Evolution

by Edward Hoare

It may perhaps interest some to know how it is all supposed to have been done, and as Mr. Herbert Spencer appears to be the great apostle of the theory, I will give, in his own words, the conclusion of his elaborate argument. In “First Principles” (p. 396) he gives his great conclusion, and prints it in italics that there may be no mistake as to its vast importance: “Evolution,” he says, “is an integration of matter and concomitant dissipation of motion, during which the matter passes from an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity to a definite, coherent heterogeneity, and during which the retained motion undergoes a parallel transformation.” Is it for such as that that we are to give up our faith in the creation of God?

But this is not all, for not merely is the earth filled with various substances, and governed by various laws; but there is a third element for which even Mr. Spencer’s definition fails to account, and that is life. There is life abounding everywhere; but what science can tell us either what it is or whence it came? Was it produced either by gravitation or radiation? Did the cooling of the earth produce life on its surface? I know no greater evidence of the utter failure of the evolutionist theory than the suggestion made on one occasion (I think in an inaugural address to the British Association), that life came in a meteoric stone from some already formed habitable world. With reference to such an idea it is enough to ask four questions. How did it get into that other world? How did it attach itself to the meteoric stone? How did it survive the awful blow which it must have experienced when it struck the earth? and how did it spread itself when it found itself alone in the utter loneliness of an uninhabited world? Such is the theory of those who would struggle to create a world without a God; and I venture to affirm that there is infinitely more true science in the words, “All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.”

But, though I have thus followed Bishop Temple in his twofold division of the theory of Evolution, there is another twofold division which I regard as of incomparably greater importance. I refer to the Theistic and Atheistic theory.

I. There is a Theistic theory, for there can be no doubt whatever that many of those who accept the Evolution theory hold it in the firm belief in the creative power of a self-existing Creator. Bishop Temple, e.g., states the question thus:

In the one case the Creator made the animals at once such as they now are; in the other case He impressed on certain particles of matter, which either at the beginning or at some point in the history of His creation He endowed with life, such inherent powers that in the ordinary course of time living creatures such as the present were developed. The creative power remains the same in either case. [13]

For my own part, I should be almost disposed to consider that the creative power was the greater on the theory of Evolution; for to make a germ which should evolve itself into all the countless varieties, both of animate and inanimate existence, is, if possible, a greater miracle than the creation of each separate species. There is great skill shown in the manufacture both of a railway train and a steamboat, but the skill would be of a much higher order if a person were to construct a train with its engine and all its carriages, and impart to it the remarkable property that when it arrived at the sea-coast it should of itself without the action of man, turn itself into a steamboat.

Thus a person may hold the Evolution theory to its fullest extent without entertaining the slightest doubt as to the creative power of our God. Indeed, Bishop Temple says:

The doctrine of Evolution leaves the argument for an intelligent Creator and Governor of the world stronger than it was before. There is still as much as ever the proof of an intelligent purpose pervading all creation. The difference is that the execution of that purpose belongs more to the original act of creation, less to acts of government since. There is more Divine foresight, there is less Divine interposition; and whatever has been taken from the latter has been added to the former. (P. 122.)

There is such a joy in the blessed assurance of Divine interposition, and it seems so clearly taught in Scripture, that it is impossible to regard without the utmost jealousy the suggestion of even such a transfer as that described in these words. But still, however greatly we may regret the theory, we are bound in justice to recognise the fact that those who hold it may believe in a Creator God with a faith as firm and unshaken as that which brings peace to our own souls.

I cannot refrain from adding that this was the view of Darwin himself. He has been claimed as an ally by those who deny the creation of God; so that it is most satisfactory to read such a passage as that with which his book concludes: