Mary Austin - "The Lovely Lady"

Alice Turner Curtis - "A Little Maid of Old Maine"

Guy De Maupassant - "A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales"

Courtney Ryley Cooper - "The White Desert"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

On the Genesis of Species

S >> St. George Mivart >> On the Genesis of Species




Mr. Darwin's objections to "Creation" are of quite a different kind, and,
before entering upon them, it will be well to endeavour clearly to
understand what we mean by "Creation," in the various senses in which the
term may be used.

In the strictest and highest sense "Creation" is the absolute origination
of anything by God without pre-existing means or material, and is a
_supernatural_ act.[257]

In the secondary and lower sense, "Creation" is the formation of anything
by God _derivatively_; that is, that the preceding matter has been created
with the potentiality to evolve from it, under suitable conditions, {253}
all the various forms it subsequently assumes. And this power having been
conferred by God in the first instance, and those laws and powers having
been instituted by Him, through the action of which the suitable conditions
are supplied, He is said in this lower sense to create such various
subsequent forms. This is the _natural_ action of God in the physical
world, as distinguished from His direct, or, as it may be here called,
supernatural action.

In yet a third sense, the word "Creation" may be more or less improperly
applied to the construction of any complex formation or state by a
voluntary self-conscious being who makes use of the powers and laws which
God has imposed, as when a man is spoken of as the creator of a museum, or
of "his own fortune," &c. Such action of a created conscious intelligence
is purely natural, but more than physical, and may be conveniently spoken
of as hyperphysical.

We have thus (1) direct or supernatural action; (2) physical action; and
(3) hyperphysical action---the two latter both belonging to the order of
nature.[258] Neither the physical nor the hyperphysical actions, however,
exclude the idea of the Divine concurrence, and with every consistent
theist that idea is necessarily included. Dr. Asa Gray has given expression
to this.[259] He says, "Agreeing that plants and animals were produced by
Omnipotent fiat, does not exclude the idea of natural order and what we
call secondary causes. The record of the fiat--'Let the earth bring forth
grass, the herb yielding seed,' &c., 'let the earth bring forth the living
creature after his kind'--seems even to imply them," and leads to the
conclusion that the various kinds were produced through natural agencies.

{254}
Now, much confusion has arisen from not keeping clearly in view this
distinction between _absolute_ creation and _derivative_ creation. With the
first, physical science has plainly nothing whatever to do, and is impotent
to prove or to refute it. The second is also safe from any attack on the
part of physical science, for it is primarily derived from psychical not
physical phenomena. The greater part of the apparent force possessed by
objectors to creation, like Mr. Darwin, lies in their treating the
assertion of derivative creation as if it was an assertion of absolute
creation, or at least of supernatural action. Thus, he asks whether some of
his opponents believe "that at innumerable periods in the earth's history,
certain elemental atoms have been commanded suddenly to flash into living
tissues."[260] Certain of Mr. Darwin's objections, however, are not
physical, but _metaphysical_, and really attack the dogma of secondary or
derivative creation, though to some perhaps they may appear to be directed
against absolute creation only.

Thus he uses, as an illustration, the conception of a man who builds an
edifice from fragments of rock at the base of a precipice, by selecting for
the construction of the various parts of the building the pieces which are
the most suitable owing to the shape they happen to have broken into.
Afterwards, alluding to this illustration, he says,[261] "The shape of the
fragments of stone at the base of our precipice may be called accidental,
but this is not strictly correct, for the shape of each depends on a long
sequence of events, all obeying natural laws, on the nature of the rock, on
the lines of stratification or cleavage, on the form of the mountain which
depends on its upheaval and subsequent denudation, and lastly, on the storm
and earthquake which threw down the fragments. But in regard to the use to
which the fragments may be put, their shape may strictly be said to be{255}
accidental. And here we are led to face a great difficulty, in alluding to
which I am aware that I am travelling beyond my proper province."

"An omniscient Creator must have foreseen every consequence which results
from the laws imposed by Him; but can it be reasonably maintained that the
Creator intentionally ordered, if we use the words in any ordinary sense,
that certain fragments of rock should assume certain shapes, so that the
builder might erect his edifice? If the various laws which have determined
the shape of each fragment were not predetermined for the builder's sake,
can it with any greater probability be maintained that He specially
ordained, for the sake of the breeder, each of the innumerable variations
in our domestic animals and plants--many of these variations being of no
service to man, and not beneficial, far more often injurious, to the
creatures themselves? Did He ordain that the crop and tail-feathers of the
pigeon should vary, in order that the fancier might make his grotesque
pouter and fantail breeds? Did He cause the frame and mental qualities of
the dog to vary, in order that a breed might be formed of indomitable
ferocity, with jaws fitted to pin down the bull for man's brutal sport?
But, if we give up the principle in one case---if we do not admit that the
variations of the primeval dog were intentionally guided, in order that the
greyhound, for instance, that perfect image of symmetry and vigour, might
be formed,--no shadow of reason can be assigned for the belief that the
variations, alike in nature, and the result of the same general laws, which
have been the groundwork through Natural Selection of the formation of the
most perfectly adapted animals in the world, man included, were
intentionally and specially guided. However much we may wish it, we can
hardly follow Professor Asa Gray in his belief that 'variation has been led
along certain beneficial lines,' like a stream 'along definite and useful
lines of irrigation.'"

"If we assume that each particular variation was from the beginning of{256}
all time pre-ordained, the plasticity of the organization, which leads to
many injurious deviations of structure, as well as that redundant power of
reproduction which inevitably leads to a struggle for existence, and, as a
consequence, to the Natural Selection and survival of the fittest, must
appear to us superfluous laws of nature. On the other hand, an omnipotent
and omniscient Creator ordains everything and foresees everything. Thus we
are brought face to face with a difficulty as insoluble as is that of
freewill and predestination."

Before proceeding to reply to this remarkable passage, it may be well to
remind some readers that belief in the existence of God, in His primary
creation of the universe, and in His derivative creation of all kinds of
being, inorganic and organic, do not repose upon physical phenomena, but,
as has been said, on primary intuitions. To deny or ridicule any of these
beliefs on physical grounds is to commit the fallacy of _ignoratio
elenchi_. It is to commit an absurdity analogous to that of saying a blind
child could not recognize his father because he could not _see_ him,
forgetting that he could _hear_ and _feel_ him. Yet there are some who
appear to find it unreasonable and absurd that men should regard phenomena
in a light not furnished by or deducible from the very phenomena
themselves, although the men so regarding them avow that the light in which
they do view them comes from quite another source. It is as if a man, A,
coming into B's room and finding there a butterfly, should insist that B
had no right to believe that the butterfly had not flown in at the open
window, inasmuch as there was nothing about the room or insect to lead to
any other belief; while B can well sustain his right so to believe, he
having met C, who told him he brought in the chrysalis and, having seen the
insect emerge, took away the skin.

By a similarly narrow and incomplete view the assertion that human
conceptions, such as "the vertebrate idea," &c., are ideas in the mind of
God, is sometimes ridiculed; as if the assertors either on the one {257}
hand pretended to some prodigious acuteness of mind--a far-reaching genius
not possessed by most naturalists--or, on the other hand, as if they
detected in the very phenomena furnishing such special conception evidences
of Divine imaginings. But let the idea of God, according to the highest
conceptions of Christianity, be once accepted, and then it becomes simply a
truism to say that the mind of the Deity contains all that is _good_ and
_positive_ in the mind of man, _plus_, of course, an absolutely
inconceivable infinity beyond. That thus such human conceptions may, nay
must, be asserted to be at the same time ideas in the Divine mind also, as
every real and separate individual that has been, is, or shall be, is
present to the same mind. Nay, more, that such human conceptions are but
faint and obscure adumbrations of corresponding ideas which exist in the
mind of God in perfection and fulness.[262]

The theist, having arrived at his theistic convictions from quite other
sources than a consideration of zoological or botanical phenomena, {258}
returns to the consideration of such phenomena and views them in a theistic
light without of course asserting or implying that such light has been
derived _from them_, or that there is an obligation of reason so to view
them on the part of others who refuse to enter upon or to accept those
other sources whence have been derived the theistic convictions of the
theist.

But Mr. Darwin is not guilty of arguing against metaphysical ideas on
physical grounds only, for he employs very distinctly metaphysical ones;
namely, his conceptions of the nature and attributes of the First Cause.
But what conceptions does he offer us? Nothing but that low
anthropomorphism which, unfortunately, he so often seems to treat as the
necessary result of Theism. It is again the dummy, helpless and deformed,
set up merely for the purpose of being knocked down.

It must once more be insisted on, that though man is indeed compelled to
conceive of God in human terms, and to speak of Him by epithets objectively
false, from their hopeless inadequacy, yet nevertheless the Christian
thinker declares that inadequacy in the strongest manner, and vehemently
rejects from his idea of God all terms distinctly implying infirmity or
limitation.

Now, Mr. Darwin speaks as if all who believe in the Almighty were compelled
to accept as really applicable to the Deity conceptions which affirm limits
and imperfections. Thus he says: "Can it be reasonably maintained that the
Creator intentionally ordered" "that certain fragments of rock should
assume certain shapes, so that the builder might erect his edifice?"

Why, surely every theist must maintain that in the first foundation of the
universe--the primary and absolute creation--God saw and knew every purpose
which every atom and particle of matter should ever subserve in all suns
and systems, and throughout all coming aeons of time. It is almost
incredible, but nevertheless it seems necessary to think that the
difficulty thus proposed rests on a sort of notion that amidst the
boundless profusion of nature there is too much for God to superintend;
that the number of objects is too great for an infinite and {259}
_omnipresent_ being to attend singly to each and all in their due
proportions and needs! In the same way Mr. Darwin asks whether God can have
ordered the race variations referred to in the passage last quoted, for the
considerations therein mentioned. To this it may be at once replied that
even man often has _several_ distinct intentions and motives for a _single_
action, and the theist has no difficulty in supposing that, out of an
infinite number of motives, the motive mentioned in each case may have been
an exceedingly subordinate one. The theist, though properly attributing to
God what, for want of a better term, he calls "purpose" and "design," yet
affirms that the limitations of human purposes and motives are by no means
applicable to the Divine "purposes." Out of many, say a thousand million,
reasons for the institution of the laws of the physical universe, some few
are to a certain extent conceivable by us; and amongst these the benefits,
material and moral, accruing from them to men, and to each individual man
in every circumstance of his life, play a certain, perhaps a very
subordinate, part.[263] As Baden Powell observes, "How can we {260}
undertake to affirm, amid all the possibilities of things of which we
confessedly know so little, that a thousand ends and purposes may not be
answered, because we can trace none, or even imagine none, which seem to
our short-sighted faculties to be answered in these particular
arrangements?"[264]

The objection to the bull-dog's ferocity in connexion with "man's brutal
sport" opens up the familiar but vast question of the existence of evil, a
problem the discussion of which would be out of place here. Considering,
however, the very great stress which is laid in the present day on the
subject of animal suffering by so many amiable and excellent people, one or
two remarks on that matter may not be superfluous. To those who accept the
belief in God, the soul and moral responsibility; and recognize the full
results of that acceptance--to such, physical suffering and moral evil are
simply incommensurable. To them the placing of non-moral beings in the same
scale with moral agents will be utterly unendurable. But even considering
physical pain only, all must admit that this depends greatly on the mental
condition of the sufferer. Only during consciousness does it exist, and
only in the most highly-organized men does it reach its acme. The Author
has been assured that lower races of men appear less keenly sensitive to
physical pain than do more cultivated and refined human beings. Thus only
in man can there really be any intense degree of suffering, because only in
him is there that intellectual recollection of past moments and that
anticipation of future ones, which constitute in great part the bitterness
of suffering.[265] The momentary pang, the present pain, which beasts
endure, though real enough, is yet, doubtless, not to be compared as {261}
to its intensity with the suffering which is produced in man through his
high prerogative of self-consciousness.[266]

As to the "beneficial lines" (of Dr. Asa Gray, before referred to), some of
the facts noticed in the preceding chapters seem to point very decidedly in
that direction, but all must admit that the actual existing outcome is far
more "beneficial" than the reverse. The natural universe has resulted in
the development of an unmistakable harmony and beauty, and in a decided
preponderance of good and of happiness over their opposites.

Even if "laws of nature" did appear, on the theistic hypothesis, to be
"superfluous" (which it is by no means intended here to admit), it would be
nothing less than puerile to prefer rejecting the hypothesis to conceiving
that the appearance of superfluity was probably due to human ignorance; and
this especially might be expected from naturalists to whom the
interdependence of nature and the harmony and utility of obscure phenomena
are becoming continually more clear, as, _e.g._, the structure of orchids
to their illustrious expositor.

Having now cleared the ground somewhat, we may turn to the question what
bearing Christian dogma has upon evolution, and whether Christians, as
such, need take up any definite attitude concerning it.

As has been said, it is plain that physical science and "evolution" _can_
have nothing whatever to do with absolute or primary creation. The Rev.
Baden Powell well expresses this, saying: "Science demonstrates incessant
past changes, and dimly points to yet earlier links in a more vast series
of development of material existence; but the idea of a _beginning_, or of
_creation_, in the sense of the original operation of the Divine volition
to constitute nature and matter, is beyond the province of physical {262}
philosophy."[267]

With secondary or derivative creation, physical science is also incapable
of conflict; for the objections drawn by some writers seemingly from
physical science, are, as has been already argued, rather metaphysical than
physical.

Derivative creation is not a supernatural act, but is simply the Divine
action by and through natural laws. To recognize such action in such laws
is a religious mode of regarding phenomena, which a consistent theist must
necessarily accept, and which an atheistic believer must similarly reject.
But this conception, if deemed superfluous by any naturalist, can never be
shown to be _false_ by any investigations concerning natural laws, the
constant action of which it presupposes.

The conflict has arisen through a misunderstanding. Some have supposed that
by "creation" was necessarily meant either primary, that is, absolute
creation, or, at least, some supernatural action; they have therefore
opposed the dogma of "creation" in the imagined interest of physical
science.

Others have supposed that by "evolution" was necessarily meant a denial of
Divine action, a negation of the providence of God. They have therefore
combated the theory of "evolution" in the imagined interest of religion.

It appears plain then that Christian thinkers are perfectly free to accept
the general evolution theory. But are there any theological authorities to
justify this view of the matter?

Now, considering how extremely recent are these biological speculations, it
might hardly be expected _a priori_ that writers of earlier ages should
have given expression to doctrines harmonizing in any degree with such very
modern views,[268] nevertheless such most certainly is the case, and {263}
it would be easy to give numerous examples. It will be better, however,
only to cite one or two authorities of weight. Now, perhaps no writer {264}
of the earlier Christian ages could be quoted whose authority is more
generally recognized than that of St. Augustin. The same may be said of the
mediaeval period, for St. Thomas Aquinas; and, since the movement of Luther,
Suarez may be taken as a writer widely venerated as an authority and one
whose orthodoxy has never been questioned.

It must be borne in mind that for a considerable time after even the last
of these writers no one had disputed the generally received view as to the
small age of the world or at least of the kinds of animals and plants
inhabiting it. It becomes therefore much more striking if views formed
under such a condition of opinion are found to harmonize with modern ideas
regarding "Creation" and organic life.

Now St. Augustin insists in a very remarkable manner on the merely
derivative sense in which God's creation of organic forms is to be
understood; that is, that God created them by conferring on the material
world the power to evolve them under suitable conditions. He says in his
book on Genesis:[269] "Terrestria animalia, tanquam ex ultimo elemento
mundi ultima; nihilominus _potentialiter_, quorum numeros tempus postea
visibiliter explicaret."

Again he says:--

"Sicut autem in ipso grano invisibiliter erant omnia simul, quae per tempora
in arborem surgerent; ita ipse mundus cogitandus est, cum Deus _simul omnia
creavit_, habuisse simul omnia quae in illo et cum illo facta sunt quando
factus est dies; non solum coelum cum sole et luna et sideribus ... ; sed
etiam illa quae aqua et terra produxit potentialiter atque causaliter,
priusquam per temporum moras ita exorirentur, quomodo nobis jam nota sunt
in eis operibus, quae Deus usque nunc operatur."[270]

"Omnium quippe rerum quae corporaliter visibiliterque nascuntur, {265}
occulta quaedam semina in istis corporeis mundi hujus elementis
latent."[271]

And again: "Ista quippe originaliter ac primordialiter in quadam textura
elementorum cuncta jam creata sunt; sed acceptis opportunitatibus
prodeunt."[272]

St. Thomas Aquinas, as was said in the first chapter, quotes with approval
the saying of St. Augustin that in the first institution of nature we do
not look for _Miracles_, but for the _laws of Nature_: "In prima
institutione naturae non quaeritur miraculum, sed quid natura rerum habeat,
ut Augustinus dicit."[273]

Again, he quotes with approval St. Augustin's assertion that the kinds were
created only derivatively, "_potentialiter tantum_."[274]

Also he says, "In prima autem rerum institutione fuit principium activum
verbum Dei, quod de materia elementari produxit animalia, vel in actu vel
_virtute_, secundum Aug. lib. 5 de Gen. ad lit. c. 5."[275]

Speaking of "kinds" (in scholastic phraseology "substantial forms") latent
in matter, he says: "Quas quidam posuerunt non incipere per actionem naturae
sed prius in materia exstitisse, ponentes latitationem formarum. Et hoc
accidit eis ex ignorantia materiae, quia nesciebant distinguere inter
potentiam et actum. Quia enim formae praeexistunt eas simpliciter
praeexistere."[276]

Also Cornelius a Lapide[277] contends that at least certain animals were
not absolutely, but only derivatively created, saying of them, "Non fuerunt
creata formaliter, sed potentialiter."

As to Suarez, it will be enough to refer to Disp. xv., 2, n. 9, p. 508, t.
i. Edition _Vives_, Paris; also Nos. 13--15, and many other references{266}
to the same effect could easily be given, but these may suffice.

It is then evident that ancient and most venerable theological authorities
distinctly assert _derivative_ creation, and thus harmonize with all that
modern science can possibly require.

It may indeed truly be said with Roger Bacon, "The saints never condemned
many an opinion which the moderns think ought to be condemned."[278]

The various extracts given show clearly how far "evolution" is from any
necessary opposition to the most orthodox theology. The same may be said of
spontaneous generation. The most recent form of it, lately advocated by Dr.
H. Charlton Bastian,[279] teaches that matter exists in two different
forms, the crystalline (or statical) and the colloidal (or dynamical)
conditions. It also teaches that colloidal matter, when exposed to certain
conditions, presents the phenomena of life, and that it can be formed from
crystalline matter, and thus that the _prima materia_ of which these are
diverse forms contains potentially all the multitudinous kinds of animal
and vegetable existence. This theory moreover harmonizes well with the
views here advocated, for just as crystalline matter builds itself, under
suitable conditions, along _certain definite lines_, so analogously
colloidal matter has _its definite lines and directions_ of development. It
is not collected in haphazard, accidental aggregations, but evolves
according to its proper laws and special properties.

The perfect orthodoxy of these views is unquestionable. Nothing is plainer
from the venerable writers quoted, as well as from a mass of other {267}
authorities, than that "the supernatural" is not to be looked for or
expected in the sphere of mere nature. For this statement there is a
general _consensus_ of theological authority.

The teaching which the Author has received is, that God is indeed
inscrutable and incomprehensible to us from the infinity of His attributes,
so that our minds can, as it were, only take in, in a most fragmentary and
indistinct manner (as through a glass darkly), dim conceptions of
infinitesimal portions of His inconceivable perfection. In this way the
partial glimpses obtained by us in different modes differ from each other;
not that God is anything but the most perfect unity, but that apparently
conflicting views arise from our inability to apprehend Him, except in this
imperfect manner, _i.e._ by successive slight approximations along
different lines of approach. Sir William Hamilton has said,[280] "Nature
conceals God, and man reveals Him." It is not, according to the teaching
spoken of, exactly thus; but rather that physical nature reveals to us one
side, one aspect of the Deity, while the moral and religious worlds bring
us in contact with another, and at first, to our apprehension, a very
different one. The difference and discrepancy, however, which is at first
felt, is soon seen to proceed not from the reason but from a want of
flexibility in the imagination. This want is far from surprising. Not only
may a man naturally be expected to be an adept in his own art, but at the
same time to show an incapacity for a very different mode of activity.[281]
We rarely find an artist who takes much interest in jurisprudence, or {268}
a prizefighter who is an acute metaphysician. Nay, more than this, a
positive distaste may grow up, which, in the intellectual order, may amount
to a spontaneous and unreasoning disbelief in that which appears to be in
opposition to the more familiar concept, and this at all times. It is often
and truly said, "that past ages were pre-eminently credulous as compared
with our own, yet the difference is not so much in the amount of the
credulity, as in the direction which it takes."[282]

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