We come now to another proof adduced by Darwin to establish his beloved ape-descending theory. It is taken from the state of an insane person (p. 245). We will allow him to speak for himself: “Its symptoms are the reappearance of primitive instincts, a faint echo from a far distant past, testifying to a kinship which man has almost outgrown” (p. 245). These are the words of Dr. Maudsley, cited and approved by him. The state of insanity in man is compared to the normal state of the animal. Again, he asks, “Why should a human being, deprived of his reason, ever become so brutal in character as some do, unless he has the brutal nature within him?” (p. 246).
A more silly or childish mode of reasoning could scarcely be thought of. As well might he say the sun returns to its primitive state when in an eclipse, or an engine is working properly when the boilers explode and spread death and consternation all around.
We say of the idiot, He has lost his mind. Not that it really is entirely extinct: it is merely out of working order. Its clearness is darkened by some disorder. The idiot is in a state repugnant to his natural condition. How, then, infer from such a condition a former kinship? A machine or clock out of order will, when left to itself, work indeed; not, however, returning to its normal state, but destroying itself. So it is with the idiot. It was, therefore, perhaps rather superfluous for Mr. Darwin to spend so much time and labor, and give his readers so much trouble, for the sake of finding out in how many ways idiots resemble his dear monkeys, chimpanzees, and orangs.
We wonder why the case of Nabuchodonosor did not occur to him. It would have so well illustrated his theory. For he, without becoming permanently an idiot, was seized with an irresistible propensity to return, as Mr. Darwin would say, to his own brethren, and renew his old friendships and acquaintances. And so well was that gentleman pleased with his company that he remained in it not less than seven years, until it pleased God to restore him to his more intelligent and polite brothers.
We would suggest to Mr. Darwin a similar experiment. He ought to be sociable, and from time to time imitate Nabuchodonosor: let his hair and beard grow until they become long feathers; his ears, too, could be extended somewhat, and the nails of his hands and feet might very well become claws; he ought also to eat grass for a while. Thus he would be fulfilling a duty to his rustic brethren, and he could at the same time enlighten them a little on bipedal civilization, especially as they will one day get to be men themselves, and therefore should try to do honor to their future relatives.
Darwin may tenderly call monkeys “our nearest allies” (p. 253), or say: “The playful sneer or ferocious snarl in man reveals his animal descent” (p. 253); or again: “We may readily believe, from our affinity to the anthropomorphous apes, that our male semi-human progenitors possessed great canine teeth” (p. 253)—he may say all this, and still, we fear, he would not like to have himself introduced at the court of London as the brother of the long-tailed and widely known orang-outang. And why? Because his whole moral nature would revolt at such an indignity, and thus furnish the strongest proof, perhaps, that all his talk about ape-affinity and descent is nonsense. Human nature rebels at such a degradation. It protests instinctively against such an alliance. It is unconscious of such a relationship.
Now, how is it, otherwise, that our nature is so tender with regard to all kindred? How is it that brothers and sisters and relatives love each other so much and without effort; that in all men there is a feeling of affinity toward their fellows? How, we ask, does our nature, otherwise so tenderly inclined to all relatives, even the most distant, forget in this one instance alone a relationship at once the most sacred and tender—that of a child to its parent? For we, says Mr. Darwin, are the grandchildren at least of the animal.
All the materialistic cavils and speculations of so-called philosophers will suffer shipwreck on this rock—the moral feeling of the dignity and specific difference of man. But we will explain the symptoms of lunacy to Darwin in a direct manner.
We grant that man has the brutish “nature within him.” We do not concede, however, that he has only the brutish nature and no other. Man has a soul as well as a body. As regards the nature of the body, we cheerfully grant all that Mr. Darwin could desire. It is of the same substance as that of his dear orang. It has, moreover, the same violent passions and downward tendencies; nay, it can—as experience teaches in fact it has—outdo the brute in violent bursts of passion. It is, moreover, regulated by the same laws of climate, food, life, etc.
But this is all we concede. It has not the same origin, being directly created by God in its natural state. Much less do we admit that man is endowed with no higher nature, entirely and specifically distinct from his body. He has a soul that thinks—a soul that is entirely spiritual and intelligent, not merely sensible.