Evolution

BY Rev. EDWARD HOARE, M.A.
VICAR OF TUNBRIDGE WELLS, AND HONORARY CANON OF CANTERBURY.
Reprinted from The Churchman.
LONDON: ELLIOT STOCK, 62, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C.
Price Twopence.
It may appear a very rash thing for any person who does not claim to be a man of science to presume to give an opinion on any of the theories of scientific men. But there is a vast difference between the facts of science and the theories suggested for their explanation. The facts are, as it were, the property of the investigators. The investigators have a power of investigation which we outsiders have not, and it would be folly for us who have not that power to presume to call in question their information. But it is a very different matter with the theories either founded on these facts or invented to explain them. When science has given us the facts common-sense can discuss the theories founded on them; and, without presuming to call in question the ascertained results of scientific investigation, any person of ordinary intelligence may form his own opinion as to the conclusions derived from the known facts. The scientific men know the facts, and we do not; but, when they have told us the facts, we can think as well as they. This point was exceedingly well put by Canon Garbett at the Norwich Church Congress in 1865. He said: “Beyond a certain point the conclusions and arguments of the man of science cease to be exclusively his own, and become the common property of all men. All argument rests on common principles, and when once the facts of the case are clearly ascertained, any man who is trained to reason correctly is competent to judge of them.” Again: “Let the man of science,” said Canon Garbett, “reign supreme within his own sphere, and let none but those trained in the same school and learned in the same craft venture to dispute with him as he gathers his facts and generalizes his rules. But when all this is done, and he proceeds to reason, then it is different. He steps out of his special department into a sphere open to all men alike. Tell me what your facts are, and if I sufficiently master them I am as competent to judge of the validity of the conclusions drawn from them as the man of science himself.”