Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics / With Some of Their Applications

by William Thomas Thornton

To what we might thus be assured of, even if we had only general principles to guide us, all obtainable evidence unanimously testifies. Geology distinctly proclaims that every portion of our globe's surface has undergone vast changes, and that its organic inhabitants have changed simultaneously and proportionately. The proof absolute, which it furnishes, that at a period when few, if any, existing species had made their appearance, many species now extinct already existed, is proof equally absolute that if all species extinct and extant were created, they cannot, at any rate, have been created at the same time. Of so much at least we must be satisfied, unless we are prepared to accept the ingenious conjecture of an orthodox divine, that, while our earth was being formed out of chaos, Satan, to confound the faith of remote generations, brought over bones of monsters from other worlds and embedded them in the soil of ours, or that, as the same idea has been otherwise expressed, while the earth's crust was a baking the devil had a finger in the pie. Moreover, on the supposition that there was a break of ages between the creations of extinct and of extant species, as geology positively declares there must have been if both were separately created, how passing strange is the 'grand fact that all extinct beings can be classed with all recent beings'! The strangeness disappears, however, when both are regarded as descendants of common progenitors. The wonder would then be if they could not be so classed. Again, how astonishing on the creative, how natural on the evolutionary hypothesis, that the arrangement of bones in the hand of a man, the wing of a bat, the fin of a porpoise, the leg of a horse, should be precisely the same; the number of vertebræ in the neck of a giraffe, and in that of an elephant the same; the primitive germs from which a man, a dog, a frog, and a lobster are gradually evolved, to all appearance the same—the same microscopic atom of homogeneous matter, undistinguishable by any known test from an animalcule almost at the bottom of the organic scale! Above all, that the courses by which animals of all degrees of complexity are gradually developed from apparently equally simple germs should, whenever traceable, be found to consist of progressive ramifications, so that every higher animal, before arriving at maturity, passes through several stages at the end of each of which lower animals have stopped! How impossible, or how easy, to understand, according as the one or the other hypothesis is adopted, is the phenomenon of what in the one case will be treated as rudimentary, in the other as obsolete, organs! No one need scruple to regard these as apparatus which the creature has outgrown and allowed to fall into decay through neglect; but whatever there is in us of real nobleness of feeling revolts against the notion of their being apparatus which a divine Creator began to build but was not able to finish. And yet again, how insultingly irreconcilable with any rational estimate of Divine nature is the possibility of any existing type of mammals having been created, seeing that if so, it must have been created with false marks of nourishment from the womb of a mother that never existed!

These are some of the main grounds on which the Darwinian theory rests. Of the abundance of detailed illustrations from which it may derive additional support no adequate idea can be formed, except by careful perusal of its author's own writings, and these fortunately may without much exaggeration be said to be in everybody's hands. Of the arguments that have been brought forward in opposition to it, all seem to me to be susceptible of very complete answers, and one or two of the strongest, of answers more complete than they have yet received. True, there is no disputing the testimony borne by the paintings and sculptures of Egyptian tombs, and of Ninevite palaces, that the basement floors in Thebes and Memphis were infested by much the same sort of beetles as those which are such nuisances in London kitchens; that Sardanapalus, if ever he exchanged indoor for outdoor sports, may have hunted with dogs and horses that might pass muster at an English meet, and that the Pharaohs were served by negro slaves as like as two peas in all externals to those who in the United States have recently and prematurely been metamorphosed into free and independent electors. But all this only proves that certain species which existed 4,000 years ago are still represented by unchanged descendants. It does not prove that other descendants and groups of descendants from the same species have not within the same period undergone changes sufficiently great to convert them into distinct races; neither, if it did prove thus much, would it do more than afford a presumption, and a very deceptive one, that 4,000 years are too short a time for the formation of a new race, affording besides, at the same time, much stronger presumption that, within the remotest limits to which Mosaic chronology can be pushed back, the various races of mankind, white, black, and intermediately tinted, can not possibly have descended from one pair of ancestors.

That domesticated animals, when suffered to run wild, always return to the primitive wild type—this, instead of an argument against, is one of the strongest arguments for the evolution theory, from which it is indeed, as Mr. G. H. Lewes says, a necessary deduction. It is simply because, as the conditions of life change, structure must, for adaptation's sake, change likewise, that wild animals are capable of being domesticated, of being, that is, made to undergo modifications by being brought from the conditions of wildness to those of domesticity. How, then, should they possibly retain those modifications, how escape return to their previous shape and habits, when retransferred from domesticity to wildness?

The question, Why are not new species continually produced? may be aptly met by another. How, consistently with the theory, is it possible they should? Natural Selection is represented as acting 'solely by accumulating slight successive favourable variations,' as taking only short and slow steps. By what possibility, then, can it suddenly produce modifications sufficiently conspicuous to mark off a new species? New species may be, and indeed are, constantly in process of formation on all sides, under our very eyes, without our being aware; for since the process requires ages for its accomplishment, it must needs be imperceptible by the keenest observation. So that even when a new species is completed, it is not recognised as new, so minute is the difference between the perfection to which it has attained, and the imperfect state in which we and our fathers before us had long known it.

'Why, however, since, according to the theory of Natural Selection, an interminable number of intermediate forms must have existed, linking together all the species in each group by gradations as fine as are our present varieties—why do we not see these linking forms all around us?' To this objection the very theory against which it is urged affords a partial and almost adequate reply, the deficiencies of which are besides to some extent supplied by embryology and geology, and to a farther extent accounted for by the meagreness of the geological record. Natural selection for survival necessarily implies extinction of all that are not selected to survive, so that fossil remains are now the only procurable evidence that any of these latter that have long been extinct ever existed. But very many organic beings are incapable of being preserved in a fossil condition, while of those which can be so preserved 'the number of specimens in all our museums is absolutely as nothing compared with the countless generations of countless species that must have existed.' It should be recollected, too, that among still existing forms are to be included several which result from uterine transformation, and are never found alive except in utero.

Another objection, notwithstanding the great stress often laid on it, seems to me to be altogether beside the real issue. It is the one derived from the invariable sterility, real or supposed, of hybrids. A fact cited by Mr. Lewes,[37] that of the fecundity of a cross called Leporides, bred by M. Rouy of Angoulême, between the hare and rabbit, of which a thousand on an average were for many years, and probably are still, sent annually to market, would seem to be decisive against the assumed sterility; but, however this be, matters not the least in regard to the efficacy of Natural Selection, which, be it once again observed, is represented as producing new species, not suddenly by the copulation of two old and utterly distinct ones, but very gradually and slowly, by the accumulation of minute differences occurring in successive individuals of the same species.

The chief if not the only serious obstacles to acceptance of Darwinism seem to me to be of the author's own creation. Now and then he appears somewhat needlessly to overstrain his principles, as for instance when he intimates his conviction that 'all individuals of the same species, and all the closely allied species of most genera,' will hereafter be discovered to 'have descended from one parent and to have migrated from some one birthplace.' This, to my mind, is much more unlikely than his further suggestion that 'all animals and plants are descended from some one prototype.' Startling as this second proposition may be on first hearing, it may not very improbably express the real fact, provided by 'some one prototype' be signified, not a single individual, but several individuals of one and the same type. Beyond all doubt there was a time when on and about our earth all matter was as yet inorganic, and when whatever spirit,[38] of the sort so termed in contradistinction to matter, either permeated the earth's substance or moved about its surface, must have been as yet unembodied. Mr. Darwin demands whether any one can 'really believe that at innumerable periods in the earth's history, elemental atoms have been commanded suddenly to flash into living tissues.' I for one certainly am far from believing this. I see no reason for believing that, whatever other phenomenon, at all similar, may at any stage of the world's progress have occurred, it has at innumerable subsequent stages been repeated; neither do I consider that the phenomenon is likely to have worn the guise of a sudden flash. But I do firmly believe, and am quite unable to substitute any equally plausible substitute for the belief, that when the crust of the earth had sufficiently cooled, and when other physical conditions had become such as to admit of the manifestation of that life which we are accustomed to distinguish by attaching to it the epithet 'organic,' certain of those forces[39] which, in my opinion, constitute matter, did, either of their own accord or under superior direction—not suddenly flash, but—slowly elaborate themselves into organic structures of some exceedingly simple type; that in the course of ages these simple structures either developed themselves or were developed into structures rendered by slow degrees more and more complex, until the degree of complexity attained, being such as to fit them for being inhabited by spirit previously unembodied, they were, by individualised portions of such spirit, appropriated and inhabited accordingly. Beyond all doubt, at some period or other, what had always previously been unorganised matter must have become organised. Of two things one, then. Either this matter must, whether under superior direction or not, have organised itself, or it must have been organised by some other agency. Mr. Darwin, together with all thorough-going Darwinians, inclines, I suspect, to the opinion that matter organised itself; but if so, it cannot possibly have been inert or lifeless, but must have been active and animate, and capable of volition; and on that condition, there is no great stretch of fancy in imagining it to have spontaneously adopted the series of arrangements indicated. If, on the other hand, we are content to admit that some external superior intelligence may have performed, or conducted, or presided over operations, all room for wonder vanishes.

In regard to the character of the structural prototype, that, of course, would depend in part on surrounding physical conditions, and if these have ever been the same in all parts of the globe, there is no apparent reason why any number of specimens of the prototype may not anywhere have been independently elaborated. It is not possible, however, that, since the earth began to revolve round the sun, physical conditions can have been simultaneously the same in all latitudes; while, on the other hand, it seems probable that, although the same set of conditions might perhaps admit of the production of only one organic type, there might be other sets of conditions favourable to the production of other types. On the whole, then, it seems more probable that inorganic matter combined (or was combined) in the first instance in several modes, than in one single mode, in order to become organic. But whatever may have been the organic form or forms it first took, to assume that only a single individual of each form was independently elaborated, and that all other individuals, both of the same form and of all the more complex forms, gradually evolved from that one—are descendants from the same first individual, the same first parent—surely very gratuitously increases the difficulties of the subject. Especially it complicates the problem of the distribution of the same plants and animals over countries immemorially separated by gulfs apparently impassable by natural means.

The obstruction which Mr. Darwin has created to the progress of his opinions by the exaggerated shape in which some of them have been presented is, however, as nothing in comparison with the injury he does to his theory by obstinately rejecting certain materials indispensable for its satisfactory completion. What an admirable theory it is so far as it goes! How nicely it fits into all the facts it comes in contact with, even into those which it is, of itself and unassisted, incompetent to explain! How elevating too and ennobling, when rightly conceived! for who can fail to rejoice in the view it presents of 'Natural selection working solely by and for the good of each being' that it spares, and causing 'all corporal and mental endowments to tend towards perfection'? or who need mind suspecting himself to be descended, through an ape, from a triton or a hydra, if he may compensate himself by hoping to have a distant posterity of angels? How well, moreover, would it, if permitted, chime in with any rational religion, besides being, as already hinted, absolutely essential to that part of the Mosaic creed which represents all the variously coloured and variously featured races of men as springing from one single couple. By what perversity then is it that Mr. Darwin takes such pains, if not to render his theory irreligious, at least to exclude from it the assistance which religion alone can afford, and which it so greatly needs, that whoever, without that assistance, attempts to apply the theory to the complete elucidation of phenomena, will be found inevitably committing himself to the most astounding hypotheses? Here I picture to myself a curl on the lip of some advanced Darwinian who, having accompanied me so far, cannot altogether suppress his compassionate scorn at the proposed recurrence now-a-days to a mode of thought so obsolete in the treatment of scientific subjects as the theological. 'Positive biology,' he will perhaps superbly exclaim, repeating the words of Mr. G. H. Lewes, 'declines theological explanations altogether.' Yes, but positive biology is therein very unwise, for as, if the same reader will accompany me a little further, I pledge myself to show, it is the untheological or atheistical, not the theistical, mode of treatment which is here utterly out of place and flagrantly unscientific. Be it, without the slightest reserve, admitted that the formation of almost all, and probably of quite all, existing species is due, and cannot be otherwise than due, to survival of the fittest, the superior fitness of these, moreover, being due to the gradual accumulation of innumerable and, for the most part, exceedingly slight divergencies from the parent stock. But whence and why these divergencies? It cannot be without a cause that even one more feather than the parent possessed appears in the offspring's wing, or a novel tint on its coat, or that the curve of beak or talons is not precisely the same in each. What then is the cause? Unphilosophic people will most likely call it 'all chance,' getting sneered at for their pains, and justly too, as using words without meaning. But are not philosophers themselves doing much the same thing, and merely restating facts which they profess to explain, when, like Mr. Lewes,[40] they talk of the 'specific shape' assumed by an 'organic plasma' being 'always dependent on the polarity of its molecules,' 'or due to the operation of immanent properties;' or declare that, in the process of organic evolution, 'each stage determines its successor,' 'consensus of the whole impressing a peculiar direction on the development of parts, and the law of Epigenesis necessitating a serial development,' insomuch that, 'every part being the effect of a pre-existing, and in turn the cause of a succeeding part,' the reason why, when a crab loses its claw, the member is reproduced, is that the group of cells remaining at the stump 'is the necessary condition of the genesis' of precisely that new group which the reproductive process imperatively requires to follow next in order, this second group equally the necessary condition for genesis of the one required third, the third for the fourth, and so on; and that the reason why the thorns of a blackberry admit of somewhat close comparison with the hooks and spines of certain crustaceæ, is that portions of the integument of both plant and crawfish 'tend under similar external forces to develop' into similar forms?

I pass rapidly over one or two minor difficulties that here present themselves. I will not stop to ask how—if reproduction of lost limbs be due to polarity of the molecules, in other words to the direction which in the circumstances of the case the molecules are bound to take, and if the polarity of each particular set of molecules be impressed upon them by the group formed immediately previously—how it is that the group terminating the docked stump of a limb, which group is represented as commencing the work of reproduction, imparts a different direction or tendency to the fresh molecules of nourishment that are supplied to it, from that which it has been accustomed to communicate to previous molecular supplies. Hitherto it has used such molecules solely for the repair of its own waste; now it employs a large portion of them to build up an entirely new fabric. It seems then that molecular polarity is not a fixed but a variable property, and, being such, cannot be inherent or originate in the molecular nature. But I will not linger over this point nor yet over the fact, absolutely unintelligible on the polar hypothesis, that it is comparatively only few animals that are capable of reproducing severed parts. Although the process required, no doubt, is, as Mr. Lewes says, 'in all essential respects the same as that which originally produced' the parts, the last layer of cells left at the place of excision after a human leg or arm has been cut off, lacks the skill to repeat an operation, which according to the hypothesis it has once before performed. It cannot so determine the polarity of the molecules with which it is supplied by the arteries as to constrain them to group themselves into a new layer, instead of merely repairing an old one. A crab or a lobster, or a polype's molecules are clever enough for this, a man's not. Without pressing these objections, but on the contrary, conceding for the nonce and for argument's sake, to molecular polarity, to immanent properties, to Epigenetic evolution, all the efficacy claimed for them, I limit myself to inquiring what causes the various tendencies and directions which these imply. Tendency pre-supposes impulse; direction control. What is it that here imparts the impulse and exercises the control? Whatever else it be, it must, for reasons stated at length on a previous page, be something possessing at least enough of intelligence to exercise volition, and which at least intends that the movements which it originates shall take place, whether it further intends or not the ends which eventually result from the movements. To myself it seems barely conceivable that even the least marvellous of these ends should have been undesigned. Take, for instance, half a dozen infusoria of some exceedingly low type, all individually single cells or sacs of matter perfectly transparent and destitute of any approach to structure that can be detected with a magnifying power of five thousand diameters. Observe how, after feeding for a while, and increasing proportionately in size, one will divide itself in half, each half becoming a separate and complete animalcule, another line itself internally and clothe itself externally with clustered cells, which, by a series of differentiations, traceable through a number of animalcular varieties, eventually exhibit the outlines of respiratory and circulatory systems. To me, I repeat, it seems all but inconceivable, and altogether incredible, that the intelligence which willed these cellular divisions, multiplications, and differentiations to take place, did not foresee what would be their results, and did not will them for the sake of those results. And if I do not deem it still more incredible that there should be natural selection separating the fittest for survival by accumulating upon them slight advantages which qualify them to survive, without there being at the same time a nature, or other exalted intelligence, however designated, which selects, and which accumulates advantages upon the objects of its selection, in order that they may survive, it is only because I consider the extremest limits of credibility to have been already passed. But I forget. On reflection I perceive that I am doing scant justice to the elasticity of philosophic belief. How far this is capable of stretching on occasion, let one or two notable Darwinian specimens show.