In His Image

by William Jennings Bryan

If we see houses of different size, from one room to one hundred, we do not say that the large houses grew out of small ones, but that the architect that could plan one could plan all.

But a groundless hypothesis—even an absurd one—would be unworthy of notice if it did no harm. This hypothesis, however, does incalculable harm. It teaches that Christianity impairs the race physically. That was the first implication at which I revolted. It led me to review the doctrine and reject it entirely. If hatred is the law of man's development; that is, if man has reached his present perfection by a cruel law under which the strong kill off the weak—then, if there is any logic that can bind the human mind, we must turn backward toward the brute if we dare to substitute the law of love for the law of hate. That is the conclusion that I reached and it is the conclusion that Darwin himself reached. On pages 149-50 he says: "With savages the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the progress of elimination. We build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed and the sick; we institute poor laws; our medical experts exert their utmost skill to save the lives of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands who from weak constitutions would have succumbed to smallpox. Thus the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man."

This confession deserves analysis. First, he commends, by implication, the savage method of eliminating the weak, while, by implication, he condemns "civilized men" for prolonging the life of the weak. He even blames vaccination because it has preserved thousands who might otherwise have succumbed (for the benefit of the race?). Can you imagine anything more brutal? And then note the low level of the argument. "No one who has attended the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man." All on a brute basis.

His hypothesis breaks down here. The minds which, according to Darwin, are developed by natural selection and sexual selection, use their power to suspend the law by which they have reached their high positions. Medicine is one of the greatest of the sciences and its chief object is to save life and strengthen the weak. That, Darwin complains, interferes with "the survival of the fittest." If he complains of vaccination, what would he say of the more recent discovery of remedies for typhoid fever, yellow fever and the black plague? And what would he think of saving weak babies by pasteurizing milk and of the efforts to find a specific for tuberculosis and cancer? Can such a barbarous doctrine be sound?

But Darwin's doctrine is even more destructive. His heart rebels against the "hard reason" upon which his heartless hypothesis is built. He says: "The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly the result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as a part of the social instincts, but subsequently rendered in the manner indicated, more tender and more widely diffused. Nor could we check our sympathy even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature. The surgeon may harden himself while performing an operation, for he knows he is acting for the good of his patient; but if we were to intentionally neglect the weak and the helpless, it could be only for a contingent benefit, with overwhelming present evil. We must therefore bear the undoubted bad effects of the weak surviving and propagating their kind."

The moral nature which, according to Darwin, is also developed by natural selection and sexual selection, repudiates the brutal law to which, if his reasoning is correct, it owes its origin. Can that doctrine be accepted as scientific when its author admits that we cannot apply it "without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature"? On the contrary, civilization is measured by the moral revolt against the cruel doctrine developed by Darwin.

Darwin rightly decided to suspend his doctrine, even at the risk of impairing the race. But some of his followers are more hardened. A few years ago I read a book in which the author defended the use of alcohol on the ground that it rendered a service to society by killing off the degenerates. And this argument was advanced by a scientist in the fall of 1920 at a congress against alcohol.

The language which I have quoted proves that Darwinism is directly antagonistic to Christianity, which boasts of its eleemosynary institutions and of the care it bestows on the weak and the helpless. Darwin, by putting man on a brute basis and ignoring spiritual values, attacks the very foundations of Christianity.

Those who accept Darwin's views are in the habit of saying that it need not lessen their reverence for God to believe that the Creator fashioned a germ of life and endowed it with power to develop into what we see to-day. It is true that a God who could make man as he is, could have made him by the long-drawn-out process suggested by Darwin. To do either would require infinite power, beyond the ability of man to comprehend. But what is the natural tendency of Darwin's doctrine?

Will man's attitude toward Darwin's God be the same as it would be toward the God of Moses? Will the believer in Darwin's God be as conscious of God's presence in his daily life? Will he be as sensitive to God's will and as anxious to find out what God wants him to do?