With perhaps the exception of Prof. Ernst Haeckel of Jena, all evolutionists admit that Evolution is unproven. One of the latest writers, and most impartial, is Prof. H. W. Conn, who says in his "Evolution of To-day:" "Nothing has been positively proved as to the question at issue. From its very nature, Evolution is beyond proof.... The difficulties offered to an unhesitating acceptance of Evolution are very great, and have not grown less since the appearance of Darwin's Origin of Species, but have in some respects grown greater." (pp. 107, 203.) He makes many such admissions. Dr. Rudolph Schmidt writes, "All these theories have not passed beyond the rank of hypotheses." (Theories of Darwin, p. 61.) Prof. Whitney, of Yale University, says, "We cannot think the theory yet converted into a scientific fact and those are perhaps the worst foes to its success who are over-hasty to take it and use it as a proved fact." (Oriental and Linguistic Studies, pp. 293-4) Tyndall said: "Those who hold the doctrine of Evolution are by no means ignorant of the uncertainty of their data, and they only yield to it a provisional assent." (Fragments of Science, p. 162.) Dr. J. A. Zahm writes: "The theory of Evolution is not yet proved by any demonstrative evidence. An absolute demonstration is impossible." (Popular Science Monthly, April, 1898.) Huxley said, "So long as the evidence at present adduced falls short of supporting the affirmative, the doctrine must be content to remain among the hypotheses." (Lay Sermons, p. 295.) Down to the end of his life, he said the evidence for Evolution was insufficient. (Quarterly Review, January, 1901.)
This universal admission will be a surprise to the non-scientific, especially in view of the astounding and sweeping claims the theory has made. It will seem strange that a confessedly unproven theory should be made the basis of all "modern thinking," the foundation of a universal philosophy, the cause of a revolution in theology, and the reason for rejecting the narratives of the Bible, and, on the part of some, of abandoning Christianity and launching into atheism. Yet such is the case. Well may we draw a long breath here and say, Is this Science? Is it scientific to accept as true an unproven theory and make it the basis of all belief? We have even more startling facts to present as to this amazing form of unbelief.
In discussing Evolution, we must also continually distinguish between fact and theory, between things proven and assumed. For the writers continually intermingle these in a confusing way. We need ever to ask concerning its statements, Is this proven or assumed? The jury have a right to ask that everything be proved absolutely before rendering a verdict for Evolution.
EVOLUTION IS NOT ACCEPTED BY ALL SCIENTISTS AND SCHOLARS.
The statement is often made that Evolution has "the Consensus of Scholarship." This carries force to the non-scientific, indeed to all, for we must rest our faith, for facts at least, on the opinion of scientists. But while many have followed it, there remain many scholars who have not bowed the knee to Baal. Prof. Haeckel, its greatest living advocate, complains bitterly of the opposition of many of the scientists of Europe, and that many once with him have deserted him.
The late Dr. Virchow, the great pathologist and the discoverer of the germ theory, was an active opponent of Evolution. He says: "The reserve which most naturalists impose on themselves is supported by the small actual proofs of Darwin's theory. Facts seem to teach the invariability of the human and the animal species." (Popular Science, pp. 50, 52.) Dr. Groette, in his inaugural address as rector of the University of Strasburg, rejected Evolution.
Dr. D. S. Gregory of New York, editor of the Homiletic Review and in a position to know the facts, vouches for the statement, that, "It is a strange fact that no great scientific authority in Great Britain in exact science, science that reduces its conclusions to mathematical formulae, has endorsed Evolution."
The late Dr. J. H. W. Stuckenberg, of Cambridge, wrote me, that many of the scientists of Germany reject the extreme views of Evolution, and the inferences which men like Prof. Haeckel, of Jena, have drawn from Darwinism. He quotes Dr. W. Haecke, a zoologist of Jena, the home of Prof. Haeckel, as saying: "We the younger men must free ourselves from the Darwinian dogma, in which respect quite a number of us have been quite successful." Prof. Paulsen, of Berlin, has exposed some of Haeckel's fallacies and regards his reasoning as "a disgrace to Germany." He said the mechanical theory for which Darwinism was held to stand, is rejected by such scientists as Naegeli, Koelliker, M. Wagner, Snell, Fovel, Bunge, the physiological chemist, A. Brown, Hoffman and Askernazy, botanists; Oswald Heer, the geologist, and Otto Hamann, the zoologist. Of Carl Ernst von Baer, the eminent zoologist and anthropologist, Haecke affirms, that in early years he came near adopting the hypothesis of Evolution into his system, but that at a later date he utterly rejected it. The same change occurred in the late Du Bois Reymond and Prof. Virchow, the eminent scientist of the University of Berlin. (See also articles of Dr. Stuckenberg in Homiletic Review, January, 1901, May, 1902.)
Sir J. William Dawson, the great geologist of Canada, utterly rejected it and says: "It is one of the strangest phenomena of humanity; it is utterly destitute of proof." (Story of the Earth and Man, p. 317.) Dr. Etheridge, examiner of the British Museum, said to Dr. George E. Post, in answer to a question, "In all this great museum, there is not a particle of evidence of the transmutation of species. This museum is full of proofs of the utter falsity of these views." Thomas Carlyle called Evolution "the gospel of dirt." Ruskin said of it, "I have never yet heard one logical argument in its favor. I have heard and read many that are beneath contempt." (The Eagles Nest, p. 256.)
Prof. Zöckler writes: "It must be stated that the supremacy of this philosophy has not been such as was predicted by its defenders at the outset. A mere glance at the history of the theory during the four decades that it has been before the public shows that the beginning of the end is at hand."