Herbert Spencer

by J. Arthur Thomson

If the evolution key failed to open the doors to which we apply it, then there would be justification for a rehabilitation of the creationist doctrine, but the reverse is the case. To some minds, notably Mr Alfred Russel Wallace, the problems of the origin of life, of consciousness, and of man's higher qualities seem so hopelessly far from scientific interpretation, that a combination of evolutionism with a moiety of creationism appears necessary. But as we are only beginning to know the scope and efficacy of the factors of evolution, and are not without hope of discovering other factors, this dualism seems premature.

Evolution and Creation.—But while the Evolution-Doctrine is now admitted as a valid and useful genetic formula, it was far otherwise when Spencer was writing his Principles of Biology (1864-6). Then the doctrine of descent was struggling for existence against principalities and powers both temporal and spiritual, and then it was still relevant to pit it against the theory of special creations. Yet for a younger generation it is difficult to appreciate the warmth of Spencer's chapter on the Special-Creation hypothesis (§ 109-§ 115 of vol. i. of the original edition of The Principles of Biology).

"The belief in special creations of organisms is a belief that arose among men during the era of profoundest darkness; and it belongs to a family of beliefs which have nearly all died out as enlightenment has increased. It is without a solitary established fact on which to stand; and when the attempt is made to put it into definite shape in the mind, it turns out to be only a pseud-idea. This mere verbal hypothesis, which men idly accept as a real or thinkable hypothesis, is of the same nature as would be one, based on a day's observation of human life, that each man and woman was specially created—an hypothesis not suggested by evidence, but by lack of evidence—an hypothesis which formulates absolute ignorance into a semblance of positive knowledge."...

"Thus, however regarded, the hypothesis of special creations turns out to be worthless—worthless by its derivation; worthless in its intrinsic incoherence; worthless as absolutely without evidence; worthless as not supplying an intellectual need; worthless as not satisfying a moral want. We must therefore consider it as counting for nothing, in opposition to any other hypothesis respecting the origin of organic beings."

The appreciation of the evolution-formula in the minds of thoughtful men has been greatly modified—for the better—since the early Darwinian days of hot-blooded controversy, when Spencer was a prominent champion of the new way of looking at things. The special-creation hypothesis has almost ceased to find advocates who know enough about the facts to bring forward arguments worthy of consideration, and by a legitimate change of front on the part of theologians it has come to be recognised that the evolution-formula is not antithetic to any essential transcendental formula. Naturalists, on the other hand, recognise that the Evolution-formula is no more than a genetic description, that it does not pretend to give any ultimate explanations, that as such it has nothing whatever to do with such transcendental concepts as almighty volition, and that it has no quarrel with the modern theological view of creation as the institution of the primary order of nature—the possibility of natural evolution included. Thus Spencer's destructive attack on the Special-Creation hypothesis has now little more than historical interest. And for this result, we have in part to thank Spencer himself, who made the precise point at issue so definitely clear.

The general theory of organic evolution—the theory of Descent—tacitly makes the assumption, which is the basal hope of all biology, that it is not only legitimate but promiseful to try to interpret scientifically the history of life upon the earth. It formulates the idea that the present phase of being is the natural and necessary outcome of a previous, on the whole, simpler phase of being, and so on, backwards and forwards in time, under the operation of more or less clearly discernible natural factors and conditions—notably variation and heredity, selection and isolation. Tested a thousand times, the general evolution-formula seems to cover the facts, it gives them a new rationality, it applies to minutiose details as well as to the general progress of life, it even affords a basis for verified prophecy. The formula is a key that fits all locks, though it has not yet, because of our fumbling fingers, opened all.

But just here, as Spencer pointed out, there is a parting of the ways, and there is no via media, no compromise. Is there no hopefulness in trying to give a scientific account of the nature and history and genesis of the confessedly vast and perplexing orders of facts which we call Physical Nature, Animate Nature, and Human Nature?—then let us become agnostics pure and simple, or let us remain philosophers or theologians, poets or artists, and sigh over an impetuous science which started so much in debt that its bankruptcy was a foregone conclusion!

On the other hand, if the scientific attempt at interpretation is legitimate, and if it has already made good progress (considering its youth), and if its results, achieved piecemeal, always make for greater intelligibility, then let us give the scientific, i.e., evolutionist formulation its due; let us rigidly exclude from our science all other than scientific interpretations; let us cease from juggling with words in attempting a mongrel mixture of scientific and transcendental formulation; let us stop trying to eke out demonstrable factors, such as variation and selection, by assuming alongside of these, "ultra-scientific causes," "spiritual influxes," et hoc genus omne; let us cease writing or reading books such as God or Natural Selection, whose titular false antinomy is an index of the bathos of their misunderstanding. To place scientific formulæ in opposition to transcendental formulæ is to oppose "incommensurables," and to display an ignorance of what the aim of science really is.

Logically, the antithesis is between the possibility or the impossibility of giving a scientific interpretation of the world around us (and ourselves). The hypothesis of special creations is irrelevant until the scientific interpretation is shown to be inadequate or fallacious.

Arguments for the Evolution-Doctrine.—But what, it may be asked, is the evidence substantiating the formula of organic evolution, and compelling us to accept it? To this question, we propose to give in brief resumé Spencer's answer, but it is impossible to refrain from observing that the question involves some measure of misunderstanding. The evolution theory, as a modal formula, is just a particular way of looking at things; it is justified wherever it is applied; it makes for progress whenever it is utilised; but it cannot be proved by induction or experiment like the law of gravitation or the doctrine of the conservation of energy. Fritz Müller said that he would be content to stake the evolution theory on a study of butterflies alone, and he was right. The formula is justified by its detailed applicability; there are not any special evidences of evolution; any set of facts in regard to organisms well worked-out illustrates the general thesis. At the same time, it is possible to classify the different ways in which the Evolution-Idea fits the facts, and this is what Spencer did in his presentation of the "arguments for evolution"—a presentation which has never been surpassed in clearness, though every illustration has been multiplied many times since 1866.

I. The Arguments from Classification. Spencer started with the fact that naturalists have utilised resemblances in structure and development as a basis for the orderly classification of organisms in groups within groups—varieties, species, genera, families, races, and so on. But "this is the arrangement which we see arises by descent, alike in individual families and among races of men." "Where it is known to take place evolution actually produces these feebly-distinguished small groups and these strongly-distinguished great groups." "The impression made by these two parallelisms, which add meaning to each other, is deepened by the third parallelism, which enforces the meaning of both—the parallelism, namely, that as, between the species, genera, orders, classes, etc., which naturalists have formed, there are transitional types; so between the groups, sub-groups, and sub-sub-groups, which we know to have been evolved, types of intermediate values exist. And these three correspondences between the known results of evolution (as in human races, domesticated animals, and cultivated plants) and the results here ascribed to evolution have further weight given to them by the fact, that the kinship of groups through their lowest members is just the kinship which the hypothesis of evolution implies." "Even in the absence of these specific agreements, the broad fact of unity amid multiformity, which organisms so strikingly display, is strongly suggestive of evolution. Freeing ourselves from pre-conceptions, we shall see good reason to think with Mr Darwin, "that propinquity of descent—the only known cause of the similarity of organic beings—is the bond, hidden as it is by various degrees of modification, which is partly revealed to us by our classifications" (Principles of Biology, Rev. Ed. vol. i. p. 448).