BRIEF REPLIES.
1. To Darwin’s first law, viz. that the offspring always vary though slightly from the parent, and therefore, given indefinite time, he has any desired amount of variation, I reply that this law of variation becomes practically worthless for his theory, because these variations from parent to offspring run in all conceivable directions and not in the one definite direction required for his purpose, i. e. toward a higher grade of perfection, or [which his argument requires] toward a new form of animal life. For example, there is always some change in the human countenance from parent to child. Yet who does not know that those changes run in every possible direction and not in one uniform line of progress or advance, as from monkey toward man and from man toward angel? For another example we may take the shape of the skull and of the brain—evermore differing slightly from parent to offspring yet not by any means on one given line. The skulls of Egyptian mummies entombed three thousand years ago do not differ appreciably from those of the Copts (their lineal descendants) of to-day, i. e. are no more pithecoid—ape-like. On Darwin’s theory three thousand years backward ought surely to approximate toward the ape; otherwise these variations are fruitless. This law of successive genealogical changes amounts to nothing for his argumentunless the changes consent to come into line so that their results shall actually accumulate with the lapse of ages. The fatal lack in the argument is—no husbandry of these infinitesimal changes—not the least perceivable accumulation.
A second branch of my reply suggests that Mr. Darwin misinterprets this law of nature, viz. perpetual variation from parent to offspring. It is doubtless a law, but Darwin has quite missed its divinely ordained purpose—which is to indicate the relationship between parent and child on the one hand, and yet maintain individual identity on the other. The resemblances answer the former purpose; the differences, the latter. Beings constituted to bear personal responsibilities so momentous as those of man must be so organized that every one can identify his own individuality, lest one man be hung for some other man’s crime.
2. His second argument comes from the law of “natural selection”—“the survival of the fittest”—with which it is convenient to couple the precisely similar law of “sexual selection”—the ascendency of the smartest over their inferiors, to perpetuate the race. Here a specific case will suffice both to illustrate and to refute. The principle of “natural selection” has a fair chance for itself in the spawn of the shad. It is no doubt true that none but the smartest out of the many thousand spawned at once survive so as to become parents in their turn. Yet who believes that these smartest shad are becoming sturgeon or sharks or whales by this law of progress? Are they actually found to be any thing but shad after never so many hundred generations? It may seem superfluous to push the still more pertinent question—Are these smartest and most ambitious shad really found to be working up out of their watery element, I i. e. working up into ducks or geese, or into blackbirds and crows? For just this is Mr. Darwin’s theory—the line of ascent running up from fish to fowl; from fowl to mammal and so on up to man. The questions here suggested are therefore only the fair and scientific test and touchstone of his argument. A law which has not made its results even perceptible since the birth of the first shad known to human history must be regarded as scientifically worthless.
My second remark here is that Darwin errs not in finding these to be laws of nature—“natural selection,” “sexual selection”—but in interpreting them, I i. e. in detecting their divinely ordained design and their actual working and product. I suggest that these laws, apparently made for the improvement of races, may be requisite to enable them to hold their own against the ever present tendency to degeneracy. Life is a perpetual struggle against death. The life-principle finds an antagonist force in chemical law which is evermore hurrying organized matter back to its inorganic state. Still further, be it considered, races excessively prolific would rapidly lose vitality but for these laws of natural and sexual selection. We may therefore rationally assume that these laws are simply forms of the general principle of self-preservation, and not a purposed provision for lifting a lower race up to the plane of a higher.
3. As to homologous anatomical structure, e. g. of the arm, fore-leg, wing, fin, paddle—there are abundant reasons for its existence aside from the assumption of Darwin that it proves a common ancestry for man, monkey, calf, bull-dog, eagle, toad and whale. The ball and socket joint at man’s shoulder is the perfect thing for use. Equally so is the same kind of joint for the fore-leg of a horse, the wing of an eagle or the fin of a fish. God made the anatomy of man’s arm perfect. What forbids that he should make an equally perfect machinery for the motions and various uses of other animals? The reason of this uniformly perfect machinery is found in the wisdom and benevolence of the Great Maker, and proves nothing in favor of a common descent from some one parent, i. e. it proves nothing unless you may assume that God could not have made two kinds of animals with homologous anatomical structures—two kinds, each with machinery perfect for its purposes.
4. As to the similar appearance of the embryo in very dissimilar races, there may be differences in the embryo which no microscope and no human test have yet discovered. The force of this argument seems to me to come rather from ignorance than from knowledge.
5. As to rudimentary organs, their history is very obscure and their design also. I suggest that Mr. Darwin begin with the history and the reason for the rudimentaryorgans which appear on the bosom of the male in the species man. When he shall have mastered this problem—the history and the reason—we can afford to consider his argument therefrom in proof that man has a common ancestry with whatsoever other animal he may find having this male organ, not rudimentary but in full activity. Probably he will prove that man must have come down by descent from that class of animals which economically combine the two sexes in one and the same individual!
Some objections of a more general bearing upon Darwin’s scheme.