Apply this to the most important of the supposed connections between different animals according to the theory of evolution—that between man and the monkey. The theory calls for the intermediate link or links. Nothing can be yet found that shows the pedigree without eking it out by general reasoning, and by assumptions that are more or less imaginary. But suppose that the chain of proof were complete, what would it show? It would show that the process of evolution has culminated in man, as its crown and summit, and has there stopped. For, whatever may have been the length of time required for the production of this result, we know what the product is. We have the history of man as an animal for a period of time that has been quite long enough to show that, after he had become in his essential structure as an animal what we know him to be, no subsequent intermingling of the races or families into which the species became divided has produced any change in his essential structure, or any new organs or any differences but differences in the development of powers which are to be found in him at all the stages of his known existence as parts of his characteristic animal structure. The period of his known existence is certainly infinitely small when compared with the whole indefinite future. It is long enough, however, to afford some basis of reasoning about the future; and, short as it is, it tends very strongly to show that the further development of man on earth is to be chiefly a moral and intellectual development; that in physical structure he is a completed type; and that whatever superiorities of mere animal life he may attain to hereafter are to be such improvements as can be worked out, within the limits of his animal constitution, by the science which his accumulating experience and knowledge will enable him to apply to the physical and moral well-being of his race.
To return now to the line of thought from which these suggestions have diverged. If, as we have every reason to believe upon either hypothesis of man's origin, he is a completed animal, standing by original creation or by the effect of the evolution process at the head of the whole animal kingdom in the apparent purpose of his existence, his agency and his power in promoting the sum of happiness on earth, for himself and all the other animals, are the same upon either hypothesis of his origin. The hypothesis of his origin by evolution gives him no greater power over his own happiness or that of the other creatures than he has if we suppose him to have been specially created; and it is only by adopting the belief that in his own constitution he is to be hereafter developed into a being incapable of suffering, or one vastly less capable of suffering than the animal called man now is, that the theory of evolution, even in regard to the sum total of happiness on earth, has any advantage over the theory of special creations. If we suppose the future gradual development of a terrestrial being standing still higher in the animal scale than man now stands, exempt from the suffering which man now suffers, we have a great amount of suffering hereafter eliminated from the world by a certain process. But how does this better satisfy the idea of infinite goodness in the power that devised the process, than the hypothesis of special creation which has formed man as an ultimate product of the divine benevolence and power acting together, endowed him with the faculty of eliminating pain and evil from the circumstances of his existence, by his own exertions, and furnished him with the strongest motives as well as with almost immeasurable means for diminishing the amount of evil for himself and all the other beings within his reach?
5. Another of the specific objections urged by Mr. Spencer against the doctrine of special creations is so put that it is manifestly directed against one of the positions assumed by the representatives of the current theology. The learned philosopher begins this part of his argument by imputing to those who assert this doctrine as their reason for maintaining it, that it "honors the Unknown Cause of things," and that they think any other doctrine amounts to an exclusion of divine power from the world. To encounter this supposed reason for maintaining the doctrine of special creations, he proceeds to ask whether the divine power "would not have been still better demonstrated by the separate creation of each individual than it is by the separate creation of each species? Why should there exist this process of natural generation? Why should not omnipotence have been proved by the supernatural production of plants and animals everywhere throughout the world from hour to hour? Is it replied that the Creator was able to make individuals arise from one another in natural selection, but not to make species thus arise? This is to assign a limit to power instead of magnifying it. Is it replied that the occasional miraculous origination of a species was practicable, but that the perpetual miraculous origination of countless individuals was impracticable? This also is a derogation. Either it was possible or not possible to create species and individuals after the same general methods. To say that it was not possible is suicidal in those who use this argument; and, if it was possible, it is required to say what end is served by the special creation of species that would not be better served by the special creation of individuals?"[67] I must again disclaim any participation in the views of those who contemplate this question with reference to the manifestations of divine power by one method of its supposed action or another, or who are influenced by the idea of honoring or dishonoring the Creator. This is not a question of the mode in which the Creator has chosen to manifest his power for the purpose of making it more impressive in the eyes of his intelligent human creatures or more palpable to their perceptions. Nor is it a question, excepting for the theologian who begins to reason upon it from a peculiar point of view, by what belief we best honor the Creator, or the power which Mr. Spencer describes as the "Unknown Cause." In the eye of philosophic reason, apart from all the religious dogmas that have been taught by human interpretations of revelation, this is a question of the probable mode in which the assumed omnipotent power has acted; and it is not a question of how we can best honor or magnify that power by believing that it has acted in one mode and not in another. We have to take, first, the postulate of an infinitely powerful Creator, whose existence is an independent inquiry, which we are to make out upon evidence that satisfies the mind. The hypothesis of his existence and attributes includes the power to create species and to establish the process of natural generation for the continuation of each species, or the power to make separate creations of each individual, as Mr. Spencer phrases it, "from hour to hour." In either mode of action, the power was the same. It is no derogation from it to suppose that the one or the other mode was adopted. It is no augmentation of it to suppose that the one was adopted instead of the other. It is simply a question of what does the evidence show, to the reasonable satisfaction of the human mind, to have been most probably the method that was chosen by a power that could adopt any method whatever. If we find that the creation of species and the establishment of the process of natural generation for the multiplication of individuals is upon the whole sustained by a predominating weight of evidence, it is safe to adopt the belief that this hypothesis of the Almighty method is in accordance with the facts. If the evidence fails to show that species have arisen from each other in the same way that individuals have arisen from each other in natural succession, we have no reason to conclude that such has been the fact. On the other hand, if the evidence shows, by reasonably satisfactory proofs, that a process has been established for the evolution of distinct species out of other and different species, similar to the process by which individuals arise from each other by natural generation, it will be safe to conclude that such has been the fact. Upon either hypothesis, the power of the Creator remains the same.
Nor is it in any degree necessary to consider in what sense the one method of action or the other was "miraculous," or that the one was an occasional and the other a perpetual exercise of power. The special creations of individuals from hour to hour would be just as miraculous as the special creation of species, and it would be occasional, although the occasions would be indefinite in number. The special creation of species would be just as miraculous as the special creation of individuals, but the occasional exercise of such a power would be limited by the number of species, each of which would be a finality in itself. The dilemma that is suggested by Mr. Spencer is a dilemma only for those who think it necessary to mingle the idea of honoring or dishonoring the Creator by one or another mode of interpreting his works, with a question of his probable method of action. His method of action is to be judged upon the evidence which a study of his works discloses.
6. Mr. Spencer, in summing up his objections to the doctrine of special creations, has said that it not only "fails to satisfy men's intellectual need of an interpretation," but that it also "fails to satisfy their moral sentiment"; that "their moral sentiment is much better satisfied by the doctrine of evolution, since that doctrine raises no contradictory implications respecting the Unknown Cause, such as are raised by the antagonist doctrine."[68] I have already suggested what seems to me a sufficient answer to the supposed contradictory implications respecting the goodness and power of the Almighty Creator. But it is here worthy of the further inquiry, What has been the influence upon the sacredness of human life, in human estimation, of a belief in any other theory of man's origin, or of no belief on the subject, compared with the effect of a belief in the doctrine that he is a creature of an Almighty Creator, formed by an exercise of infinite power for the enjoyment of greater happiness on earth than any other creature, and therefore having a peculiarly sacred individual right to the life that has been given to him? This, to be sure, does not afford a direct test of the probable truth of the hypothesis respecting his origin. But the answer to this inquiry will afford some test of the claim upon our consideration that may be put forward for any other hypothesis than the one that embraces the full idea of man's special creation, even if we do not look beyond this world. Compare, then, the civilization of the Romans at the period when it was at its highest development (the age of Julius and Augustus Cæsar), when in many respects it was a splendid civilization. Neither among the vulgar, nor among the most cultivated; not among the most accomplished of the statesmen or philosophers, was there any such belief as the simple belief in the relation between Creator and creature, such as had been held by a people who were regarded by the Romans as barbarians, in respect to man and all the other animals; or such a belief as is now held by the least educated peasant of modern Europe. One consequence of the absence of this belief, or of the want of a vivid perception of it, was that the highest persons in the Roman state, men possessed of all the culture and refinement of their age, not only furnished for the popular amusement combats of wild beasts of the most ferocious natures, but they provided gladiatorial shows in which human beings, trained for the purpose, were by each other "butchered to make a Roman holiday." The statesmen who thus catered to the popular tastes, and never thought of correcting them, subjected themselves to enormous expenses for the purpose; and all that was noble and dignified and cultured of both sexes, as well as the rabble, looked on with delight at the horrid spectacle. But this was not all. The Roman law, in many ways a code of admirable ethics, in utter disregard of the natural rights of men, left the life of the slave within the absolute power of the master, without any mitigation of the existing law of nations which made slaves of the captive in war and his posterity. Compare all this with the civilization of any modern country in which the life or liberty of man can be taken away only by judicial process and public authority, for actual crime; in which institutions exist for the relief of human suffering and for the prevention of cruelty to the inferior creatures; and then say whether the belief in special creations is not a doctrine that has worked vast good in the world, and one that should not be scouted because it is a "primitive belief."
Again, compare the ages in modern Europe when statesmen and politicians of the highest standing with entire impunity employed assassination for political ends, with periods in the same countries when assassination had come to be regarded not only with abhorrence, but as incapable of justification for any end whatever, public or private, and then say whether the world can lose its belief that man is a special creation of God, without losing one of the strongest safeguards of human life that can be derived from any belief on the subject. All these, and a great many similar considerations, while they do not prove the hypothesis of special creation, show strongly that, unlike some of the family of beliefs with which it was associated in the darkest ages, this one has worked no mischiefs; that, on the contrary, it has been producing moral, social, and political benefits in all the ages in which it has been most vividly present to the popular faith. The command, "Thou shalt do no murder," from whatever source it came, whether it was delivered to Moses on the mount of fire, or came from the teachings of Nature and the dictates of social expediency, whether it is a divine or a human law, or both, has unhappily been broken in all times, in all lands, and in all conditions of civilization. It is broken still. But it has never yet ceased, for its moral foundation and for the moral sanction of all the methods which have aimed to enforce it, to rest on the belief that man is peculiarly the child of God, whose life is sacred beyond the life of all other creatures. Whether any other belief of man's origin will afford an equally good foundation for that law, is a question which modern scientific speculation may or may not be able to answer. If its speculations conduct to the conclusion that the "unknown cause" has not specially caused anything, has not established any relation of Creator and creature, that is sufficiently special to imply divine care for the creature, we know what the answer must be. The theologian is not the only person who has occasion to examine the doctrine of evolution; it must be examined by the statesman as well.
[CHAPTER V.]
The doctrine of evolution according to Herbert Spencer further considered.