The Doctrine of Evolution: Its Basis and Its Scope

by Henry Edward Crampton

Such a broad comparative study, like that of physical, mental, and social phenomena discussed heretofore, must be conducted objectively; that is, each and every particular belief of a religious or theological nature which can be discovered in any race is entitled to a place in the array of materials which demand scientific treatment. They must be verified, classified, and summarized, in order that their total meaning and value can be discovered. It must be strongly emphasized that for such purposes the inherent validity and truth or falsity of diverse religions are not called into question when they are so considered as objects of study; many still entertain the view that the mere task of conducting an analysis of a group of religious beliefs of whatever nature must tend to destroy or alter that system of religion in some way and degree. But whatever the comparative student may himself believe, the conception of Jehovah in the Hebrew religion is quite as legitimate an object of study as the Buddhistic concept of Brahma as the Ultimate Being, or the Polynesian idea of Tangaroa as the god of the waves. We would naturally be inclined to exclude the last from our own personal system of piety and worship as the childish concept of an imaginative, adolescent race; but whatever the truth may be, the fact of a belief in Tangaroa is as real as the fact of Christian belief in God. We can no more destroy any one of these ideas by investigating its nature and origin than we destroy the efficacy of the human arm when we study its muscles and bones and sinews. The former, like the latter, take their places among natural phenomena whose history must be inquired into if there are any reasons for supposing that they fall within the scope of evolution. I would be the last to lead or to take part in an attack upon any system of religion, but as a student who is interested in the universality of organic evolution, I am forced to scrutinize each and every authentic account of a religion to see if such systems present objective evidence of the fact of their evolution through the operation of purely natural causes.

But before passing to a detailed treatment of the analysis, synthesis, and genesis of religious systems, let us employ our common-sense for a brief backward glance over the known history of familiar facts. Every one is aware that the Christian religions of our time and community have not existed forever; this, indeed, is indicated by the way the passing years are denominated. We call the present year 1907 Anno Domini, and this whole expression explicitly refers to the fact that less than two thousand years ago the Christian systems of piety and worship collectively took their origin from their Hebrew ancestor. The same parent has produced the relatively unchanged Judaism of the present day. Judaism itself evolved under the influence of the Prophets, of Moses, and of Abraham. Turning to Asia, we learn how Buddhism evolved from Brahmanism. The teachings of Mohammed at a later time developed into the formulated precepts of the Koran. Would any one venture to assert that all or any of these systems of thought have stood firm and immutable from the finite or infinite beginnings of time? Would any one contend that the creeds of Protestantism have remained unchanged even during the past twenty years? Like all departments of human belief and knowledge, religious concepts have obviously altered in natural adjustment to changing times and to advancing conditions of human intellect; and the question turns to the mode by which they have been modified, to see whether natural causes of evolution have changed them, and have originated their earliest beginnings at the very outset of human history. It has been stated above that every race of mankind, however primitive or advanced it may be, holds some form of religious belief based upon some conception of the supernatural powers back of the world; and what the universe is conceived to be must largely determine the particular characteristics of a theology, and through this the special form of its attendant religion. We have before us a wide array of types to study and to compare, which vary so greatly, partly for the reason specified, that an inclusive definition of religion must be couched in very general terms. If we define it as the attitude and reaction of a human being conditioned by his knowledge of the immediate materials and his conception of the ultimate powers of the universe, its scope is so extended as to include the ideas of the atheists and agnostics as well as the crude conceptions of lower races and those systems of piety and worship conventionally regarded as religions by civilized peoples. More than this: we cannot regard the total reaction of a thinking being as essentially different in ultimate value from the attitudes toward their worlds of animals lower than man. The situation of a well-trained sheep dog is one of pastures and fences and gates, of rain and sunshine, of sheep, and of a master whose voice is to be obeyed. What the dog may do is partly determined by what it finds in its world of animate and inanimate things. Although the animal's "conception" of such things must be far simpler than a human being's, nevertheless its life is lived in reaction to all of its surroundings as they are presented to its cerebral apparatus by the proper organs. So in the human case, conduct is directly affected by the living and lifeless objects of a total human situation, the only difference being that reflective consciousness and reasoned interpretation have their share in determining the assumed attitude in ways that seem to have no counterparts as such in the mental lives of lower animals. But whether or not the similarity between human religion and lower organic reaction be admitted,—and the admission is one that greatly facilitates an understanding of evolution in this field,—the general resemblance of all religions in fundamental character at least must be accepted.

Another general feature of religious systems is their complexity. The essential elements of all of them are few indeed, as we shall see at a later point; they are beliefs regarding ultimate powers, human responsibility to such powers, and future existence. These have taken one specific form or another in various lines of racial evolution, but aside from their own changes they have gathered about them many other articles of creed relating to other departments of thought and life. Ethical rules of conduct are so added, as in the Hebrew religion where the idea of Jehovah involves God the Ruler and Judge who imposes and administers the laws of right living. Social customs are almost invariably intertwined with religious views, among savages as well as among the more advanced Mohammedans whose rules relating to family organization form an integral part of the whole cult. The emotional elements play a large part in some cases, in the fanatical creeds of the Dervish and Mahdist and in the "revivals" under nearer observation. In Greek cosmology and worship, aesthetics figured to a large degree. Temperamental and other psychological characteristics have profound effects upon religions, which we may illustrate by such extreme examples as the austerities of New England and Scotch Presbyterianism and the contrasted liberties of the natural religions of tropical races. But all of these accessory elements belong to other well-defined departments, some of which have already been considered, and among the materials of their proper divisions they find their interpretation and historical explanation in evolution. It is with the basic elements themselves that we are now concerned.

Only within recent years have systematic attempts been made to classify religions on the basis of impersonal objective study. Throughout all times men have instinctively set up their own religion as the only true one, besides which all others are designated simply as false—a very natural distinction, but one which is too naïve for science, as well as one that takes into account subjective or personal values which are not to be considered in an objective comparison and analysis. The linguistic basis was first employed by Müller, with the result that religions were placed in the category of evolutionary accompaniments of the other mental possessions and of the physical qualities of genetically connected peoples. Thus the nations of Europe that branched out in all directions from very nearly the same sources possessed common linguistic characters and somewhat similar creeds. The Sanskrit-speaking races were the original Brahmins and Buddhists. Ancestor worship is an accompaniment of the peculiar languages spoken by eastern Mongolian peoples. And although the correlation specified is by no means invariable, because a race of one stock can readily accept the religion of a neighbor or of a conqueror, yet much is gained through the introduction of the idea of evolutionary relationships.

A more logical classification frankly adopts the genetic method and clearly recognizes the direct effects of cultural and intellectual attainments upon the way a religious system becomes formulated. In such an arrangement, similar to that of Jastrow, religions can be classed as those of savagery, of barbarism, of advanced culture, and of civilization. Among the first named, notably those of Polynesian and African tribes, beliefs in diversified ghosts and spirits bulk largely, and every moving thing, be it a river or a cloud or a tree or animal, is held to be animated by an invisible conscious genius; the spirits reside in everything, as well as in the great unknown beyond. Above these in the scale are the religions of so-called primitive cults, more elaborate and formalized in the ancient beliefs of Egypt and Assyria, but still below those of advanced culture, which make up a third group. The fourth class includes the religions which tend to be coextensive with life, and which enjoin the higher harmony of practical and theoretical conceptions. Taking Christianity as an example, the contrast with the beliefs of savagery brings out clearly the nature of progressive development. Here religious thought is no longer esoteric, confined to a chosen sect like the Levites among the Hebrews or the shaman and medicine-man among the American Indians; nor is religious observance restricted to the innermost shrine of the tabernacle or sacred dwelling, accessible to few or only one. It comes to be regarded as something in which each and every individual can participate, and a personal possession that has a direct part in determining all forms of human life and action. This is another way of saying that the more highly evolved religions owe their character to the greatly varied and abundant intellectual elements which are built into them. And this is why religion in the highest form, more clearly than in the lowest forms, is to be spoken of as an outlook upon the world which is determined by the total intellectual equipment of the individual man who thinks about the universe and directs his course of action by what he finds.

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We come now to a closer concrete study of the basic elements of religion; that is, of those beliefs that are invariably present, in one form or another, in every system of piety and worship, and that constitute the innermost framework beneath the secondary creeds added to them. Following Mallock and others, we may distinguish three such elemental conceptions. These are, first, the belief in the existence of a supernatural being or beings, endowed with intelligence like, but superior to, our own; second, the idea of human responsibility to this or these powers; and, third, the belief in immortality as an attribute of the supreme powers and of human individuals also. Let us see how these beliefs appear in characteristic systems of religion.

In all forms of Christianity the central idea is the conception of a triple unity personified as God. He is regarded as the Creator who has made all things and who demands reverence from his subjects. He is the Author and Finisher of the faith as well as the sole Cause of the universe itself. Much of this element is directly derived from Judaism, the progenitor of Christianity; but a difference consists in the triple nature of the supreme being according to the newer creed. As the original and supreme being, God is not only the Creator, but the watchful Judge as well, demanding reverent obedience to the laws of the world in which he has placed man, and imposing sacrifices and penitential observances when his mandates have been disobeyed. As the God of Mercy he is incarnated in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, and offered as a vicarious sacrifice for sinners who are thus enabled to escape the penalties they would otherwise have suffered. As the Holy Ghost, God is the vaguely personified ultimate source of the higher and nobler elements of human thought, aspiration, and life in general. The second basic tenet of Christianity is that of human responsibility to God, to whom man is related as the created to a creator, as a subject to a ruler, and as one saved to his redeemer. The institutions of sacrifice and ritual are outward signs of human subjection to God himself and to his laws, according to which the universe is conceived to operate. Finally, Christianity teaches that just as God in his single and triune form is eternal, so the soul of man is immortal, with or without its earthly temple of flesh and blood. The essential thinking individual is believed to pass to heaven, where rewards for right living are bestowed, or to hell, in order to suffer punishment for sin during all eternity, or some part of it, according to different views regarding the efficacy of Christ's vicarious atonement.

It is true that the manifold sects of Christianity differ somewhat in the detailed forms of these three essential beliefs, but not to the same degree as in the case of the secondary additions. God's laws, Christ's teachings, and the inspiration of the Holy Ghost are the recognized guides to conduct; but human frailty has been such that the history of Europe presents a panorama of warring sects in almost unceasing strife about details of ritual and interpretation, while the great fundamental truths have been too frequently ignored. The conflicts of Catholics and Protestants, Puritan and Cavalier, and Northern and Southern Presbyterianism, have not been waged on account of basic beliefs like the three outlined above, or about the Golden Rule, but on account of comparatively trivial details which to the impersonal student have scarcely more than the value of individual preference.

Judaism, the next great religion, has already been mentioned as the parent of Christianity, to which it gave the concept of a Supreme Being, as well as that of a Messiah. It is a purer monotheism than its outgrowth, whose trinity is more like certain elements of Greek theology. Jehovah is the one supernatural power, the creator and lawgiver and immediate cause of all the workings of nature. It is he who shapes the world out of nothingness and who separates the waters from the dry land; he parts the waters of the Red Sea to save the Israelites, and brings them together again to overwhelm the pursuing hosts of Pharaoh. It is his voice that thunders from Mt. Sinai, and his finger that traces the commandments to rule the lives of his chosen people upon the tablets of stone intrusted to Moses the Seer. At the behest of Joshua he holds the sun and the moon in their courses above the vale of Ajalon so that there will be more time for the destruction of the Philistines. In brief, Jehovah is the eternal god of law and power, demanding sacrifice and priestly atonement, and promising happiness eternal upon the bosom of Abraham to those who recognize their responsibility to him and obey his precepts. Again, there are three fundamental beliefs, that differ from those of Christianity as the Talmud diverges from the New Testament scriptures.