Evolution: An Investigation and a Critique

by Theodore Graebner

And again, since omnipotence alone can account for the "sweet influences of the Pleiades," the "bringing forth of Mazzaroth"—the constellations of the heavens in their nightly revolutions,—why resist the conviction that omnipotence, voiced forth in the beginning, accounts for the life on earth that now exists?

One more consideration, and we have done. Life on earth exists only through a combination of very complex physical conditions. These conditions are such as cannot, in their combination, be referred to chance, Fairhurst says, in his "Organic Evolution Considered:" "The simple substances which constitute the earth are of such kinds and are found in such relative quantities as not only to render life possible, but also to contribute to the well-being of man as an intelligent and moral agent. I look upon the concurrence of all these things, according to any theory of chance, as being entirely impossible. The conditions that must be fulfilled before living beings are possible are so complex that nothing short of the wisdom of a Supreme Intelligence could have produced them." (cf. Rom. 1, 20.)

This view has found support in a most unexpected quarter. No less a person than Alfred Russel Wallace, famed as the discoverer, independently of Darwin, of the principle of Natural Selection, in his last book, "Man's Place in the Universe," (1903) defended a position so subversive of every cherished belief (or unbelief) of scientists that it easily ranks as the greatest literary sensation, in the domain of natural science, of the century. Wallace assembled all the latest astronomcial [tr. note: sic] and other scientific discoveries and all knowledge bearing on the subject announced in his title. He deduces therefrom the theory:—First, that the earth or solar system is the physical center of the stellar universe. Second, that the supreme end and purpose of this vast universe was the production and development of a living soul in the perishable body of man.

"Modern skeptics," says Wallace, "in the light of accepted astronomical theories (which regard our earth as uttterly insignificant compared with the rest of the universe) have pointed out the irrationality and absurdity of supposing that the Creator of all this unimaginable vastness of suns and systems should have any special interest in so pitiful a creature as man, an imperfectly developed inhabitant of one of the smaller planets attached to a second or third rate sun, while that He should have selected this little world for a scene so tremendous and so necessarily unique as to sacrifice His own son in order to save a portion of these miserable sinners from the natural consequences of sins, is in their view a crowning absurdity, not to be believed by any rational being."

We cannot follow Mr. Wallace's argument in detail. Suffice to say, that he adduces a vast amount of data showing, first, that the universe is not infinite, but has certain bounds, and that our earth and its system are in the center of it, and, secondly, that the entire purpose of the production of the universe is the human race. The earth, says Wallace, is the only body capable of sustaining life. Life is not possible on any of the planets, because they are either too close or too far distant from the sun; some are probably composed of gas. He proves, on the basis of accepted calculations, that of all the stars in the heavens there is not even a remote probability that any are attended by bodies which can provide the elements of life. Now, he says, this very peculiar position of the earth cannot have been due to accident. He refuses to believe that the earth should occupy this favored position "as the result of one out of a thousand million chances."

"On the other hand," he says, "those thinkers may be right who, holding that the universe is a manifestation of mind, and that the orderly development of living souls supplies an adequate reason why such a universe should have been called into existence, believe that we ourselves are its sole and sufficient result and that nowhere else than near the central position in the universe which we occupy could that result have been attained."

This conclusion of Mr. Wallace has, indeed, not found acceptance among scientists. Naturally not. If a materialistic conception of the universe is to prevail, if evolution in some form is to be accepted, we must have a universe of chance, not of a plan which spans the remotest star and the soul of the new-born infant in one tremendous arc. But it is highly instructive to observe how the scientists in 1903 met Wallace's argument. One very distinguished reviewer said:

"Too little is known, the most essential astronomical theories are too much a matter of conjecture, to give much strength to a theory built up entirely of such conjectural materials. The argument from probabilities can easily be turned against the author, for when a chain of reasoning depends upon a long series of problematic premises, the doubt of these premises increases in a mathematical ratio. Weakness in an argument is as cumulative as strength and while such of Dr. Wallace's conclusions taken separately may receive the support of eminent scientists, hardly any of them has received such demonstration as to entitle it to unreserved credence."

This, at last, is a frank admission. Wallace quoted the generally accepted results of scientific calculation and research. On the basis of these results he demonstrates that the entire object of Evolution (to demonstrate the development of all things by natural causes, without a directing intelligence), is negatived by a proper consideration of "ascertained data,"—since these data, taken all together, prove a stupendous plan behind all natural phenomena, and the end of this plan, the human soul. In rebuttal we are now told that "the most essential astronomical theories"—as e.g. the Copernican System, Herschel's laws, the Newtonian theory of gravitation,—"are matter of conjecture" (in plain English, are blind guesses), are "problematic," and "hardly any entitled to unreserved credence."

Thus do we find, that the greatest of Darwinians, on a mature consideration of the subject, reached a conclusion which makes evolution as a theory quite unnecessary; he found that the world is ruled not by blind forces inherent in matter but by Supreme Intelligence. And in their effort to keep themselves from being engulfed in the apostacy of a great leader, the scientists, as by a unanimous chorus, announce that the scientific dogmas which enter more or less essentially into their atheistic conception of the universe, are nothing but surmises!