An illustration of the appeal to chance and its use is found in the following account as given by Prof. Ernst Haeckel, the greatest living teacher of Evolution, of how tree-frogs became green: "Once upon a time there were among the offspring of ancestral tree-frogs some which among other colors exhibited green, not much, perhaps not even perceptible to our eyes. The occurrence of this color was spontaneous, a freak. The descendants of these greenish creatures, provided they did not pair with frogs of the ordinary set, became still greener and so on, until the green was pronounced enough to be of advantage when competition set in." (Last Link, p. 176.) Here the origin of greenness in the tree-frog begins with a chance happening and is promoted by a chance union of the greenish frog with one not in "the ordinary set," but of the more select circle of the green, and the favoring chances continued in this same remarkable way until the color became of use in protecting them.
It was with similar chance happenings, Evolution tells us, that all the great kingdoms, classes, orders, families, genera and species originated. It was by chance happenings that the present beautiful and infinite variety of nature came. It was by unintended accidents that the wonderful adjustments in the universe came. It has been calculated that the possibility of the letters of the alphabet, if thrown promiscuously, coming together in the present order is once in five hundred million million million times. What would be the chances of the innumerable combinations of nature coming together in the order in which they are by the chance happenings to which Evolution attributes them?
CHAPTER VI.
EVOLUTION AND THE BIBLE.
The interest in the question of how things came to be centers for the believer in the Bible narrative and doctrine. We have been accustomed to bring all things to Bible testing and so far with assured results. The Bible has never failed and we believe will not fail now. We therefore ask, What does it teach as to Evolution? We are amazed to find Evolution makes no appeal to the Bible, and the Bible makes no allusion to Evolution. They are strangers to each other. The argument from Scripture for Evolution has not yet been written. The best the theistic evolutionist can say as to the Bible account of the origin of man is an apology for its narratives, or some explanation which vaporizes its facts into figures of speech.
We have heretofore given the Bible account and that of Evolution printed in parallel columns (p. 61). The reader is again referred to these, and asked to notice the differences in these two accounts. The Bible account is not the description of the slow transformation of an ape into a man-like ape, and that into an ape-like man, and that into a cave man, and he into a stone-tool man, and that again into a pottery-making savage, and he into a weapon-making barbarian, and he into a Chinese and after that into a Roman or Greek, and last into an Englishman and American and he into a spiritual being in the image and likeness of God. Common literary honesty demands that we give an author his own intended meaning. If the Bible meant Evolution why did it not give it? Two accounts more utterly dissimilar could scarcely be given than the Bible account of man's creation and the account of Evolution. We may take one or other and be consistent but the rules of literary exegesis and common sense and Scripture alike forbid taking both.
To call it "poetry" or an "allegory" is no explanation. Why did not the writer make poetry or allegory which had some agreement with facts? Why lead us into a perplexing situation when he might as well have given us some other account or omitted it altogether?
The differences between these two accounts are obvious. The Bible account describes a definite act, the Evolution account a long-continued process through millions of years. The Bible account is a production de novo of a new and original creature; the Evolution account gives one of a numerous line of ancestors; the Bible account presents us with a perfect creature "in the likeness of God;" the Evolution account with a brute slightly raised above the common herd. The Bible account gives a descriptive narrative with accompanying events; the Evolution account leaves all the events unknown save as guessed at by the imagination of the various writers. The Bible account gives a high and noble origin by a special and creative act of his Creator; Evolution tells of a degraded origin from a brute by the operation of blind forces. The Bible account is noble and satisfying and, to one who believes in an omnipotent God, credible, calling for belief in one creative act; the Evolution account is filled with difficulties and paradoxes calling for the wildest stretch of imagination and the utmost application of credulity.