The favorite explanation of instinct from the side of Agnostic Evolution is that it originated in the struggle for existence of some previous generation, and was then perpetuated as an inheritance. But, like most of the other explanations of this school, this quietly takes for granted what should be proved. That instinct is hereditary is evident; but the question is, How did it begin? and to say simply that it did begin at some former period is to tell us nothing. From a scientific point of view, the invariable operation of any natural law affords no evidence of any gradual or sudden origination of it at any point of past time; and when such law is connected with a complicated organism and various other laws and processes of the external world, the supposition of its slowly arising from nothing through many generations of animals becomes too intricate to be credible. Instinct must have originated in a perfect condition, and with the organism and its environment already established. I may borrow here an apposite illustration from recent papers on the unity of nature by the Duke of Argyll, which deserve careful study by any one who values common-sense views of this subject. The example which I select is that of the action of a young merganser in its effort to elude pursuit:
"On a secluded lake in one of the Hebrides, I observed a dun-diver, or female of the red-breasted merganser (Mergus serrator), with her brood of young ducklings. On giving chase in the boat we soon found that the young, although not above a fortnight old, had such extraordinary powers of swimming and diving that it was almost impossible to capture them. The distance they went under water, and the unexpected places in which they emerged, baffled all our efforts for a considerable time. At last one of the brood made for the shore, with the object of hiding among the grass and heather which fringed the margin of the lake. We pursued it as closely as we could; but when the little bird gained the shore, our boat was still about twenty yards off. Long drought had left a broad margin of small flat stones and mud between the water and the usual bank. I saw the little bird run up about a couple of yards from the water, and then suddenly disappear. Knowing what was likely to be enacted, I kept my eye fixed on the spot; and when the boat was run upon the beach, I proceeded to find and pick up the chick. But, on reaching the place of disappearance, no sign of the young merganser was to be seen. The closest scrutiny, with the certain knowledge that it was there, failed to enable me to detect it. Proceeding cautiously forward, I soon became convinced that I had already overshot the mark; and, on turning round, it was only to see the bird rise like an apparition from the stones and, dashing past the stranded boat, regain the lake, where, having now recovered its wind, it instantly dived and disappeared. The tactical skill of the whole of this manœuvre, and the success with which it was executed, were greeted with loud cheers from the whole party; and our admiration was not diminished when we remembered that, some two weeks before that time, the little performer had been coiled up inside the shell of an egg, and that about a month before it was apparently nothing but a mass of albumen and of fatty oils."
On this the duke very properly remarks that any idea of training and experience is absolutely excluded, because it "assumes the pre-existence of the very powers for which it professes to account." He then turns to the idea that animals are merely automata or "machines." Here it is to be observed that the essential idea of a machine is twofold. First, it is a merely mechanical structure put together to do certain things; secondly, it must be related to a contriver and constructor. If we think proper to call the young merganser a machine, we must admit both of these characters, more especially as the bird is in every way a more marvellous machine than any of human construction. He concludes his notice of this case with the following suggestive words:
"This is a method of escape which cannot be resorted to successfully except by birds whose coloring is adapted to the purpose by a close assimilation with the coloring of surrounding objects. The old bird would not have been concealed on the same ground, and would never itself resort to the same method of escape. The young, therefore, cannot have been instructed in it by the method of example. But the small size of the chick, together with its obscure and curiously-mottled coloring, are specially adapted to this mode of concealment. The young of all birds which breed upon the ground are provided with a garment in such perfect harmony with surrounding effects of light as to render this manœuvre easy. It depends, however, wholly for its success upon absolute stillness. The slightest motion at once attracts the eye of any enemy which is searching for the young. And this absolute stillness must be preserved amidst all the emotions of fear and terror which the close approach of the object of alarm must, and obviously does, inspire. Whence comes this splendid, even if it be unconscious, faith in the sufficiency of a defence which it must require such nerve and strength of will to practise? No movement, not even the slightest, though the enemy should seem about to trample on it,—such is the terrible requirement of nature, and by the child of nature implicitly obeyed. Here, again, beyond all question, we have an instinct as much born with the creature as the harmonious tinting of its plumage, the external furnishing being inseparably united with the internal furnishing of mind which enables the little creature in very truth to 'walk by faith, and not by sight.' Is this automatism? Is this machinery? Yes, undoubtedly, in the sense explained before—that the instinct has been given to the bird in precisely the same sense in which its structure has been given to it; so that anterior to all experience, and without the aid of instruction or of example, it is inspired to act in this manner on the appropriate occasion arising."
Lastly, the reason of man himself is an actual illustration of mind in nature. Here we raise a question which should perhaps have been considered earlier: Is man himself actually a part of what we call nature? We are so accustomed to the distinction between things natural and things artificial that we are liable to overlook this essential question. Is nature the universe outside of us, containing the things that we study and which constitute our environment? Are we elevated on a pedestal, so to speak, above nature? or, on the other hand, does nature include man himself? In that haze or fog of ideas which environs modern evolutionism, it is not wonderful that this question escapes notice, and that the most contradictory utterances are given forth. Tyndall—by no means the most foggy of the agnostics—may afford an instance. He remarks respecting the philosophers of antiquity:[14] "The experiences which formed the weft and woof of their theories were drawn, not from the study of nature, but from that which lay much closer to them-the observation of man.... Their theories accordingly took an anthropomorphic form." Here we see that in the view of the writer man is distinct from and outside of nature, and so much out of harmony with it that the observation of him leads to false conclusions, stigmatized, accordingly, as "anthropomorphic." In this case man must be supernatural, and preternatural as well. But it is Tyndall's precise object to show us that there is nothing supernatural either in man or elsewhere. The contradiction is an instructive example of the delusions which sometimes pass for science.
If, with Tyndall, we are to place man outside of nature, then the human mind at once becomes to us a supernatural intelligence. But truth forbids such a conclusion. The reason of man, however beyond the intelligence of lower animals, so harmonizes with natural laws that it is evidently a part of the great unity of nature, and we can no more dissociate the mind of man from nature than from his own animal body. If we could do so, we might have ground to distrust the validity of all our conclusions as to nature, and thus to cut away the foundations of science; and what remained of philosophy and religion would be preternatural, in the bad sense of destroying the unity of nature and imperilling our confidence in the unity of the Creator himself.
In connection with this we have cause to consider the true meaning and use of two terms often hurled at theists as weapons of attack.
The word "anthropomorphic" is a term of reproach for our interpreting nature in harmony with our own thoughts or our own constitution. But if man is a part of nature, he must be a competent interpreter of it. If he is not a part of nature, then, whether we make him godlike or a demon, we have, in him, to deal with something supernatural. It is true that in a certain sense he is above nature, but not in any sense which so dissociates him from it as to prevent him from rationally thinking of it in his own thoughts and speaking of it in his own form of words. So true is this that no writers are more anthropomorphic in their modes of speaking of nature than those who most strongly denounce anthropomorphism. Even the celebrated definition of life by Herbert Spencer cannot escape this tincture. "Life," he says, "is the continuous adjustment of internal to external conditions." Now, the essence of this definition lies in the word "adjustment." But to adjust is to arrange, adapt, or fit—all purely human and intelligent actions. Nothing, therefore, could be more anthropomorphic than such a statement. As theists we need not complain of this, but surely as agnostics we should decidedly object to it.
The other word whose meaning it is necessary to consider is "supernatural," which it might be well, perhaps, to follow the example of the New Testament in avoiding altogether as a misleading term. If by supernatural we mean something outside of and above nature and natural law, there is really no such thing in the universe. There may be that which is "spiritual," as distinguished from that which is natural in the material sense; but the spiritual has its own laws, which are not in conflict with those of the natural. Even God cannot in this sense be said to be supernatural, since his will is necessarily in conformity with natural law. Yet this absurd sense of the term "supernatural" is constantly forced upon us by so-called advanced thinkers, and employed as an argument against theism. The only true sense in which any being or any thing can be said to be supernatural is that in which we use it with reference to the original creation of matter and force and the institution of natural law. The power which can do these things is above nature, but not outside of it; for matter, energy, and law must be included in, and in harmony with, the Creative Will.
To return from this digression. If man is a part of nature, we can see how it is that he conforms to natural law, not merely in his bodily organization and capabilities, but in his mind and habits of thought, so that he can comprehend nature and employ it for his purposes. Even his moral and his religious ideas must in this case be conformed to his conditions of existence as a part of nature. We have here also the surest guarantee of the correctness of our conclusions respecting the laws of nature. In like manner, there is here a sense in which man is above nature, because he is placed at the head of it. In another sense he is inferior to the aggregate of nature, because, as Agassiz well puts it, there is in the universe a "wealth of endowment of the most comprehensive mental manifestations which man can never fully comprehend."