We have reached the point where it can be seen that evolution, when elevated from a biological hypothesis into a theory of the universe, is in need of the theistic postulate in order to make it workable. Theism, in fact, offers a twofold advantage to the evolution theory. It satisfies the causal demand, and it furnishes the means of combining the two ideas of continuity and progress which have impressed themselves so deeply upon the mind of our generation.
In the first place it satisfies the causal demand. If evolution is but the unfolding of the implicit, as the preformation view would have it, an explanation is naturally sought for the marvellous properties of the original star-dust, or mind-stuff, or the primordial living germ. The more mechanical the interpretation of the course of things becomes, the more insistent, again, will be the questions, Who made the mechanism? Who drives the mechanism? Even from the standpoint of epigenesis, the appearance of an entirely new element, which by hypothesis is not merely implicit in the previous state of things, must be referred to some adequate cause or ground. Evolution, in any of its forms, is the name of a method rather than of a cause; and "logic compels the evolutionist to assume a force that was not evolved, but which existed before evolution began."[86]
If we interpret the power behind evolution in a theistic sense, and believe that God is immanent in nature and in the life of man, we are not absolved from the task of tracing as far as possible the natural history of life and mind, but we may view that history from a standpoint from which both origin and progressive development become intelligible. No scientific hypothesis is able in itself to carry us all the way from "concentrating nebulæ to the thoughts of poets." A theory of the universe which shall do justice to the conceptions both of continuity and progress can best be framed with the aid of the category of purpose.
The continuity is preserved in the unity of the developing plan, no stage of which is sudden or abrupt, but is related "filially" to the stage and the stages which preceded. The relation between two stages is not like that between the two members of an equation, a relation of exact equivalence between the evolved and the involved. There is a really new element in the later stage if there is a real progress. But the new factor comes not in dramatic or spectacular fashion; it comes without observation, and comes not to destroy but to fulfill.
If the evolution theory is to cover the whole history of the world and of man, it must be hospitable to the ideas both of continuity and progress. An interpretation of evolution so framed would be opposed, indeed, to the conception of a Creator touching the world only with His finger-tips, and exhausting His creative power in its initial exercise. It would be opposed to materialistic monism, as well as to an idealistic or pantheistic monism which would reduce the evolutionary and historic process to mere appearance. Evolution in its theistic construction sees in the lower orders of existence and in the earlier stages of life the promise, but not the potency, of the higher. It assumes the existence of a power immanent in the universe and adequate to account for the appearance of new forces. It can interpret alike the continuity of the evolutionary process, and the appearance once for all in the irreversible moments of progress of new forms and forces of life. It admits the possibility of the appearance of new spiritual forces in the course of history, and opens a vista of illimitable progress.
No one was more certain than Huxley, when speaking of the relation of man to the lower animals, that "whether from them or not, he is assuredly not of them."[87] Man's peculiar endowments, his sense of law and beauty, his spiritual capacities and aspirations, all of these, if laws of analogy and causation are to hold, point to a different dimension of being from that of nature below him. If "man still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin,"[88] he bears in the framework of his mind and moral nature the indelible stamp of his spiritual origin. His spiritual endowments can find their explanation only in a spiritual world. They have arisen, not from the lair of the wild beast, but rather from the bosom of God. No ascertained fact of science, nor any legitimate or necessary inference from any such fact, forbids the affirmation of faith, "It is He that hath made us," and "we are His people."
With each advance of science the thoughts of men are disturbed. The discoveries of Copernicus and Galileo seemed to destroy the foundations of the Christian, or even the theistic, view of the world; but the astronomer to-day can see anew God's glory in the heavens and more impressive evidence of His greatness and majesty. When Newton's laws of motion displaced the idea that the planets were conveyed about their orbits by angelic beings, it was feared that atheism was the logical inference. But Newton himself remained a devout theist, and even Voltaire, his admirer, was ready
"To follow Newton in that boundless road,
Where nature's lost, and ev'rything but God."
So when evolution, through the genius of Darwin, came into popular discussion and acceptance, it was feared that chance had been enthroned in the universe, and that religion was destined to extinction. But in the progress of the evolution theory, as its advocates have split into various camps, the sense of the mystery in the origins and laws of the organic world has deepened, and many can see in nature the evidence of a diviner wisdom than before.
Dr. Schäfer in his presidential address before the British Association, in 1912, spoke in one sense of the continuity of life, giving to it what seemed like a mechanical or materialistic interpretation. The following presidential address, by Sir Oliver Lodge, spoke of the continuity of life in another sense, a continuation of life after death; and argued that mechanism is inadequate to explain the facts of life, and asserted that "genuine religion has its roots deep down in the heart of humanity, and in the reality of things." At each stage of advance in science, says a recent writer, "this joyful overestimate of the possibilities of mechanism becomes a marked feature of contemporary thought. As each piece of knowledge becomes assimilated, it is seen that the old problems are in their essence unaltered; the poet, the seer and the mystic again come to their own, and, in new language, and from a higher ground of vantage, proclaim their message to mankind."[89]