THE LOGIC OF EVOLUTION. The Descent of Man. By Charles Darwin. Appletons, 1871. 1878. The Logic of Special Creation. By Laique. Ibid. The Catholic World, December, 1877, and passim. WE E would gladly believe what LAIQUE implies, that the evolutionists merely prescind from the existence of God and Revelation, and endeavor to find out the origin of things from natural science alone. This is a laudable exercise of reason. Even in our schools of theology, as well as in the Senior class of our colleges, as LAIQUE must know, we are practiced in such investigations and prove God's existence and attributes independently of revealed religion; for it can be proved most exactly, LAIQUE's assertion to the contrary notwithstanding. That we know it first by faith matters not. We receive a great many truths by faith alone, in fact nearly all that we learn, and it is only the recipients of what is called a liberal education who reduce them, each in his own profession, to their logical basis, and secure the multitude from error. But we have great reason to fear that Darwin, Tyndall, Huxley, etc., do not confine themselves to the study of natural history as a department of science, but that they reject, and hold in contempt, other equally or superiorly reasonable sources of truth. They seem to pay no attention to the "common-sense” (to use a technical term) of mankind.. Tyndall laughs at prayer. Huxley ridiculed the Mosaic record in his New York lectures, calling it Miltonic, and so on. Now even if man's origin can be traced by the study of comparative anatomy, it is absurd to say that it may not be otherwise known. And it is in the highest degree unreasonable to ignore the teaching of religion, the facts of history, the truths of metaphysics, and the universal tradition of the human race, when these conflict with our theories. Nothing short of mathematical demonstration, or its equivalent, of the truth of a system, would make this course reasonable. In the first place then we say to LAIQUE that the existence of God is a fact, not an assumption. And no conclusions in any field of scientific investigation may disregard facts in other fields. We think, moreover, that LAIQUE exaggerates the hypothesis of evolution. It is not a universal law. Whatever may be said of geology and chemistry, whereof more further on, evolution cannot be maintained in the moral and intellectual sphere. There is growth, we admit, but this as a rule is succeeded in races and nations, as well as in individuals, by climax and decay, and absorption or death. The world shows periodicity, rather than constant development. We have not evolved a language comparable to the Latin or Greek, much less the Sanscrit. We do not approach the ancients in sculpture, painting or architecture, nor, perhaps, in mechanics. The Jews leaped from brick-making to a magnificent religious code, and a ritual which reached its climax under Solomon, and has risen and fallen occasionally since, but surely absolute progress has not been verified. Do you say that Christianity is a development of Judaism? We refer you to the fact that Christianity has had splendid phases, and then again depressions at times, though we deny that it was ever lost. Have the law codes of modern Europe approached the perfection of the XII Tables, the "written reason" of the Romans? Have the Chinese improved on Confucius? What process of evolution is, shown in the production of Shakspeare? And does our more recent poetry excel his? So, too, as regards Homer, Demosthenes, Virgil, etc. These men are so singular and independent of antecedents that, from analogy, we might conclude in favor of a like origin for the various species of animals, and especially for the noblest, man. Yes, each particular nation, like an individual, grows, matures, decays and dies. Anarchy succeeds republicanism, just as this is born of revolution, and this is begot of tyranny, which is the debasement of monarchy, which is the result of anarchy. These changes are completed in a longer or shorter space of time in each nation or century, but there is no constant evolution of the less perfect into the more perfect. There is continual motion in a circle. So of civilization, the very refinements of which foster the germs that will eventually destroy it. This was very high in Greece and Rome, but it fell and died, and but for the incorporated spirit of Christianity surviving, it would probably not yet be resurrected. This circle is found in geology also. Nebulæ become solid, solids give birth to plants, and so on. But the rock is also worn away by the rain and changed into soil, and into vapor. The plant becomes coal and the coal becomes gases, and the gases are changed again into the rock. The sea is always invading the land, and the land in turn enlarges its bounds, as the sea recedes. Our cemeteries become cornfields: "from human mould we reap our daily bread," and we bury our dead in the gardens of our ancestors. Where is the constant development towards the higher form? So much for LAIQUE'S presentation of the evolution assumption. What we propose, however, is to show how illogical Darwin is, and for this purpose we will criticize the first chapter of his Descent of Man, as it summarizes and reduces to a conclusion the substance of the whole work. Mr. Darwin's conclusion is as follows: "Consequently we ought frankly to admit their community of descent (of man and other vertebrate animals). To take any other view is to admit that our structure and that of all the animals around is a mere snare laid to entrap our judgment. This conclusion is greatly strengthened, if we look to the members of the whole animal series, and consider the evidence derived from their affinities or classification, their geographical distribution and geological succession. It is only our own natural prejudice, and that arrogance which made our forefathers declare that they were descended from demigods, which leads us to demur to this conclusion." This "frank" expression reminds us of the candor with which Huxley, in his New York lectures (September, 1877), recommended the admission that there may be worlds, in which two and two are not four! As to the snare laid to entrap our judgment: will Darwin maintain that the apparent motion of the sun around the earth is also a snare? How pleased Colored-Brother Jasper must have been with the Professor's conclusion. Regarding geological succession we will see that this does not help him. Concerning the persuasion of our forefathers that they were descended from demigods: this and the legend of the Golden Age confirms the Bible history of the elevated state in which man first appeared. How does Darwin account for this universal tradition? What right has he to call it arrogance? Its universality gives positive presumption in favor of its truth. Let us follow the Professor's logic, however: I. His first argument is drawn from the transmission of certain traits and variations from father to son. "Man varies in bodily structure and in mental faculties." "Such variations are transmitted to his offspring in accordance with the laws which prevail with the lower animals." "Man, like many other animals, has given rise to varieties and sub-races differing but slightly from each other, or to races differing so much that they must be classed as doubtful species." Therefore man is a modified descendant of some pre-existing form. This conclusion is unwarranted. The strict conclusion (admitting the truth of the premises) is, that "men are more or less different from their primitive progenitors," but still are men. The assertion that some of the various races of men must be classed as doubtful species is contrary to fact: no matter how degraded the savage is, we have no difficulty in recognizing him as a man. No experience shows that accidental changes have risen into specific ones. "The oak and the bee and the rose, remain still the oak and the bee and the rose, throughout the accidental variations of ages; although every oak and bee and rose and every leaf on every tree differs in some respect from every other individual of its kind. Who has ever noticed oak leaves changing into maple leaves? If nature ad mitted such a change, a thousand indications would point to it. The transition is said by the evolutionists to be gradual, but some of it would always be apparent. We would have around us a host of transitional forms, from the fish to the lizard, from the lizard to the bird, from the bird to the ape, from the ape to the man. Where do we find such transitional forms?" The leap of Mr. Darwin from accidental variations to specific changes is therefore unwarranted, and his argument worthless. 2. Darwin pretends a transition from a lower grade to a higher. "The lower cannot generate the higher: force 10 cannot produce force 20." If we have to admit improvement in animals and plants under man's cultivation and care, this is because man's knowledge and aid causes the advance. Animals and plants left to themselves very soon fall back. And this applies very remarkably to mankind itself. Men neglected, and not elevated by external influences coming from outside and above, may and do degenerate, and become more or less brutal (as we say), but the rise from barbarism to civilization is due to positive and superior causes. History shows and popular legends tell how some greater one came and taught and raised each people, some godlike Orpheus, or sagelike Cadmus, or Moses, or Hiawatha, but we find no warrant for assuming that men ever civilized themselves, though we can easily understand how they may and do speedily fall in manners; much less is it probable that apes improved themselves into men. The story of the man, "who lifted himself by his waistband," out West, is long ago exploded, and were it not for Christianity, men would fall away instead of remaining stationary or advancing. 3. Darwin pretends that "man tends to increase at so rapid a rate, as to lead to occasional severe struggles for existence, and consequently to beneficial variations, whether in body or mind, being preserved, and injurious ones eliminated." Here he bases his argument upon the "struggle for existence:" concerning which we will merely say that it is the best men of the country who expose themselves for the common weal and die, leaving the propagation of the race to the stay-at-homes. War exhausts nations instead of advancing them, and this is true of the victors as well as of the vanquished. Witness the condition of savage tribes always at war with each other! We admit, however, that some races give way before others, but these also in their turn mature and die out. Indefinite progress is not verified. When races die out, others begin the march of civilization, very often with scarce a relic of their predecessors' outfit to start with. A complete return to barbarism is impossible for Christendom, because the Church endures forever: but the nations which possess Christianity rise and fall just the same, and so it will be till the final dissolution, when the whole Besides, "the struggle for Do we find the flower of human race will die perhaps of inanition, or because the earth will be no longer a fit habitation for man. existence is greatest in our large cities. the race in them?" Is it not the country blood that supplies the city's waste? And "would not the population of the city die out, if it were not for the accessions it receives from the country, where the people grow up apparently without any such struggle?" 4. Darwin maintains that the anatomical similarity of man to lower animals gives traces of a common genetic origin or descent. This argument may be thus stated: "Wherever there is a similarity of bodily structure or development, there are 'traces' of a common.origin or descent. But man and other mammals have similar bodily structures and a similar development. Therefore man and other mammals show traces, etc." The first proposition contains the conclusion, and should be proved. Mr. Darwin does not prove it. The second proposition he proves abundantly, and no one ever denied it. His twenty pages of proof are interesting, but superfluous. What we want him to show is that where there is similarity, etc., there are traces of common descent. What wonder is it that man should be like other animals, destined as he is to live on the earth like them, amongst them, and on similar food? If he were totally unlike them, there would be reason for the wonder. There seems to be a very good reason why all the creatures that move upon the earth's surface should be of similar build. This is because they were made to live upon the one same surface, exposed to the same elements which impede motion and tend to destroy life. Man is an inhabitant of the earth like other animals, eating and drinking and moving like them. Why should he not resemble the rest? The same reasoning holds for the similarity in all the creatures that move in the air. The same for those that inhabit the water. Nay, more, there is a very evident reason why each of the great families of creatures should resemble one another. Abstracting from the accidental elements (if indeed there be any of these) which enter into their formation, the air, the land and the water are after all but different forms of one substance, are all composed of the same ingredients. Water may be considered as liquefied air, earth as solidified water. Marble can be melted into the liquid form, and air could be compressed into the solid. The elements composing all these various substances are few and identical. Hence their influence on animal life is similar in whatever 1 We know that certain exceptions are raised to Vico's theory, the perennial existence of the Chinese for instance, and the Jewish people. Exceptions confirm the rule. The day of the Chinese is a long one comparatively. As for the Jews, their continued existence is owing to a special Providence, and as we showed above, neither their history nor that of the Chinese give any aid to the hypothesis of Evolution. |