CHAPTER III.
PEACE BETWEEN RELIGION AND DARWINISM.
§ 1. Darwin, Wallace, R. Owen, Asa Gray, Mivart, McCosh, Anderson, K. E. v. Baer, Alex. Braun, Braubach, etc.
It still remains for us to take a glance at those who think religion and Darwinism, and Christianity and Darwinism, hold toward one another reciprocally amicable relations.
In the first place, we have to mention Darwin himself. In his earliest work, "Origin of Species," he repeatedly gives this opinion, as on page 421: "I see no good reason why the views given in this volume should shock the religious feelings of any one. It is satisfactory, as showing how transient such impressions are, to remember that the greatest discovery ever made by man, namely, the law of the attraction of gravity, was also attacked by Leibnitz 'as subversive of natural, and inferentially of revealed, religion.' A celebrated author and divine has written to me that he 'has gradually learned to see that it is just as noble a conception of the Deity to believe that He created a few original forms capable of self-development into other and needful forms, as to believe that He required a fresh act of creation to supply the voids caused by the action of His laws.'" On page 428, he speaks of the laws which God has impressed on matter; and at the end of his work, on page 429, he says: "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." In his "Descent of Man," he also protests against the reproach that his views are irreligious, and says: "The birth both of the species and of the individual are equally parts of that grand sequence of events which our minds refuse to accept as the result of blind chance." In treating of the question as to the development of the moral instincts, he says: "If he [man] breaks through the fixed habits of his life, he will assuredly feel dissatisfaction. He must likewise avoid the reprobation of the one God or gods in whom, according to his knowledge or superstition, he may believe." And furthermore he remarks: "The question whether there exists a Creator and Ruler of the Universe, has been answered in the affirmative by some of the highest intellects that have ever existed."
It is true, all these expressions about religion are very general; but since in his works we do not find any utterance contrary to them and hostile to religion, we have a right to rank the celebrated originator of the whole agitation among those naturalists who are conscious of the limits of the realms of the natural and the religious, and are convinced of the possibility of a harmony between the two. For his casual utterances against a "creation" of single species always combine with the word creation the idea of that direct creation out of nothing, without intervening agencies, which is entirely correct for the idea of the first, origin of the universe, but which for the origin of the single formations within the universe is neither asked for by the religious view of the world, nor established by the Holy
Scriptures, nor by a cautiously reasoning theology, although it very often controls the conceptions of naturalists as well as of theologians. Now, while Darwin rejects the idea of a sudden appearance of a new species out of nothing—or, as he once expressed himself in his "Origin of Species," the idea "that at innumerable periods in the earth's history certain elemental atoms have been commanded suddenly to flash into living tissues,"—and he is no doubt right in rejecting it,—still at the same time he does not deny the dependence of the successive origin of a new species on a divine author. But in calling that process creation and this one not, he gives the appearance of an opposition to the religious idea of creation—an appearance of which the greater part of the guilt is borne by those theologians who define the idea of the creation, even of a single form, in a manner which is only proper for the idea of the first origin of the universe.
It is true, we could rank Darwin still more readily among the scientists who are at peace with all the claims of religion, did he not in his "Descent of Man," when enumerating the "excellent naturalists and philosophers" who with him reduce the pedigree of man to lower forms, mention names of men who in their works firmly unite Darwinism and monistic naturalism or even materialism, and expressly protest against a separation of their naturo-historical results and their philosophic points of view. We mean Büchner and Häckel. The latter's "Natural History of Creation," he especially praises: "If this work had appeared before my essay had been written, I should probably never have completed it. Almost all the conclusions at which I have
arrived I find confirmed by this naturalist," etc. The entire silence in regard to the anti-Christian results which these two authors derive from their naturo-historical premises, makes Darwin's own position in reference to religion again very uncertain. It seems that Darwin in his theology is not only inclined to theism, but, following the traditions of his countrymen of the last century, to a quite cool and superficial deism, and that he permits himself to be too much impressed by the anti-teleological deductions of many of his followers, and to be induced to separate in his later publications the Creator and his work more widely than he has done in the beginning. For while in his "Origin of the Species," and in his "Descent of Man" he nowhere contests a teleological view of nature, and rejects the idea of single creations only under the erroneous supposition that the idea of the creation of the single also excludes the action of intervening agencies, we find, on the other hand, in "The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals" a passage which, though in a reserved way, seems to give just as much support to the adversaries of teleology as to its advocates, if, indeed, not more. He says (page 338): "The belief that blushing was specially designed by the Creator is opposed to the general theory of evolution, which is now so largely accepted; but it forms no part of my duty here to argue on the general question. Those who believe in design will find it difficult to account for shyness being the most frequent and efficient of all the causes of blushing," etc. This inconsistency in his utterances has its origin in the fact that the strength of this naturalist does not seem to lie in logical philosophic thought.
A. R. Wallace, the independent and contemporaneous co-originator of the Darwinian theory, still more evidently and more decidedly expresses himself favorably as to the position of this theory in reference to religion. In his "Natural Selection," he says on page 368: "It does not seem an improbable conclusion that all force may be will-force; and thus, that the whole universe is not merely dependent on, but actually is, the WILL of higher intelligences or of one Supreme Intelligence."
He pronounces the belief that God created the new species in "continual interference" with the regular process of things, a lower conception, "a limitation of the Creator's power" (page 280), hence something which he makes objection to directly in the interest of religion. Moreover, he sees, especially in those stages which caused the physical development of man, and which became the material basis of his spiritual productions, moments of development which cannot be explained by natural selection or by a coincidence of material circumstances, but only by the preformation of the body after a certain design and for a certain purpose.
Richard Owen, the celebrated anatomist, and palæontologist of England, who, after having for a long time resisted the Darwinian theories, lately accepted the idea of development and rejected that of selection, takes a similar position. In the last part of his "Comparative Anatomy of Vertebrates," which was issued separately in 1863 under the title "Derivative Hypothesis of Life and Species," he sees in the causes which produced the new species only the servants of a predestinating
intelligent will—for instance, the horse predestinated and prepared for man; and on page 90 of vol. V. of "Transactions of the Zoölogical Society," he says, "that natural evolution, through secondary causes, by means of slow physical and organic operations through long ages, is not the less clearly recognizable as the act of all-adaptive Mind, because we have abandoned the old error of supposing it the result of a primary, direct and sudden act of creational construction.... The succession of species by continuously operating law is not necessarily a 'blind operation.' Such law, however designed in the properties and successions of natural objects, intimates, nevertheless, a preconceived progress. Organisms may be evolved in orderly succession, stage after stage, towards a foreseen goal, and the broad features of the course may still show the unmistakable impress of Divine volition."
Professor Huxley, of London, the zealous and oft-mentioned advocate of the descent of man from the ape, says—what is so energetically contested by his warmest friends in Germany, by Büchner, Häckel, O. Schmidt, and others—that the teleological and the mechanical mode of viewing nature by no means exclude one another. He does this, of course, without going into any details of the religious question.
Asa Gray, an eminent and highly esteemed American botanist, who is particularly respected by Darwin, and is supported also by Sir Charles Lyell in "The Antiquity of Man," says in his essay on "Natural Selection not Incompatible with Natural Theology, a Free Examination of Darwin's Treatise" (London, Trübner, 1861), on page 29: "Agreeing that plants and animals
were produced by Omnipotent fiat does not exclude the idea of natural order and what we call secondary causes. The record of the fiat—'Let the earth bring forth grass,' etc., 'the living creature,' etc.,—seems even to imply them, and leads to the conclusion that the different species were produced through natural agencies." And on page 38: "Darwin's hypothesis concerns the order and not the cause, the how and not the why of the phenomena, and so leaves the question of design just where it was before." And finally, in a passage which is adopted by Sir Charles Lyell (ib. page 505): "We may imagine that events and operations in general go on in virtue simply of forces communicated at the first, and without any subsequent interference, or we may hold that now and then, and only now and then, there is a direct interposition of the Deity; or, lastly, we may suppose that all the changes are carried on by the immediate orderly and constant, however infinitely diversified, action of the intelligent efficient Cause."
Mivart, an English Catholic, most decidedly advocates a reconcilability of Darwinian views, and especially of the evolution theory, as he establishes it with the full contents of Christian orthodoxy, in his remarkable book "On the Genesis of Species" (London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 2d. ed. 1871), in which we find a great many independent naturo-historical investigations. He assigns to the selection theory only a subordinate position, but on the other hand accepts an evolution, and, in close connection with R. Owen, explains it from inner and innate impulses of development of the organisms, which act now more slowly and gradually, now more by impulses; he places man as to
his physical part entirely among the effects of the evolution principle, although, taking into consideration some utterances of Wallace, he thinks it possible, but not probable, that the creation and the preceding stage of his physical nature is also different from that of animals. But, on the other hand, in fully adopting the old scholastic creationism, he supposes a special creation of the soul, a separation of body and soul, which in this form is very contestable, and might better have been replaced by a separation of natural and rational or of physico-psychical and pneumatical parts of his being. With such a view of nature, he finds the fullest harmony between the evolution theory and religion, reconciles the plausible antagonism of creation and development by dividing the idea of creation into a primary creation (creation of the beginning out of nothing) and into a secondary creation (creation through intervening agencies, although that which is produced through them is still a creation and a work of the Creator), and declares his conviction that what is acting according to law in nature also stands under the causation and government of God like the first beginning of the universe—a postulate of our primary views without which the whole universe and our existence in it would harden into a cold mechanism without consolation or ideality.
Finally, at the assembly of the Evangelical Alliance in New York (October, 1873), there were heard many voices of eminent advocates of a theistic and Christian view of the world, which maintained the full consistency of an evolution theory with religion and Christianity. McCosh, for instance, as referee in the philosophic section as to the relation of the evolution theory and
religion, said[[10]]: "I am not sure that religion is entitled to insist that every species of insects has been created by a special fiat of God, with no secondary agent employed." And still more plainly and more courageously, President Anderson, of the University of Rochester, in his very remarkable address, speaks about the unnecessary and unworthy fear of many Christian men, when they see the appearance of hypotheses with which science operates. At the end of his address, he says: "The evidence for the existence of a personal Creator cannot be affected by any considerations drawn from the mode, relative rapidity, or the nature of the proximate antecedents and consequences in the creative process."
From German sources, we can note fewer utterances of a friendly or at least neutral position between Darwinism and religion. For this fact there are many reasons. One may be, that on the continent in general there is a smaller number of those who, without being specialists in both realms, unite active religious interest and reasoning with a thorough study of those naturo-historical questions, while in Great Britain physico-theological studies have been for generations traditional and the object of interest for the majority of educated men. A second reason, indeed, is that some of the warmest scientific advocates of Darwinism at once attacked also theism and Christianity; hence with all those who did not have time and incitement enough to study the questions for themselves, they necessarily created the opinion that Darwinism really attacks even the fundamentals of
religion, and their whole tendency had but a repelling influence even on scientists of deeper spiritual and ethical disposition and need. Finally, in Germany as well as on the whole continent, the number of those who do not care for religious questions in general, and who therefore interest themselves in the scientific questions brought up by Darwin, but do not trouble themselves farther for their position in reference to religion and Christianity, is unfortunately larger than in Great Britain.
Nevertheless, such friendly voices are not entirely wanting in our country. The botanist Alex Braun says, in his beautiful and significant lecture on the importance of development in natural history, p. 48: "Some said that the descent theory denies creation, and it is true, the Darwinians themselves caused this opinion by contrasting creation and development as irreconcilable ideas. But this contrast does not actually exist, for as soon as we look upon creation as a divine effect, not merely belonging to the past, or appearing in single abrupt movements, but connected and universally present in time, we can seek and find it nowhere else but in the natural history of development itself.... Theologians themselves, according to the Mosaic documents, acknowledge a history of creation; natural history, looked upon from its inner side, is nothing else but the farther carrying out of the history of creation."
Even K. E. von Baer, who expressly contests the idea of selection, thinks it only scientifically indefensible, but not anti-religious; an opinion also held by Wigand.
A similar friendly relation between Darwinism and religion is advocated by Braubach, in his publication,
"Religion, Moral und Philosophie der Darwin'schen Artlehre nach ihrer Natur and ihrem Character als kleine Parallele menschlich-geistiger Entwicklung" ("Religion, Morality, and Philosophy of the Darwinian Doctrine of Species, as to its Nature and Character; a Small Parallel of Human Intellectual Development"), Neuwied, Hansen, 1869, a publication to which we pay special attention, since Darwin, in his "Descent of Man," twice paid it the honor of a quotation. It is true, the essay, through its peculiar dependence on an original and quite arbitrarily grouped scheme, gives the impression of something very singular, and is not very agreeably and easily read; but it shows such an energetic union of respect for science and its work and results, with adhesion to all the fundamentals of Christian truth, that it has to be mentioned as one of the rare voices which, even in regard to the realm of nature, pronounce the fullest harmony between religion and science. Braubach finds in the animal kingdom the elements of all the spiritual life of mankind, even of religion and morality; but everything is still wrapped in the lowest stage of sensuality. Nevertheless, he assigns to mankind, by its possession of the idea of infinity, something absolutely new, absolutely superior to the animal world, and sees the Darwinian ideas, even in the religious and moral possession of mankind, confirmed by the fact that they develop themselves on the way from the sensual stage to the rational exactly according to the principles of Darwin—namely, through transmission with individual variability in the struggle for existence, through selection of the fittest. With special earnestness, he pronounces the indissoluble unity of religion and morality,
and says that religion, as it presents itself upon Darwinian grounds, is a moral religion.
We find here and there in periodicals many more voices which pronounce the conviction that, out of the present contest of minds, peace between religion and science will result.
B. THE DARWINIAN THEORIES AND MORALITY.
PRELIMINARY VIEW.
We can treat much more briefly of this portion of our task than of the position of the Darwinians in reference to the religious question, for the reason that the contrasts in the ethical realm are far less sharply drawn than in the religious realm, although in principle they are not less widely apart. For while there are a great many men who think that it belongs to good society and to the indispensable characteristics of high modern education to show either cold indifference or direct hostility in reference to religion and to the whole religious question; while a great many of the much-read works of belle lettres never tire of teaching the reading public that the religious question really no longer exists for the educated man, on the other hand, nobody, not even the extremest atheist and enemy of religion, wishes to renounce the reputation of having moral principles. Thus it happens that the positions taken by the Darwinians in reference to the ethical question are less varied than those taken by them in reference to the religious question. And we may also be brief for another reason,
namely, that by reviewing the position of the Darwinians in reference to the religious question, we have essentially prepared the way for the principal questions which will have to be treated.
We shall group the utterances upon the relation of the Darwinian theories to morality as we did those in regard to the relation of Darwinism to religion; and shall first let the advocates of an irreconcilableness between the two speak, then those advocating a reformative influence of Darwinism upon morality, and finally those striving for neutrality and peace between the two. We shall have no occasion, except incidentally, to discriminate between the different fundamental principles and parts of ethics, but shall in the last part of our work treat of the question independently. In making subdivisions for them here, we should but cause infinite repetitions, unnecessarily complicate our review, and render it more difficult.