Creation and Its Records / A Brief Statement of Christian Belief with Reference to Modern Facts and Ancient Scripture

by B. H. Baden-Powell

(2) That there are forms which cannot be accounted for on the evolutionist supposition, that they were gradually obtained by a series of small changes slowly progressing towards a perfect structure. They would be of no use at all unless produced at once and complete.

(3) That natural selection, as apart from a Divine Designer, altogether fails to account for beauty, as distinguished from mere brilliancy or conspicuousness, in nature. Whereas, if we suppose the existence of a beneficent Creator, who has moral objects in view, and cares for the delight and the improvement of His creatures,[^[19]] and looking to the known effects on the mind of beauty in art and in nature, the existence is at once and beyond all cavil explained.

(4) That we have positive evidence against uncontrolled evolution (uncontrolled by set plan and design i.e.) and a strong presumption in favour of the existence of created types; so that evolution proceeds towards these types by aid of natural laws and forces working together (in a way that our limited faculties necessarily fail to grasp adequately);[^[20]] and so that, the type once reached, a certain degree of variation, but never transgression of the type, is possible. Further, that on this supposition we are able to account for some of the unexplained facts in evolutionary history, such as reversion and the sterility of hybrids; and to see why there are gaps which cannot be bridged over, and which by extreme theorists are only feebly accounted for on the supposition that as discovery progresses they will be bridged over some day.

(5) Lastly, that there is no possibility of giving time enough on any possible theory of the world's existence, for the evolution of all species, unless some reasonable theory of creative arrangement and design be admitted.

The great objection—the descent of man and the introduction of reason, consciousness, and so forth, into the world, will then form two separate chapters, concluding the first division of my subject.

There is one point which the reader may be surprised to see omitted. It is, that if these slow changes were always going on, why is not the present world full of, and the fossil-bearing rocks also abounding in, intermediate forms, creatures which are on their way to being something else? But there are reasons to be given on this ground which make the subject a less definite one for treatment. It is said, for example, that in the fossil rocks we have only such scanty and fragmentary records, that it is not possible to draw a complete inference, and that there is always the possibility of fresh discoveries being made. Such discoveries have, it is asserted, already been made in the miocene and again in later rocks; different species of an early form of horse which are (and this we may admit) the ancestral or intermediate forms of our own horse, have been found. I therefore would not press the difficulty, great as it is, because of the escape which the hope of future discovery always affords. I will take this opportunity to repeat that in this chapter I say nothing about the difficulty which arises from the introduction of elementary reason or instinct, and of consciousness, into the scale of organic being; that will more appropriately fall in with the consideration of the development of man, where naturally the difficulty occurs with its greatest force.

(1) I come at once to the great difficulty that, if all existing forms are due to the occurrence of changes that helped the creature in the struggle for existence, how is it possible now to account for forms which are not advantageous? yet such forms are numerous. Of this objection, the existence of imperfect or neuter bees and ants is an instance. The modification in form which these creatures exhibit is of no advantage to them. It is a great advantage, no doubt, to the other bees; but then this introduces a view of some power making one thing for the benefit of another, not a change in the form itself adapted of course to its own advantage—since natural laws, forces, and conditions of environment could not conceivably design the advantage of another form, and cause one to change for the benefit of that other.

Why is it, again, that crabs and crayfish can only grow by casting off their shells, during which process they often die, as well as remain exposed defenceless to the attacks of enemies? Why should stags shed their horns also, leaving them defenceless for a time? Other animals do not do so, and there is nothing in the nature of the horn which requires it.

This brief allusion is here sufficient. Mr. Mivart's work gives it at large.

(2) Passing next to the question of the advantage of incomplete stages—portions of a mechanism only useful when complete, the most striking examples may be found in the Vegetable kingdom. The fertilization of flowering plants is effected by the pollen, a yellow dust formed in the anthers, which is carried from flower to flower. In the pines and oaks, this is done by the wind. But in other cases insects visit a flower to get the honey, and in so doing get covered with pollen, which they carry away and leave in the next flower visited. Now one of our commonest and most useful plants, the red clover, is so constructed that it can only be fertilized by humble bees. If this bee became extinct, the plant would die out; how can such a development be advantageous to it?