It would be interesting to know what “imposing theological dogmas” Dr. Draper considered it to be his duty to respect while lecturing before a Unitarian audience. Unitarians do not generally overload their liberal minds with dogmas. Their creed is very short. They simply admit, as even the good Mahometans do, that there is one God. This is all. What that one God is they are not required to know; their denial of the Holy Trinity leaves them free to conceive their God as an impersonal being, a universal soul, or a sum total of the forces of nature. On the other hand, their denial of ecclesiastical authority and of the inspiration of the Scriptures leaves them absolutely free to disbelieve every other dogma and mystery of Christianity. It seems to us, therefore, that Dr. Draper, who had no need, and certainly no inclination, to descant on Trinitarian views or to defend the inspiration of the Bible, ought not to have feared to scandalize the good souls to whom he was requested to break the bread of modern science. It is clear that only an unequivocal profession of scientific atheism could have been construed into an offence; and even this, we fancy, would have been pardoned, for the sake of science, by the easy and accommodating gentlemen whose “liberality of sentiment” triumphed at last over Dr. Draper’s hesitation.
Whether or not the assembled Unitarian ministers were satisfied with the lecture, and converted to the scientific views maintained by the lecturer, we do not know; this, however, we do know: that Dr. Draper’s reasoning and assertions about the origin, progress, and consequences of evolution, even apart from all consideration of religious dogmas, are not calculated to command the assent of cultivated intellects.
The lecture begins with the statement that two explanations have been introduced to account for the origin of the organic beings that surround us; the one, according to the lecturer, “is conveniently designated as the hypothesis of creation,” the other as “the hypothesis of evolution.” This statement, to begin with, is incorrect. It may, indeed, be very “convenient” for Dr. Draper to speak of creation as a mere hypothesis; but the device is too transparent. The creation or original formation of organic beings by God is not a hypothesis, but an historical fact perfectly established, and even scientifically and philosophically demonstrated. Evolution, on the contrary, as understood by the modern school, is only an empty word and a dream, unworthy of the name of scientific hypothesis, under which sciolists attempt to conceal its absurdity. In fact, even the little we ourselves have said on this subject in some of our past numbers would amply suffice to convince a moderately intelligent man that the theory of evolution has no real scientific character, is irreconcilable with the conclusions of natural history, and has no ground to stand upon except the worn-out fallacies of a perverted logic. To call it “hypothesis” is therefore to do it an honor which it does not deserve. A pile of rubbish is not a palace, and a heap of blunders is not a hypothesis.
“Creation,” says Dr. Draper, “reposes on the arbitrary act of God; evolution on the universal reign of law.” This statement, too, is entirely groundless. Creation is a free act of God; but a free act needs not to be arbitrary. We usually call that arbitrary which is done rashly or without reason. But an act which forms part of an intellectual plan for an appointed end we call an act of wisdom; to call it “arbitrary” is to falsify its nature. If Dr. Draper admits that there is a God, he ought to speak of him with greater respect. But, omitting this, is it true that evolution “reposes on the universal reign of law”? By no means. We defy Dr. Draper and all the modern evolutionists to substantiate this bold assertion. Not only is there no universal law on which the evolution of species can repose, but there is, on the contrary, a well-known universal law which sets at naught the speculations and stultifies the pretensions of the Darwinian school. The law we refer to is the following: In the generation of organic beings there is no transition from one species to another. This is the universal law which rules the department of organic life; and it is almost inconceivable how a man who is not resolved to injure his scientific reputation could so far forget himself and his science as to pretend a blissful ignorance of this known truth, in order to propagate a silly imposture exploded by philosophy and contradicted by the constant, unequivocal testimony of nature itself.
Had we been present in the Unitarian audience when the doctor uttered the assertion in question, we doubt if it would have been possible for us to let him proceed further without interruption; for the recklessness of his doctrine called for an immediate challenge. When a man, in laying down the foundations of a theory, takes his stand upon the most evident false premises, he simply insults his hearers. Why should an intelligent man accept in silence such a glaring absurdity as that “evolution reposes on the universal reign of law”? Why should he not rise and say: “I beg permission, in the name of science, to contradict the statement just made, and to express my astonishment at the want of consideration shown to this learned assembly by the lecturer”? However contrary to the received usages, such an interruption would have been highly proper and meritorious in the eyes of a lover of truth. But, unfortunately, the assembled ministers had no right to remonstrate. They had requested the doctor to lecture, and to lecture on that very subject; they knew beforehand the doctor’s views concerning evolution; and they were not ignorant that his manner of reasoning was likely to exhibit that disregard of truth of which so many striking instances had been discovered in his history of the conflict between religion and science. The assembled ministers were simply anxious to hear a bit of genuine modern thought; hence, whatever the lecturer might think good to say, they were bound to listen to with calm resignation, if not with thankful submission.
Dr. Draper told them, also, that the hypothesis of evolution derives all the organisms which we see in the world “from one or a few original organisms” by a process of development, and “it will not admit that there has been any intervention of the divine power.” But when asked, Whence did the original organisms spring? he replies: “As to the origin of organisms, it (the hypothesis) withholds, for the present, any definite expression. There are, however, many naturalists who incline to believe in spontaneous generation.” Here we must admire, if not the consistency, at least the sincerity, of the lecturer. He candidly acknowledges that, as to the origin of organisms, the theory of evolution “withholds, for the present, any definite expression.” This phrase, stripped of its pretentious modesty, means that the advocates of evolution, though often called upon to account by their theory for the origin of organic life, and though obliged by the nature of the case to show how life could have originated in matter alone “with no intervention of the divine power,” have always failed to extricate themselves from the difficulties of their position, and have never offered an explanation deserving the sanction of science, or even the attention of thoughtful men. The axiom Omne vivum ex ovo still stares them in the face. They cannot shut their eyes so as to lose sight of it. At the same time they cannot explain the origin of the ovum without abandoning their principles; for if the first ovum, or vital organism, is not the product of evolution, then its existence cannot be accounted for except by the intervention of the divine power, which they are determined to reject; and if the first vital organism be assumed to have been the product of evolution, then they cannot escape the conclusion that it must have sprung from lifeless, inorganic matter—a conclusion which few of them dare to maintain, as they clearly see that it is absurd to expect from matter alone anything so cunningly devised as is the least seed, egg, or cell of a living organism. To confess, therefore, that the evolution theory cannot account for the origin of the primitive organisms is to confess that the efforts of the evolutionists towards banishing the intervention of the divine power and suppressing creation have been, are, and will ever be ineffectual.
But this legitimate inference was carefully kept out of view by the lecturer, who, not to spoil his argument, hastened to add that “many naturalists incline to believe in spontaneous generation.” This, however, far from making things better, will only make them worse. It is only when a cause is nearly despaired of that the most irrational fictions are resorted to in its defence. Now, spontaneous generation is an irrational fiction. Even in our own time, when the world is full of organic matter, and when the working of nature has been subjected to the most searching investigations, the spontaneous formation of a living organism without a parent of the same species is deemed to be against reason; for reason cannot give the lie to the principle of causality, by virtue of which nothing can be found in the effect which is not contained in its cause. Hence very few naturalists (though Dr. Draper calls them many) are so reckless as to support, or countenance by their example, a belief in spontaneous generation. Nothing would be easier to them than to imitate Dr. Draper by assuming without proof what is not susceptible of proof; but, although some scientists have adopted this convenient course, few have dared to follow them, because the inadmissibility of spontaneous generation has been confirmed by the best experimental methods of modern science itself. Now, if this is the case in the present condition of the world, and with such an abundance of organic matter, how can any one, with any show of reason, maintain that in the remote ages of the world, and before any organic compound had made its appearance on earth, cells and seeds and eggs burst forth spontaneously from inorganic matter without the intervention of the divine power?
At any rate, if it would be preposterous to assume that inert, lifeless, unintelligent matter has the power of planning and making a time-piece, a sewing-machine, a velocipede, or a wheelbarrow, how can a man in his senses assume that the same inert, lifeless, and unintelligent matter has the power to plan, form, and put together in perfect harmony, due proportion, and providential order the organic elements and rudiments of that immensely more complicated structure which we call an ovum or a seed, with its potentiality of life and growth, and its indefinite power of reproduction? And who can believe that the same inert, lifeless, and unintelligent matter has been so inventive, so crafty, and so provident as to devise two sexes for each animal species, and to make them so fit for one another, with so powerful an instinct to unite with one another, as to ensure the propagation of their kind for an indefinite series of centuries?
We need not develop this argument further. Books of natural history are full of the beauties and marvels concealed in millions of minute organisms, which proclaim to the world the wisdom of their contriver, and denounce the folly of a science which bestows on dead matter the honor due to the living God. Evolution of life under the hand of God would have a meaning; but evolution of life “without the intervention of the divine power” means nothing at all, as it is, in fact, inconceivable.
Dr. Draper quotes Aristotle in favor of spontaneous generation. The Greek philosopher, in the eighth book of his history of animals, when speaking of the chain of living things remarks: “Nature passes so gradually from inanimate to animate things that from their continuity the boundary between them is indistinct. The race of plants succeeds immediately that of inanimate objects, and these differ from each other in the proportion of life in which they participate; for, compared with minerals, plants appear to possess life, though when compared with animals they appear inanimate. The change from plants to animals is gradual; a person might question to which of these classes some marine objects belong.” This doctrine is unobjectionable; but we fail to see its bearing on spontaneous generation. Aristotle does not speak here of a chain of beings genetically connected, nor does he derive the plant from the mineral, or the animal from the plant. On the other hand, even if we granted that Aristotle “referred the primitive organisms to spontaneous generation,” we might easily explain the blunder by reflecting that a pagan philosopher, having no idea of creation, could not but err when philosophizing about the origin of things.