Evolution: An Investigation and a Critique Part 4

CHAPTER EIGHT.

A Scientific Creed Outworn.

The preceding chapter concludes our investigation of that stage of evolutionistic thought which owes its origin and name to Charles Darwin.

The question suggests itself, do scientists to-day believe as Darwin did?

A great many do. Darwin remains to many scientists what Huxley, I think, called him, the "Abraham of scientific thought." But if we examine the roster of these, we find that they belong, with a single exception (Haeckel), to those whose departments of investigation have nothing to do with the study of life forms (biology, zoology, botany), and who consequently do not speak from first hand knowledge of the facts.

Anthropologists (students of the races of man), sociologists, psychologists, and many educated persons generally, accept the Darwinian scheme of evolution as a fact and build their theories on it in turn.

They accept the theory and ask no question. The vogue which Darwinism still enjoys among writers of school-texts has already been noted.

However, the specifically Darwinian phase of evolutionistic thought, as laid down in Spencer's interminable volumes, for instance, is given up by reputable biologists the world over. There is pretty much of a Babel among them, when it comes to a definition of evolution. There are dozens of theories,--mutation, orthogenesis, Weismanism, Mendelianism, etc.,-- and each has its adherents,--but they agree in one thing, that "Natural Selection" does not account for the forms of life on earth to-day.

The revolt against "Natural Selection" came some forty years ago. It was announced in two famous declarations by Spencer and Huxley. This const.i.tutes one of the most remarkable and important, as well as one of the most significant episodes, in the history of evolution. In two of the most remarkable essays which ever appeared in the _"Nineteenth Century"_ magazine, now over thirty years ago, Herbert Spencer stepped on to the stool of repentance and read his recantation and renunciation of the doctrine of natural selection and the survival of the fittest; first doing vicarious penance (unauthorized, however) for Darwin, and then, in no uncertain terms, for himself. There was no mistaking Spencer's meaning. His language was explicit. "The phrases (natural selection and survival of the fittest) employed in discussing organic evolution," he told his readers, "though convenient and needful, are liable to mislead by veiling the actual agencies." "The words 'natural selection,' do not express a cause in the physical sense." "Kindred objections," he continues, "may be urged against the expression into which I was led when seeking to present the phenomena in literal terms rather than metaphorical terms--'the survival of the fittest.' In the working together of those many actions, internal and external, which determine the lives and deaths of organisms, we see nothing to which the words 'fitness' and 'unfitness' are applicable in the physical sense."

And he continues: "Evidently, the word 'fittest' as thus used _is a figure of speech."_ Had the sun fallen from the heavens the shock to the followers of Darwin could not have been more stunning than this open apostasy from the Darwinian faith.

Nor was this all. New surprises were still in store for the faithful who still clung to the cherished dogma. Now they find their faith itself a.s.sailed, and this, too, by these very selfsame leaders, who had been at such pains to make them proselytes. There can be little doubt that misgivings regarding the truth of their claims began to haunt the champions of the Darwinian hypothesis. They were just then masters of the whole field of scientific thought. They had brought all science to the feet of Darwin. The few benighted dissenters who still held out against the doctrine were looked upon as not worthy even of contempt.

The whole world had adopted the creed of evolution. Was it wantonness then, or was it conscience, that prompted Huxley in what is now a historically famous speech, delivered at the unveiling of a statue to Darwin in the Museum at South Kensington, to openly declare that it would be wrong to suppose "that an authoritative sanction was given by the ceremony to the current ideas concerning evolution?" Well might his hearers be astonished! But they must have held their breath, when they heard him add boldly and bluntly, in no uncertain tones, that "science commits suicide when it adopts a creed." A creed, indeed! What had science been doing in the field of evolution ever since Darwin has given his doctrine to the world, but proclaiming its faith in the Darwinian creed?

There was no blinking the inevitable conclusions. Both Huxley on the platform and Spencer in the _"Nineteenth Century"_ had acknowledged before the whole world that they had lost faith in the idol which for thirty years they had so vociferously worshipped. It is true that both Spencer and Huxley might have intended to warn biologists merely against a too implicit faith in natural selection or the survival of the fittest. But even so, the position of their followers was little to be envied. Their leaders had confidently a.s.sured them that Darwin had given to the world coveted knowledge never known until he had discovered it.

This had been loudly and confidently proclaimed from the housetops of science; and now--strange reversal--those same leaders tell them that their preachments were of a faith without foundation.

The words of Professor Osborn may be adduced: "Between the appearance of _'The Origin of Species'_ in 1859 and the present time there have been great waves of faith in one explanation and then in another; each of these waves of confidence has ended in disappointment, until finally we have reached a stage of very general scepticism. Thus the long period of observation, experiment and reasoning which began with the French philosopher Buffon, one hundred and fifty years ago, ends in 1916 with the general feeling that our search for causes, far from being near completion, has only just begun."

Sir William Dawson, of Montreal, the eminent geologist, said that the evolution doctrine is "one of the strangest phenomena of humanity, a system dest.i.tute of any shadow of proof," (_"Story of the Earth and Man,"_ p. 317). Even Professor Tyndall in an article in the _"Fortnightly Review"_ said: "There ought to be a clear distinction made between science in the state of hypothesis and science in the state of fact. And inasmuch as it is still in its hypothetical stage the ban of exclusion ought to fall upon the theory of Evolution. I agree with Virchow that the proofs of it are still wanting, that the failures have been lamentable, that the doctrine is utterly discredited."

One of the ablest evolutionists today is Professor Henslow, formerly President of the British a.s.sociation. In his book, _"Modern Rationalism Critically Examined,"_ he shows that Darwinian natural selection is absolutely inadequate to account for existing facts.

Professor Bateson, who gave the Presidential Address at the Meeting of the British a.s.sociation for the Advancement of Science, in 1914, bore striking testimony to the modifications made by recent science in connection with the Darwinian theory. This is what he said among other things: "The principle of natural selection cannot have been the chief factor in delimiting the species of animals and plants. We go to Darwin for his incomparable collection of facts. We would fain emulate his scholarship, his width and his power of exposition, but to us he speaks no more with philosophical authority. We have done with the notion that Darwin came latterly to favor, that large differences can arise by acc.u.mulation of small differences."

St. George Mivart as long as thirty years ago wrote an exhaustive treatise ent.i.tled, _"The Genesis of Species,"_ in which he subjects the Darwinian hypothesis to a searching examination, and discards it as unproven in every particular and contradicted by the facts of nature in many points. He called it "a puerile (childish) hypothesis."

Professor H. H. Gran of Christiana University, an expert in biology, says he believes in evolution, but declares Darwin's explanation of it to be inadequate. His words are: "Darwin collected a great ma.s.s of stuff both from the animal as well as from the vegetable kingdom, but these collections were not thoroughly sifted and cannot be used as the basis of theoretical conclusions as Darwin did."

Prof. Fleischman, of Erlangen, says: "There is not a single fact to confirm Darwinism in the realm of Nature." Drs. E. Dennert, Hoppe and von Hartmann; Profs. Paulson and Rutemeyer, and the talented scientists Zoeckler and Max Wundt, have given Darwinism up. Men like our own H. F.

Osborn may still cling to the beloved theory and furnish imaginary pictures of ape-men as proof, in recent books; but hear Prof. Ernest Haeckel himself: "Most modern investigators of science have come to the conclusion that the doctrine of evolution, and particularly Darwinism, is an error, and cannot be maintained." This was said some years before the Great War. Other names (Friedmann, de Cyon) might be added.

The present att.i.tude of naturalists toward the theory may be learned from a symposium by a number of eminent writers in a recent number of the "Biblical World" (February, 1913), on the theme, "Has Evolution Collapsed?"

Prof. Moulton, of Chicago, says: "The essence of evolution is that the order which exists one day changes into the order which will exist on succeeding days, in a systematic manner, rather than in an irregular and chaotic one." This states the theory, but adds a mere plat.i.tude, for all believe that the universe is orderly and not chaotic. The real question is, What is the nature and the cause of the prevailing order?

This question he does not attempt to answer.

Prof. Lillie, of Chicago, tells us that there are "differences in opinion among recent investigators concerning the method of evolution,"

and says: "Opinion in reference to this matter is in a state of flux."

Prof. Mathews, of Chicago, says: "While the fact of evolution is universally admitted, the means by which evolution is brought to pa.s.s are uncertain."

Prof. Patten, of Darmouth, says: "As for biologists, they are now farther from agreement as to what const.i.tutes the processes and conditions essential to organic evolution, * * * [tr. note: sic] than they were a generation ago."

Prof. Mall, of Johns Hopkins, says: "It is true that gradual evolution, as advocated by Darwin, is seriously questioned by those who believe that it takes place by 'rapid jumps.'"

Prof. Williston, of Chicago, says: "The causes of organic evolution are still an unsolved problem; and he will be a greater man than Darwin, who finally demonstrates them."

Thus these recognized authorities, while accepting the theory, add many limitations and admit that the "method," the "manner," the "process,"

the "conditions" and the "causes" of the movement are still unknown.

What, then, remains of the theory? Not much but the name.

CHAPTER NINE.

Man.

"There is no longer any doubt among scientists that man descended from the animals." This sweeping statement was made in 1920 by Edwin Grant Conklin professor of biology in Princeton University. And so evolutionists generally, while giving up geology as hopeless in regard to the evolution of plants and animals, cling to the doctrine that man has ascended, through long ages of development, from the brute. We have seen that Wallace and other profound students of the subject recognize the essential difference between the faculties of man and the instincts of animals. They admit that forces resident in matter do not account for the origin of Thought. They believe that Spirit,--G.o.d,--created something new when intelligence first entered the brain of man. But even Wallace holds that the human body is a product of evolution; that there was a common brute ancestor, both for apes and the men. The search for the missing link between man and his animal ancestor is still going on.

As soon as any human remains are dug up in the earth, evolutionists begin to measure the skull and bones, and to find how many points of resemblance they have to the apes. If the brain-pan is a bit shallow, or small, or the eyebrows prominent, or the slope of the face acute, or the teeth and jaws large, they announce with much confidence that the "missing link" has been found. But after a while they begin to grow more modest and end in finding other points which show that the specimen was an unmistakable ape, or an unmistakable man, and not something between the two. One could fill a museum with discarded missing links; and yet men refuse to learn caution, and repeat their shoutings every time a new find is announced. It will be instructive to pa.s.s in review a few of the more famous prehistoric remains of man which have at one time and another been declared undeniable proof of a development, through intermediate stages, of the human body from the body of a brute.

_Pithecanthropus Erectus_ is the name invented by Haeckel for the "missing link," and given by Dr. Eugene Du Bois, a Dutch physician, to certain remains discovered by him on the island of Java in 1891. The remains consist of "an imperfect cranium, a femur bearing evidence of prolonged disease, and a molar tooth." (Dana, _"Manual of Geology,"_ p.

1036.) The discoverer of these bones believed that they are the remains of a being between the man-apes and man. Prof. Virchow and other specialists in anatomy examined this find. It was established that the femur was found a year after the cranium. Some regard the remains as belonging to a low-grade man or to an idiot. (Dana, _I c_.) The cubic measurement of the skull is 60 cubic inches, about that of an idiot, that of a normal man being 90 cubic inches and that of an ape 30. These specimens were found in separate places. The skull is too small for the thigh-bone. The age of the strata in which they were found is uncertain.

An authority of the first rank, Prof. Klaatsch, of Heidelberg University, says that the creature "does not supply the missing link."

Dr. Smith Woodward and Dr. Charles Dawson, in reconstructing a man from the _Piltdown skull_, discovered in 1912 on Piltdown Common, near Ucksfield, Suss.e.x, England, built up something essentially monkey-like, with receding forehead, projecting brows, and a gorilla-like lower jaw.

Prof. Keith, a renowned specialist, checking up on this reconstruction, comes to an entirely different conclusion. He finds that the work of Drs.

Dawson and Woodward was done "in open defiance of all that scientists know about skulls, whether ancient or modern." His words are: "I soon saw that the parts of the reconstructed Piltdown skull had been apposed in a manner which was in open defiance of all that was known of skulls, ancient and modern, human and anthropoid. Articulating the bones in a manner which has been accepted by all anatomists in all times, I found that the brain-chamber, instead of measuring 1,070 cubic cm., as in Dr.

Smith Woodward's reconstruction, measured 1,500 cubic cm.,--a large brain chamber for even modern man."

The _Neanderthal skull_ was found in 1856 in the neighborhood of Duesseldorf by Dr. Fuhlrott, of Elberfeld. When the skull and other parts of the skeleton were exhibited at a scientific meeting held at Bonn the same year, a wide divergence of opinion at once developed among the specialists. By some, doubts were expressed as to the human character of the remains. Others held that the remains indicate a person of much the same stature as a European of the present day, but with such an unusual thickness in some of them as betokened a being of very extraordinary strength. Dr. Meyer, of Bonn, regarded the skull as the remains of a Cossack killed in 1814. Other scientists agreed with him. Modern science accepts the antiquity of the Neanderthal man, but the controversy has never ceased. The great Virchow declared the peculiarities of the bones to be the result of disease.

Near Liege, in Belgium, not more than seventy miles from the Neanderthal, the _Engis skull_ was found. After careful measurement it was proved not to differ materially from the skulls of modern Europeans.

Such experiences should prevent us from making any a.s.sertions respecting the primitive character, in race or physical conformation, of these cave-dwellers. Indeed. Prof. Huxley, in a very careful and elaborate paper upon the Neanderthal and Engis skulls, places an average skull of a modern native of Australia about half-way between those of the Neanderthal and Engis caves. Yes, he says that, after going through a large collection of Australian skulls, he "found it possible to select from these crania two (connected by all sorts of intermediate gradations), the one of which should very nearly resemble the Engis skull, while the other would somewhat less closely approximate to the Neanderthal skull in size, form, and proportions." "The Engis skull, perhaps the oldest known, is," according to Prof. Huxley, "a fair average skull, which might have belonged to a philosopher, or might have contained the thoughtless brain of a savage." In this opinion Mr. Huxley is supported by one of the greatest anthropologists of his time, Daniel G. Brinton, who says concerning the cave-man of France and Belgium: "Neither in stature, cranial capacity, nor in muscular development did these earliest members of the species differ more from those now living than do these among themselves. We have no grounds for a.s.signing to these earliest known men an inferior brain or a lower intelligence than is seen among various savage tribes still in existence."

Every new find, upon investigation, proves the truth of Virchow's words: "We must really acknowledge that there is a complete absence of any fossil type of a lower stage in the development of man. Nay, if we gather together all the fossil men hitherto found, and put them parallel with those of the present time, we can decidedly p.r.o.nounce that there are among living men a much greater proportion of individuals which show a relatively inferior type than there are among the fossils known up to this time. . . . Every positive progress which we haw made in the region of prehistoric anthropology has removed us farther from the demonstration of this theory!"

Quite recently (in 1913) a remarkable fossil was found in the Oldoway gulch in northern German East Africa, by an expedition of the Geological Inst.i.tute of the University of Berlin. The remains consist of a complete skeleton, which was found deeply imbedded in firm soil. Unquestionably ancient as these remains are,--the bones are completely fossilized,--they contained lamentably few "primitive characteristics," and hence have not been exploited in the interest of the evolutionary theory. A fragment of skull, a tooth, a thigh-bone, offer much more inviting fields to the evolutionists, since they permit his imagination to range without the restraint of fact. The Oldoway fossil, which is in every essential respect a normal human skeleton, possesses no special attractions for those who would represent man as a descendant of brutish ancestors.

Says Prof. Virchow: "We seek in vain for the missing link; there exists a definite barrier separating man from the animal which has not yet been effaced--heredity, which transmits to children the faculties of the parents. We have never seen a monkey bring a man into the world, nor a man produce a monkey. All men having a Simian (monkey-like) appearance are simply pathological variants, (abnormal varieties, due to some diseased condition). It was generally believed a few years ago that there existed a few human races which still remained in the primitive inferior condition of their organization. But all these races have been objects of minute investigation, and we know that they have an organization like ours, often, indeed, superior to that of the supposed higher races. Thus the Eskimo head and the head of the Terra del Fuegians belong to the perfected types. All the researches undertaken with the aim of finding continuity in progressive development have been without result. There exists no proanthrope, no man-monkey, and the 'connecting link' remains a phantom."

Dr. Berndt, of Berlin, recently said in the _"Naturwissenschaftliche Rundschau der Chemikerseitung"_ (April, 1914): "Max Weber, one of the best authorities on mammals, regards the anthropoid apes of to-day as a branch _parallel_ to the human branch. Scholars like Cope, Adloeff, Klaatsch, prefer to push the origin of man back to the earliest age of terrestrial life, whence he went his way _from the very outset_ separate from the apes." This is a highly significant utterance. It means nothing more than this: there is not one recognizable link which unites man with the animal kingdom. All the intermediate forms between man and the original jelly-fish, which according to Haeckel and Vogt was his ancestor, have disappeared. For their existence we have nothing but the word of speculative scientists.

Concerning the Neanderthaler, the Cro-Magnon man. etc., Dr. Dawson has said: "Geological evidence resolves itself into a calculation of the rate of erosion of river valleys, of deposition of gravel and cave-earths, and of formation of stalagmite crusts, all of which are so variable and uncertain that, though it may be said that an impression of great antiquity beyond the time of received history has been left on the minds of geologists, no absolute antiquity has been proved; and while some, on such evidence, would stretch the antiquity of man to even half a million years, the oldest of these remains may, after all, not exceed our traditional six thousand. These skeletons tell us that primitive man had the same high cerebral organization which he possesses now, and we may infer the same high intellectual and moral nature, fitting him for communication with G.o.d and headship over the lower world." Similarly Figuier held that "we know of no archaeological find (stone hatchets, etc.) that could not be p.r.o.nounced only five thousand years old as well as fifty thousand."

Lionel S. Beale, the famous microscopist, testifies: "In support of all naturalistic conjectures concerning man's origin, there is not at this time the shadow of scientific evidence."

William Hanna Thomson, M.D., LL.D., Physician to the Roosevelt Hospital; Consulting Physician to New York State Manhattan Hospital for the Insane, who has held a professorship in New York University Medical College; been president of the New York Academy of Medicine, etc, in his recent book. _"What is Physical Life?"_ says concerning the doctrine of evolution: "No contradiction could be greater than that between this doctrine and the greatest truth which underlies this human world."

The Russo-French physiologist, M. Elie DeCyon, for many years professor in the Faculty of Sciences and in the Academic Medico-chirurgicale at the University of Petrograd, has lately published a book of essays in which he says that the theory of evolution, especially in its relation to the ancestry of man, is a "pure a.s.sumption." He quotes Prof. Fraas, who devoted his long life to the study of fossil animals: "The idea that mankind has descended from any Simian (ape) species whatsoever, is certainly the most foolish ever put forth by a man writing on the history of man. It should be handed down to posterity in a new edition of the Memorial of Human Follies. No proof of this baroque theory can ever be given from discovered fossils." And to quote from another address by Virchow, delivered at Vienna: "I have never found a single ape skull which approaches at all the human one. Between men and apes there exists a line of sharp demarcation."

One of the most recent authoritative publications by a German anthropologist urges that "the apes are to be regarded as degenerate branches of the pre-human stock." This means, in a word, that man is not descended from the ape, but the ape from man. This is almost what may be called _reductio ad absurdum,_ and yet it is one of the latest p.r.o.nouncements of scientific thought (Editorial in _"New York Herald,"_ December 30, 1916). To the same effect are the words of Professor Wood-Jones, Professor of Anatomy in the University of London, England, who recently pointed out that so far from man having descended from anthropoid apes, it would be more accurate to say that these have been descended from man. This was claimed not only by reason of the best anatomical research, but to be "deducible from the whole trend of geological and anthropological discovery." On this account Professor Wood-Jones appealed for "an entire reconsideration of the post-Darwinian conceptions of man's comparatively recent emergence from the brute kingdom." (Quoted by W. H. Griffith Thomas in _"What about Evolution?"_ p. 10.)

It is refreshing to turn aside from speculation to revelation, from conjectures and theories to proven facts, and no one has stated ascertained facts, touching the origin of man, more succinctly and more clearly than Prof. Dr. Friedrich Pfaff, professor of Natural Science in the University of Erlangen. He shows conclusively that the age of man is comparatively brief, extending only to a few thousand years; that man appeared suddenly; that the most ancient man known to us is not essentially different from the now living man, and that transitions from the ape to the man, or from the man to the ape, are nowhere found.

The conclusion he reaches is that the Scriptural account of man, which is one and selfconsistent, is true; that G.o.d made man in his own image, fitted for fellowship with himself and favored with it--a state from which man has fallen, but to which restoration is possible through Him who is the brightness of his Father's glory, and "the express image of his Person."