposed sometime since, by a zealous disciple of Darwin, to paint the wings of male butterflies in order to attract the females ! What next ? Darwin’s account of sexual selection is very amusing, but we prefer his grandfather’s poem on ” The Loves of the Plants.” The notion of ‘pangenesis (the theory of physiological units), was perhaps the most extravagant of all Darwin’s fancies, but we believe he abandoned this chimera long before his death. It was ingeniously devised to give force to his views of heredity, which has to perform an incredulous amount of work in the development of the instincts of animals. Mr. Jonathan Hutchinson made a fruitless attempt to revive the hypothesis of pangenesis, in his lectures on The Laws of Inheritance, delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons in 1881. One of the most unpliilosophical outcomes of Darwinism has been the tendency to endow the very lowest grades of animals with mental attributes. Darwin, in his work on worms, speaks of the mental faculties of worms, and a Danvinite has recently gone the length of discussing the psychology of this slimy wriggling creature. In spite of Darwin’s eulogy of this intellectual being, we are inclined to think higher of Sir John Lubbock’s ant. The worm is no doubt useful in its way? nature has made nothing in vain?but we have not had experience enough of its fertilising properties to give an opinion on the subject. We have, however, been credibly informed by a competent judge, that Darwin’s treatise on worms is “a wormcast-of exaggeration.” We are not at liberty to mention our informant’s name. Although not a professed naturalist, he_ is a close observer of nature, and his popular writings abound with original and graphic descriptions of the habits of plants and animals. Darwin gives, as a proof of the worm’s intellect, that it avoids a sudden bright light. This intellectual characteristic is in striking contrast to that of its fellow creature, the philosopher and poet Goethe, who, in his last moments requested that the shutters might be opened in order that he might have more light.
Evolutionists and materialistic physiologists have created intense confusion by their attempts to locate the faculties of the mind in the brain, and at the same time to give intellect to brainless animals. Some assert that a properly developed brain is necessary for the development of mind. Others are for endowing the ant and worm, who have no brains, and whose nervous systems terminate in simple ganglions, with intellectual faculties.
In opposing the theory of evolution, and dissenting from those enthusiasts who think it has been a great blessing to mankind, we readily pay a tribute to Darwin’s great moral worth. Nothing could surpass his devotion to science, his love of truth, his modesty, single-mindedness, industry, zeal, and patience. He was a close observer of nature, and he described what he saw in language remarkable for its simplicity and perspicuity. Nevertheless, without taking into consideration the question of evolution, we think his discoveries have been overrated. He made some original observations on the fertilisation of orchids, ship barnacles, climbing plants, carnivorous plants, &c., &c.; but as regards these special studies, he was not the first to cultivate them. In his attempts to solve the enigma of life, he reminds one of the alchemist’s search for the philosopher’s stone. Evolution could not be found, but Darwin, in his search for it, has brought to light many interesting facts connected with animal and vegetable life.
In their indiscriminate praise of Darwin, his followers seem to have unfairly thrown into the shade many eminent naturalists of this century, who will not lose by comparison with him? Linnreus, De Candolle, Jussieu, Lindley, Sir W. J. Hooker, Professor Owen, and Cuvier, should not be forgotten. A scientific worker may make a thousand observations and experiments, without having the good fortune to make an important discovery; and though ready tc accord to Darwin all honour for his industry and love of science, we cannot rank him with those who have been able to establish great and general principles.
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