Facts and fancies in modern science / Studies of the relations of science to prevalent speculations and religious belief

by Sir John William Dawson

If Haeckel were well read in Scripture, he might have quoted here the melancholy confession of the man of Uz: "I have said to the worm, Thou art my mother and my sister." But, though Job, like the German professor, could humbly say to the worm, "Thou art my mother," he could still hold fast his integrity and believe in the fatherhood of God.

The moral bearing of monism is further illustrated by the following extract, which refers to a more advanced step of the evolution—that from the ape to man—and which shows the honest pride of the worthy professor in his humble parentage: "Just as most people prefer to trace their pedigree from a decayed baron, or if possible from a celebrated prince, rather than from an unknown humble peasant, so they prefer seeing the progenitor of the human race in an Adam degraded by the fall, rather than in an ape capable of higher development and progress. It is a matter of taste, and such genealogical preferences do not, therefore, admit of discussion. It is more to my individual taste to be the more highly-developed descendant of an ape, who in the struggle for existence had developed progressively from lower mammals as they from still lower vertebrates, than the degraded descendant of an Adam, Godlike but debased by the fall, who was formed from a clod of earth, and of an Eve created from a rib of Adam. As regards the celebrated 'rib,' I must here expressly add, as a supplement to the history of the development of the skeleton, that the number of ribs is the same in man and in woman.[5] In the latter as well as in the former the ribs originate from the skin-fibrous layer, and are to be regarded phylogenetically as lower or ventral vertebræ."[6]

There is no accounting for tastes, yet we may be pardoned for retaining some preference for the first link of the old Jewish genealogical table: "Which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God." As to the "debasement" of the fall, it is to be feared that the aboriginal ape would object to bearing the blame of existing human iniquities as having arisen from any improvement in his nature and habits; and it is scarcely fair to speak of Adam as "formed from a clod of earth," which is not precisely in accordance with the record. As to the "rib," which seems so offensive to Haeckel, one would have thought that he would, as an evolutionist, have had some fellow-feeling in this with the writer of Genesis. The origin of sexes is one of the acknowledged difficulties of the hypothesis, and, using his method, we might surely "assume," or even "confidently assert," the possibility that, in some early stage of the development, the unfinished vertebral arches of the "skin-fibrous layer" might have produced a new individual by a process of budding or gemmation. Quite as remarkable suppositions are contained in some parts of his own volumes, without any special divine power for rendering them practicable. Further, if only an individual man originated in the first instance, and if he were not provided with a suitable spouse, he might have intermarried with the unimproved anthropoids, and the results of the evolution would have been lost. Such considerations should have weighed with Haeckel in inducing him to speak more respectfully of Adam's rib, especially in view of the fact that in dealing with the hard question of human origin the author of Genesis had not the benefit of the researches of Baer and Haeckel. He had, no doubt, the advantage of a firm faith in the reality of that Creative Will which the monistic prophets of the nineteenth century have banished from their calculations. Were Haeckel not a monist, he might also be reminded of that grand doctrine of the lordship and superiority of man based on the fact that there was no "help meet for him;" and the foundation of the most sacred bond of human society on the saying of the first man: "This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh." But monists probably attach little value to such ideas.

It may be proper to add here that in his references to Adam, Haeckel betrays a weakness not unusual with his school, in putting a false gloss on the old record of Genesis. The statement that man was formed from the dust of the ground implies no more than the production of his body from the common materials employed in the construction of other animals; this also in contradistinction from the higher nature derived from the inbreathing or inspiration of God. The precise nature of the method by which man was made or created is not stated by the author of Genesis. Further, it would have been as easy for Divine Power to create a pair as an individual. If this was not done, and if after the lesson of superiority taught by the inspection of lower animals, and the lesson of language taught by naming them, the first man in his "deep sleep" is conscious of the removal of a portion of his own flesh, and then on awaking has the woman "brought" to him, all this is to teach a lesson not to be otherwise learned. The Mosaic record is thus perfectly consistent with itself and with its own doctrine of creation by Almighty Power.

I have quoted the above passages as examples of the more jocose vein of the Jena physiologist; but they constitute also a serious revelation of the influence of his philosophy on his own mind and heart, in lowering both to a cold, mechanical, and unsympathetic view of man and nature. This is especially serious when we remember how earnestly in a recent address he advocated the teaching of the methods and results of this book, as those which, in the present state of knowledge, should supersede the Bible in our schools. We may well say, with his great opponent on that occasion, that if such doctrines should be proved to be true, the teaching of them might become a necessity, but one that would bring us face to face with the darkest and most dangerous moral problem that has ever beset humanity; and that so long as they remain unproved it is both unwise and criminal to propagate them among the mass of men as conclusions which have been demonstrated by science.

In conclusion, we may notice shortly a few of the consequences of the monistic evolution as held by Haeckel and others. Doctrines are perhaps not to be judged by the consequences—at least, by the immediate consequences—of their acceptance. Yet if their logical consequences are such as to introduce confusion into our higher ideas and sentiments, we have reason to hesitate as to their adoption—if on no other ground, because we ourselves are a part of nature and should be in harmony with any true explanation of it.

We may affirm in this connection that agnostic evolution reduces all our science to mere evanescent anthropomorphic fancies; so that, like a parasite, it first supports itself on the strength and substance of science, and then strangles it to death. Physical science is a product of our thinking as to external things. If, therefore, the thinking brain and the external nature which it studies are both of them the fortuitous products of blind tendencies in a process of continuous flux and vicissitude, our science can embody no elements of eternal truth nor any conceptions as to the plans of a higher creative reason. In that case it is absolutely worthless, and a pure waste of time and energy, except in so far as it may yield any temporary material advantages.

Further, the agnostic evolution thus leaves us as orphans in the midst of a cold and insensate nature. We are no longer dwellers in our Father's house, beautiful and fitted for us, but are thrown into the midst of a hideous conflict of dead forces, in which we must finally perish and be annihilated. In a struggle so hopeless it is a mere mockery to tell us that in millions of years something better may come out of it, for we know that this will be of no avail to us, and we feel that it is impossible. Thus the agnostic philosophy, if it be once accepted as true, seriously raises the question whether life is worth living.

But if worth living, then it must be for the immediate and selfish gratification of our desires and passions; and since we are deprived of God and conscience, and right and wrong, and future reward or punishment, and all men are alike in this position, there can be nothing left for us but to rend and fight with our fellows for such share of good as may fall to us in the deadly struggle, that we may reach such happiness as may be possible for us in such an existence, ere we drift into nonentity. Here, again, we are told that the struggle will some time lead to the survival of the fittest, and that the fittest may inaugurate a new and better reign of peace. But the world has already lasted countless ages without arriving at this result. It cannot concern me individually, any more than what happens to-day concerns the extinct ichthyosaur or the megatherium. All that is left for me is to "eat and drink, for to-morrow I die."