The Story of the Earth and Man

by Sir John William Dawson

Many naturalists who should know better are puzzled with the great array of facts presented by evolutionists; and while their better judgment causes them to doubt as to the possibility of the structures which they study being produced by such blind and material processes, are forced to admit that there must surely be something in a theory so confidently asserted, supported by so great names, and by such an imposing array of relations which it can explain. They would be relieved from their weak concessions were they to study carefully a few of the instances adduced, and to consider how easy it is by a little ingenuity to group undoubted facts around a false theory. I could wish to present here illustrations of this, which abound in every part of the works I have referred to, but space will not permit. One or two must suffice. The first may be taken from one of the strong points often dwelt on by Spencer in his “Biology.”[BB]

[BB] “Principles of Biology,” § 118.

"But the experiences which most clearly illustrate to us the process of general evolution are our experiences of special evolution, repeated in every plant and animal. Each organism exhibits, within a short space of time, a series of changes which, when supposed to occupy a period indefinitely great and to go on in various ways instead of one, may give us a tolerably clear conception of organic evolution in general. In an individual development we have compressed into a comparatively infinitesimal space a series of metamorphoses equally vast with those which the hypothesis of evolution assumes to have taken place during those unmeasurable epochs that the earth’s crust tells us of. A tree differs from a seed immeasurably in every respect—in bulk, in structure, in colour, in form, in specific gravity, in chemical composition: differs so greatly that no visible resemblance of any kind can be pointed out between them. Yet is the one changed in the course of a few years into the other; changed so gradually that at no moment can it be said, ‘Now the seed ceases to be and the tree exists.’ What can be more widely contrasted than a newly-born child and the small gelatinous spherule constituting the human ovum? The infant is so complex in structure that a cyclopædia is needed to describe its constituent parts. The germinal vesicle is so simple that it may be defined in a line.... If a single cell under appropriate conditions becomes a man in the space of a few years, there can surely be no difficulty in understanding how, under appropriate conditions, a cell may in the course of untold millions of years give origin to the human race."

“It is true that many minds are so unfurnished with those experiences of nature, out of which this conception is built, that they find difficulty in forming it.... To such the hypothesis that by any series of changes a protozoan should ever give origin to a mammal seems grotesque—as grotesque as did Galileo’s assertion of the earth’s movement seem to the Aristoteleans; or as grotesque as the assertion of the earth’s sphericity seems now to the New Zealanders.”

I quote the above as a specimen of evolutionist reasoning from the hand of a master, and as referring to one of the corner-stones of this strange philosophy. I may remark with respect to it, in the first place, that it assumes those “conditions” of evolution to which I have already referred. In the second place, it is full of inaccurate statements of fact, all in a direction tending to favour the hypothesis. For example, a tree does not differ “immeasurably” from a seed, especially if the seed is of the same species of tree, for the principal parts of the tree and its principal chemical constituents already exist and can be detected in the seed, and unless it were so, the development of the tree from the seed could not take place. Besides, the seed itself is not a thing self-existent or fortuitous. The production of a seed without a previous tree of the same kind is quite as difficult to suppose as the production of a tree without a previous seed containing its living embryo. In the third place, the whole argument is one of analogy. The germ becomes a mature animal, passing through many intermediate stages, therefore the animal may have descended from some creature which when mature was as simple as the germ. The value of such an analogy depends altogether on the similarity of the “conditions” which, in such a case, are really the efficient causes at work. The germ of a mammal becomes developed by the nourishment supplied from the system of a parent, which itself produced the germ, and into whose likeness the young animal is destined to grow. These are the “appropriate conditions” of its development. But when our author assumes from this other “appropriate conditions,” by which an organism, which on the hypothesis is not a germ but a mature animal, shall be developed into the likeness, of something different from its parent, he oversteps the bounds of legitimate analogy. Further, the reproduction of the animal, as observed, is a closed series, beginning at the embryo and returning thither again; the evolution attempted to be established is a progressive series going on from one stage to another. A reproductive circle once established obeys certain definite laws, but its origin, or how it can leave its orbit and revolve in some other, we cannot explain without the introduction of some new efficient cause. The one term of the analogy is a revolution, and the other is an evolution. The revolution within the circle of the reproduction of the species gives no evidence that at some point the body will fly off at a tangent, and does not even inform us whether it is making progress in space. Even if it is so making progress, its orbit of revolution may remain the same. But it may be said the reproduction of the species is not in a circle but in a spiral. Within the limit of experience it is not so, since, however it may undulate, it always returns into itself. But supposing it to be a spiral, it may ascend or descend, or expand and contract; but this does not connect it with other similar spirals, the separate origin of which is to be separately accounted for.

I have quoted the latter part of the passage because it is characteristic of evolutionists to decry the intelligence of those who differ from them. Now it is fair to admit that it requires some intelligence and some knowledge of nature to produce or even to understand such analogies as those of Mr. Spencer and his followers, but it is no less true that a deeper insight into the study of nature may not only enable us to understand these analogies, but to detect their fallacies. I am sorry to say, however, that at present the hypothesis of evolution is giving so strong a colouring to much of popular and even academic teaching, more especially in the easy and flippant conversion of the facts of embryology into instances of evolution on the plan of the above extract, that the Spencerians may not long have to complain of want of faith and appreciation on the part of the improved apes whom they are kind enough to instruct as to their lowly origin.

The mention of “appropriate conditions” in the above extract reminds me of another fatal objection to evolution which its advocates continually overlook. An animal or plant advancing from maturity to the adult state is in every stage of its progress a complete and symmetrical organism, correlated in all its parts and adapted to surrounding conditions. Suppose it to become modified in any way, to ever so small an extent, the whole of these relations are disturbed. If the modification is internal and spontaneous, there is no guarantee that it will suit the vastly numerous external agencies to which the creature is subjected. If it is produced by agencies from without, there is no guarantee that it will accord with the internal relations of the parts modified. The probabilities are incalculably great against the occurrence of many such disturbances without the breaking up altogether of the nice adjustment of parts and conditions. This is no doubt one reason of the extinction of so many species in geological time, and also of the strong tendency of every species to spring back to its normal condition when in any way artificially caused to vary. It is also connected with the otherwise mysterious law of the constant transmission of all the characters of the parent.

Spencer and Darwin occasionally see this difficulty, though they habitually neglect it in their reasonings. Spencer even tries to turn one part of it to account as follows:—

“Suppose the head of a mammal to become very much more weighty—what must be the indirect results? The muscles of the neck are put to greater exertions; and the vertebras have to bear additional tensions and pressures caused both by the increased weight of the head and the stronger contraction of muscles that support and move the head.” He goes on to say that the processes of the vertebrae will have augmented strains put upon them, the thoracic region and fore limbs will have to be enlarged, and even the hind limbs may require modification to facilitate locomotion. He concludes: “Any one who compares the outline of the bison with that of its congener, the ox, will clearly see how profoundly a heavier head affects the entire osseous and muscular system.”