Darwiniana; Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism

by Asa Gray

In illustrating this view, he reproduces Wallace's well-known points, and adds one or two of his own. We need not follow up his lines of argument. The essay, indeed, adds nothing material to the discussion of evolution, although it states one side of the case moderately well, as far as it goes.

Dr. Hodge approaches the subject from the side of systematic theology, and considers it mainly in its bearing upon the origin and original state of man. Under each head he first lays down "the Scriptural doctrine," and then discusses "anti-Scriptural theories," which latter, under the first head, are the heathen doctrine of spontaneous generation, the modern doctrine of spontaneous generation, theories of development, specially that of Darwin, the atheistic character of the theory, etc. Although he admits "that there is a theistic and an atheistic form of the nebular hypothesis as to the origin of the universe, so there may be a theistic interpretation of the Darwinian theory," yet he contends that "the system is thoroughly atheistic," notwithstanding that the author "expressly acknowledges the existence of God." Curiously enough, the atheistic form of evolutionary hypotheses, or what he takes for such, is the only one which Dr. Hodge cares to examine. Even the "Reign of Law" theory, Owen's "purposive route of development and chance . . . . by virtue of inherent tendencies thereto," as well as other expositions of the general doctrine on a theistic basis, are barely mentioned without a word of comment, except, perhaps, a general "protest against the arraying of probabilities against the teachings of Scripture."

Now, all former experience shows that it is neither safe nor wise to pronounce a whole system "thoroughly atheistic" which it is conceded may be held theistically, and which is likely to be largely held, if not to prevail, on scientific grounds. It may be well to remember that, "of the two great minds of the seventeenth century, Newton and Leibnitz, both profoundly religious as well as philosophical, one produced the theory of gravitation, the other objected to that theory that it was subversive of natural religion; also that the nebular hypothesis—a natural consequence of the theory of gravitation and of the subsequent progress of physical and astronomical discovery—has been denounced as atheistical even down to our day." It has now outlived anathema.

It is undeniable that Mr. Darwin lays himself open to this kind of attack. The propounder of natural selection might be expected to make the most of the principle, and to overwork the law of parsimony in its behalf. And a system in which exquisite adaptation of means to ends, complicated inter-dependencies, and orderly sequences, appear as results instead of being introduced as factors, and in which special design is ignored in the particulars, must needs be obnoxious, unless guarded as we suppose Mr. Darwin might have guarded his. ground if he had chosen to do so. Our own opinion, after long consideration, is, that Mr. Darwin has no atheistical intent; and that, as respects the test question of design in Nature, his view may be made clear to the theological mind by likening it to that of the "believer in general but not in particular Providence." There is no need to cull passages in support of this interpretation from his various works while the author—the most candid of men—retains through all the editions of the "Origin of Species" the two mottoes from Whewell and Bishop Butler.[VII-2]

The gist of the matter lies in the answer that should be rendered to the questions—1. Do order and useful-working collocation, pervading a system throughout all its parts, prove design? and, 2. Is such evidence negatived or invalidated by the probability that these particular collocations belong to lineal series of such in time, and diversified in the course of Nature—grown up, so to say, step by step? We do not use the terms "adaptation, "arrangement of means to ends," and the like, because they beg the question in stating it.

Finally, ought not theologians to consider whether they have not already, in principle, conceded to the geologists and physicists all that they are asked to concede to the evolutionists; whether, indeed, the main natural theological difficulties which attend the doctrine of evolution—serious as they may be—are not virtually contained in the admission that there is a system of Nature with fixed laws. This, at least, we may say, that, under a system in which so much is done "by the establishment of general laws," it is legitimate for any one to prove, if he can, that any particular thing in the natural world is so done; and it is the proper business of scientific men to push their enquiries in this direction.

It is beside the point for Dr. Hodge to object that, "from the nature of the case, what concerns the origin of things cannot be known except by a supernatural revelation;" that "science has to do with the facts and laws of Nature: here the question concerns the origin of such facts." For the very object of the evolutionists, and of Mr. Darwin in particular, is to remove these subjects from the category of origination, and to bring them under the domain of science by treating them as questions about how things go on, not how they began. Whether the succession of living forms on the earth is or is not among the facts and laws of Nature, is the very matter in controversy.

Moreover, adds Dr. Hodge, it has been conceded that in this matter "proofs, in the proper sense of the word, are not to be had; we are beyond the region of demonstration, and have only probabilities to consider." Wherefore "Christians have a right to protest against the arraying of probabilities against the clear teachings of Scripture." The word is italicized, as if to intimate that probabilities have no claims which a theologian is bound to respect. As to arraying them against Scripture, there is nothing whatever in the essay referred to that justifies the statement. Indeed, no occasion offered; for the writer was discussing evolution in its relations to theism, not to Biblical theology, and probably would not be disposed to intermix arguments so different in kind as those from natural science and those from revelation. To pursue each independently, according to its own method, and then to compare the results, is thought to be the better mode of proceeding. The weighing of probabilities we had regarded as a proper exercise of the mind preparatory to forming an opinion. Probabilities, hypotheses, and even surmises, whatever they may be worth, are just what, as it seems to us, theologians ought not to be foremost in decrying, particularly those who deal with the reconciliation of science with Scripture, Genesis with geology, and the like. As soon as they go beyond the literal statements even of the English text, and enter into the details of the subject, they find ample occasion and display a special aptitude for producing and using them, not always with very satisfactory results. It is not, perhaps, for us to suggest that the theological army in the past has been too much encumbered with impedimenta for effective aggression in the conflict against atheistic tendencies in modern science; and that in resisting attack it has endeavored to hold too much ground, so wasting strength in the obstinate defense of positions which have become unimportant as well as untenable. Some of the arguments, as well as the guns, which well served a former generation, need to be replaced by others of longer range and greater penetration.

If the theologians are slow to discern the signs and exigencies of the times, the religious philosophical naturalists must be looked to. Since the above remarks were written, Prof. Le Conte's "Religion and Science," just issued, has come to our hands. It is a series of nineteen Sunday lectures on the relation of natural and revealed religion, prepared in the first instance for a Bible-class of young men, his pupils in the University of South Carolina, repeated to similar classes at the University of California, and finally delivered to a larger and general audience. They are printed, the preface states, from a verbatim report, with only verbal alterations and corrections of some redundancies consequent upon extemporaneous delivery. They are not, we find, lectures on science under a religious aspect, but discourses upon Christian theology and its foundations from a scientific layman's point of view, with illustrations from his own lines of study. As the headings show, they cover, or, more correctly speaking, range over, almost the whole field of theological thought, beginning with the personality of Deity as revealed in Nature, the spiritual nature and attributes of Deity, and the incarnation; discussing by the way the general relations of theology to science, man, and his place in Nature; and ending with a discussion of predestination and free-will, and of prayer in relation to invariable law—all in a volume of three hundred and twenty-four duodecimo pages! And yet the author remarks that many important subjects have been omitted because he felt unable to present them in a satisfactory manner from a scientific point of view. We note, indeed, that one or two topics which would naturally come in his way—such, especially, as the relation of evolution to the human race—are somewhat conspicuously absent. That most of the momentous subjects which he takes up are treated discursively, and not exhaustively, is all the better for his readers. What they and we most want to know is, how these serious matters are viewed by an honest, enlightened, and devout scientific man. To solve the mysteries of the universe, as the French lady required a philosopher to explain his new system, "dans un mot," is beyond rational expectation.

All that we have time and need to say of this little book upon great subjects relates to its spirit and to the view it takes of evolution. Its theology is wholly orthodox; its tone devotional, charitable, and hopeful; its confidence in religious truth, as taught both in Nature and revelation, complete; the illustrations often happy, but often too rhetorical; the science, as might be expected from this author, unimpeachable as regards matters of fact, discreet as to matters of opinion. The argument from design in the first lecture brings up the subject of the introduction of species. Of this, considered "as a question of history, there is no witness on the stand except geology."