There is but one plea left, I believe, on which, of late years, it is sometimes attempted to justify the murder of little children. It is the plea of some evolutionists who maintain that the infant has not yet a true human soul. I should not deign to consider this theory if it were not that I find it seriously treated by a contributor to the “Medical Record,” in an article which, on September 4, 1895, concluded a long discussion on craniotomy published in that learned periodical.
The writer of this article asserts: “Procuring the death of the fœtus to save the life of the mother is, I am sure, to be defended on ethical grounds.” And here is the way he attempts to defend it: “We may safely assume,” he argues, “that the theory of evolution is the best working hypothesis in every branch of natural science. We are learning through Herbert Spencer and all late writers on ethics and politics, that the same principle will best explain the facts” (p. 395).
I do not deny that a certain school of scientists is trying to rewrite all history and all Ethics and Jurisprudence. But the writer strangely misstates the case when he says that “all great writers on ethics and politics” agree with Mr. Spencer. Besides a multitude of others, Lord Salisbury for one, has clearly shown of late that the school of agnostic evolutionists is coming to grief; it has had its short day, and it is now setting below the horizon of ignominy and subsequent oblivion. The writer of the article in question does not attempt to prove the evolution theory; therefore I need not stop to disprove it. But he makes the following application of it to our subject—an application so shocking to humanity and so revolting to common sense that, if it is logical, it is by itself sufficient to refute the whole theory of Mr. Spencer and his school.
He argues that, if that theory be admitted, it must necessarily follow that, while the human embryo is from the first alive, it is not a human being until it has developed and differentiated to such a point as corresponds to that point at the birth of the race where the animal becomes a man. “I am sure,” he adds, “I do not know when that occurred in the past, and I do not know at what point it occurs in the individual.... In inquiring for that distinct feature which distinguishes the man from the animal, I find none but mentality. If we wait for distinct mentality to appear in the development of the individual, it would be some time after birth.”
According to this reasoning a child is not known to be a human being till some time after its birth. And this is not uttered by some speculative philosopher in his closet, but by a medical practitioner on his daily rounds, tools in hand, as it were, to carry out his theory and break the skulls of any and all luckless babes that may come in his way in the exercise of what he calls his legitimate practice. How long after birth the child remains without becoming a human being, he does not pretend to know; they remain non-human till they manifest mental action. Till then, not being human, he assigns them no human rights—no rights at all which we are conscientiously obliged to respect. Herod may have been right after all when he appointed the term of two years old and under as the limit of the butchery at Bethlehem. The writer pretends to lessen the horror inspired by his theory by referring to some restrictions of canon law. But what do he and his like care about canon law? He would be the first to scout the idea of letting canon law limit his freedom of action and speculation.
What would be the real results in practical life if we were to accept as rules of conduct these rash theories of agnostic philosophers and infidel scientists? Justly does the writer proceed to say: “I am well aware that the idea arouses antagonism and inflammatory denunciation in some minds.” Certainly it does. He adds: ‘That it [the idea] will prove to be the true one, however, depends only on the truth of the general theory of development.’ If this be the logical consequence of evolution, or Darwinism, as he calls it, then all the worse for Darwinism. Society cannot get along on a theory that begets such principles of action; the more so since, in Spencer’s and in Darwin’s system, the human soul, even in grown persons, is only a material modification of the body and perishes with it in death. Hence there would be no responsibility after death. On this theory the physician is only a lump of very curiously evolved matter; he, too, like the embryo, is without an immortal soul, is not a free being, and therefore is incapable of having rights or duties.
Before we remodel our codes of Ethics and Jurisprudence by the admission into them of such destructive and revolutionary principles, we shall at least be allowed to challenge these aggressors and ask solid proof of their rash innovations. We may address to them the wise words uttered against similar speculators by one of the most logical of modern reasoners, the illustrious Cardinal Newman. “Why may not my first principles contest the prize with yours? they have been longer in the world, they have lasted longer, they have done harder work, they have seen rougher service. You sit in your easy-chairs, you dogmatize in your lecture-rooms, you wield your pens: it all looks well on paper; you write exceedingly well; there never was an age in which there was better writing, logical, nervous, eloquent, and pure,—go and carry it out in the world. Take your first principles, of which you are so proud, into the crowded streets of our cities, into the formidable classes which make up the bulk of our population: try to work society by them. You think you can; I say you cannot; at least you have not as yet, it is to be seen if you can.... My principles, which I believe to be eternal, have at least lasted eighteen hundred years; let yours last as many months.... These principles have been the life of nations; they have shown they could be carried out; let any single nation carry out yours” (“Present Position of Catholics in England.” p. 293).
Gentlemen, let no one trifle with the principles of Ethics and Jurisprudence; human society cannot get along without them. Morality is the heart of civilization: its principles are the life-blood, which it sends forth to feed and warm and strengthen and beautify all the organs of its earthly frame. A flesh-wound may be healed, a bone may be set, it may knit and grow vigorous again; but you must not puncture the heart, nor attempt to change the natural channels of the circulating blood, under the penalty of having a corpse on your hands. So you must respect the eternal laws that direct the current of man’s moral actions, the principles of Ethics and Jurisprudence.