It was not to be expected that Mr. Mivart, in his criticism on Darwinism, would meet with no opponents. He must have expected to be attacked from two quarters, and by two different classes of men: by those committed to the Darwinian hypothesis, in the first place; and, again, by those who value that hypothesis less for its scientific merit than for—as they suppose—its incompatibility with Christian doctrine, and the service they think it might render in the disintegration of the Christian societies. Among the latter we are compelled to class Mr. Huxley, who, if a very good scientist, is, notwithstanding, one of the most arrogant of men.
He replied to Mr. Mivart, and in his reply does neither more nor less than constitute himself the infallible teacher of all mankind, the supreme pontiff of science, empowered to speak with authority on all matters pertaining to religion and philosophy, as well as to anatomy. He has the commendable modesty, even, to tell Catholics what they may believe, and what they must reject. He interprets the Bible for them, expounds the teachings of the Fathers of the church, comments on the schoolmen, all for their benefit; in fact, entirely forgets the good old maxim, “Let the cobbler stick to his last,” and imagines that, because he has learned a considerable amount about brains and stomachs—dead brains and stomachs, for the most part—he can legislate for the Christian world; that anything in heaven or on earth which he cannot weigh or measure, upon which he cannot bring the knife, or the blowpipe, or the spectroscope to bear, does not exist, or exist otherwise than as it takes form in his own by no means humble mind.
In his reply to Mr. Mivart, he virtually passes over all of the latter gentleman’s scientific objections, and fastens on his assertion that evolution is at all compatible with Catholic doctrine.
Mr. Mivart had, as we have seen, referred to Suarez, and that, Mr. Mivart assures us, because, in Mr. Huxley’s words, “the popular repute of that learned theologian and subtle casuist was not such as to make his works a likely place of refuge for liberality of thought.”
Of course Mr. Mivart did not intend to represent Suarez or the other writers we have mentioned above as advocating the very modern doctrine of evolution, but only abstract principles harmonizing with it; and, if anything, broader than it, inasmuch as they are broad enough not only to take in the recent theory of evolution, but any other theory of development which may be yet advocated; yet Mr. Huxley assumed that Mr. Mivart meant to convey the impression that F. Suarez was a Darwinian or a disciple of Herbert Spencer, which he could not well be, having lived some centuries too early to enjoy any such good-fortune. Having erected this theory, Mr. Huxley went, in his “More Criticisms on Darwin,” deliberately to work to demolish it, in doing which he left his way considerably, raising questions on which Mr. Mivart had said nothing whatever, and which in the discussion are wholly irrelevant; as, for instance, the meaning of the word “day” in the first chapter of Genesis, as advocated by some authorities.
Mr. Mivart retorted through the pages of the Contemporary Review, and demonstrated that Suarez was “an opponent of the theory of a perpetual direct creation of organisms,” and “that the principles of scholastic theology are such as not to exclude the theory of development, but rather to favor it.” He quoted again from Suarez, to show that that writer, treating of the opinion that individuals of kinds like the mule, leopard, lynx, etc., must have been created from the beginning, expressed the view that the contrary seemed to him more probable, thus asserting the principle that those kinds of animals which are potentially contained in nature need not be supposed to be directly and immediately created. More than this, Mr. Mivart shows that the same authority recognizes the possibility that certain organisms may be originated directly from the inorganic world by cosmical influences.
Our readers already know what were the views of S. Augustine on this matter. Mr. Mivart shows that other theologians besides S. Thomas, such as S. Bonaventure, Albertus Magnus, Denis the Carthusian, Cardinal Cajetan, Melchior Canus, Bannes, Vincentius Contenson, Macedo and Cardinal Noris, Tosti, Serri, “and others down to the present day,” agree with S. Augustine in his views on the question we are considering.
The great result—the only result in which we feel especially interested—of this controversy was the bringing into clearer light the fact that the kernel of truth contained in Darwinism or in evolution is not at variance with revelation, as indeed it cannot be and be true. This is what Mr. Huxley has done for the church.
Of Mr. Huxley’s treatment of his opponent’s objections on the score of morality we have nothing to say which would be of the least service to our readers.
Remains the question: How far may a Catholic accept the special Darwinian theory or the doctrine of evolution? Mr. Mivart asserts that a miraculous origin of the body of man is not necessary; that it might have been evolved from that of some lower being by natural law. Darwinians and evolutionists generally maintain an analogous origin for the human soul. Is there anything in this contrary to revelation?