On the Genesis of Species

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[223] See _Scientific Opinion_, of October 13, 1869, p. 407.

[224] See _Scientific Opinion_ of September 29, 1869, p. 366.

[225] _Fortnightly Review_, New Series, vol. iii. April 1868, p. 508.

[226] _Scientific Opinion_, of October 13, 1869, p. 408.

[227] _Fortnightly Review_, New Series, vol. iii. April 1868, p. 509.

[228] "Histoire Naturelle, generale et particuliere," tome ii. 1749, p.
327. "Ces liqueurs seminales sont toutes deux un extrait de toutes les
parties du corps," &c.

[229] See _Nature_, March 3, 1870, p. 454. Mr. Wallace says (referring to
Mr. Croll's paper in the _Phil. Mag._), "As we are now, and have been for
60,000 years, in a period of low eccentricity, _the rate of change of
species during that time may be no measure of the rate that has generally
obtained in past geological epochs_."

[230] "Habit and Intelligence," vol. i. p. 344.

[231] If anyone were to contend that beside the opium there existed a real
distinct objective entity, "its soporific virtue," he would be open to
ridicule indeed. But the constitution of our minds is such that we cannot
but distinguish ideally a thing from its even essential attributes and
qualities. The joke is sufficiently amusing, however, regarded as the
solemn enunciation of a mere truism.

[232] Noticed by Professor Owen in his "Archetype," p. 76. Recently it has
been attempted to discredit Darwinism in France by speaking of it as "_de
la science mousseuse!_"

[233] "Lay Sermons," p. 342.

[234] Introductory Lecture of February 14, 1870, pp. 24-30, Figs. 1-4.
(Churchill and Sons.)

[235] See especially "Animals and Plants under Domestication," vol. ii.
chap. xviii.

[236] "Origin of Species," 5th edition, pp. 323, 324.

[237] "Animals and Plants under Domestication," vol. ii. p. 2.

[238] Ibid. p. 25.

[239] Ibid. p. 151.

[240] Ibid. p. 157.

[241] Ibid. p. 158.

[242] "Animals and Plants under Domestication," vol. i. p. 291.

[243] Though hardly necessary, it may be well to remark that the views here
advocated in no way depend upon the truth of the doctrine of Spontaneous
Generation.

[244] Vol. iii. p. 808.

[245] This is hardly an exact representation of Mr. Darwin's view. On his
theory, if a favourable variation happens to arise (the external
circumstances remaining the same), it will yet be preserved.

[246] See 2nd edition, p. 113.

[247] "Essays, Philosophical and Theological," Truebner and Co., First
Series, 1866, p. 190. "Every relative disability may be read two ways. A
disqualification in the nature of thought for knowing _x_ is, from the
other side, a disqualification in the nature of _x_ from being known. To
say then that the First Cause is wholly removed from our apprehension is
not simply a disclaimer of faculty on our part: it is a charge of inability
against the First Cause too. The dictum about it is this: 'It is a Being
that may exist out of knowledge, but that is precluded from entering within
the sphere of knowledge.' We are told in one breath that this Being must be
in every sense 'perfect, complete, total--including in itself all power,
and transcending all law' (p. 38); and in another that this perfect and
omnipotent One is totally incapable of revealing any one of an infinite
store of attributes. Need we point out the contradictions which this
position involves? If you abide by it, you deny the Absolute and Infinite
in the very act of affirming it, for, in debarring the First Cause from
self-revelation, you impose a limit on its nature. And in the very act of
declaring the First Cause incognizable, you do not permit it to remain
unknown. For that only is unknown, of which you can neither affirm nor deny
any predicate; here you deny the power of self-disclosure to the
'Absolute,' of which therefore something is known;--viz., that nothing can
be known!"

[248] Loc. cit. p. 108.

[249] Loc. cit. p. 43.

[250] Loc. cit. p. 46.

[251] Mr. J. Martineau, in his "Essays," vol. i. p. 211, observes, "Mr.
Spencer's conditions of pious worship are hard to satisfy; there must be
between the Divine and human no communion of thought, relations of
conscience, or approach of affection." ... "But you cannot constitute a
religion out of mystery alone, any more than out of knowledge alone; nor
can you measure the relation of doctrines to humility and piety by the mere
amount of conscious darkness which they leave. All worship, being directed
to what is _above_ us and transcends our comprehension, stands in presence
of a mystery. But not all that stands before a mystery is worship."

[252] "Lay Sermons," p. 20.

[253] Loc. cit. p. 109.

[254] Loc. cit. p. 111.

[255] In this criticism on Mr. Herbert Spencer, the Author finds he has
been anticipated by Mr. James Martineau. (See "Essays," vol. i. p. 208.)

[256] Loc. cit. p. 29.

[257] The Author means by this, that it is _directly_ and _immediately_ the
act of God, the word "supernatural" being used in a sense convenient for
the purposes of this work, and not in its ordinary theological sense.

[258] The phrase "order of nature" is not here used in its theological
sense as distinguished from the "order of grace," but as a term, here
convenient, to denote actions not due to direct and immediate Divine
intervention.

[259] "A Free Examination of Darwin's Treatise," p. 29, reprinted from the
_Atlantic Monthly_ for July, August, and October, 1860.

[260] "Origin of Species," 5th edition, p. 571.

[261] "Animals and Plants under Domestication," vol. ii. p. 431.

[262] The Rev. Baden Powell says, "All sciences approach perfection as they
approach to a unity of first principles,--in all cases recurring to or
tending towards certain high elementary conceptions which are the
representatives of the unity of the great archetypal ideas according to
which the whole system is arranged. Inductive conceptions, very partially
and imperfectly realized and apprehended by human intellect, are the
exponents in our minds of these great principles in nature."

"All science is but the partial reflexion in the _reason of man_, of the
great all-pervading _reason of the universe_. And thus the _unity_ of
science is the reflexion of the _unity_ of nature, and of the _unity_ of
that supreme reason and intelligence which pervades and rules over nature,
and from whence all reason and all science is derived." (Unity of Worlds,
Essay i., Sec. ii.; Unity of Sciences, pp. 79 and 81.) Also he quotes from
Oersted's "Soul in Nature" (pp. 12, 16, 18, 87, 92, and 377). "If the laws
of reason did not exist in nature, we should vainly attempt to force them
upon her: if the laws of nature did not exist in our reason, we should not
be able to comprehend them." ... "We find an agreement between our reason
and works which our reason did not produce." ... "All existence is a
dominion of reason." "The laws of nature are laws of reason, and altogether
form an endless unity of reason; ... one and the same throughout the
universe."

[263] In the same way Mr. Lewes, in criticising the Duke of Argyll's "Reign
of Law" (_Fortnightly Review_, July 1867, p. 100), asks whether we should
consider that man wise who spilt a gallon of wine in order to fill a
wineglass? But, because we should not do so, it by no means follows that we
can argue from such an action to the action of God in the visible universe.
For the man's object, in the case supposed, is simply to fill the
wine-glass, and the wine spilt is so much loss. With God it may be entirely
different in both respects. All these objections are fully met by the
principle thus laid down by St. Thomas Aquinas: "Quod si aliqua causa
particularis deficiat a suo effectu, hoc est propter aliquam causam
particularem impediantem quae continetur sub ordine causae universalis. Unde
effectus ordinem causae universalis nullo modo potest exire." ... "Sicut
indigestio contingit praeter ordinem virtutis nutritivae ex aliquo
impedimento, puta ex grossitie cibi, quam necesse est reducere in aliam
causam, et sic usque ad causam primam universalem. Cum igitur Deus sit
prima causa universalis non unius generi tantum, sed universaliter totius
entis, impossibile est quod aliquid contingat praeter ordinem divinae
gubernationis; sed ex hoc ipso quod aliquid ex una parte videtur exire ab
ordine divinae providentiae, quo consideratur secundam aliquam particularem
causam, necesse est quod in eundem ordinem relabatur secundum aliam
causam."--_Sum. Theol_. p. i. q. 19, a. 6, and q. 103, a. 7.

[264] "Unity of Worlds," Essay ii., Sec. ii., p. 260.

[265] See the exceedingly good passage on this subject by the Rev. Dr.
Newman, in his "Discourses for Mixed Congregations," 1850, p. 345.

[266] See Mr. G. H. Lewes's "Sea-Side Studies," for some excellent remarks,
beginning at p. 329, as to the small susceptibility of certain animals to
pain.

[267] "Philosophy of Creation," Essay iii., Sec. iv., p. 480.

[268] It seems almost strange that modern English thought should so long
hold aloof from familiar communion with Christian writers of other ages and
countries. It is rarely indeed that acquaintance is shown with such
authors, though a bright example to the contrary was set by Sir William
Hamilton. Sir Charles Lyell (in his "Principles of Geology," 7th edition,
p. 35) speaks with approval of the early Italian geologists. Of Vallisneri
he says, "I return with pleasure to the geologists of Italy who preceded,
as has been already shown, the naturalists of other countries in their
investigations into the ancient history of the earth, and who still
maintained a decided pre-eminence. They refuted and ridiculed the
physico-theological systems of Burnet, Whiston, and Woodward; while
Vallisneri, in his comments on the Woodwardian theory, remarked how much
the interests of religion, as well as of those of sound philosophy, had
suffered by perpetually mixing up the sacred writings with questions of
physical science." Again, he quotes the Carmelite friar Generelli, who,
illustrating Moro before the Academy of Cremona in 1749, strongly opposed
those who would introduce the supernatural into the domain of nature. "I
hold in utter abomination, most learned Academicians! those systems which
are built with their foundations in the air, and cannot be propped up
without a miracle, and I undertake, with the assistance of Moro, to explain
to you how these marine monsters were transported into the mountains by
natural causes."

Sir Charles Lyell notices with exemplary impartiality the spirit of
intolerance on both sides. How in France, Buffon, on the one hand, was
influenced by the theological faculty of the Sorbonne to recant his theory
of the earth, and how Voltaire, on the other, allowed his prejudices to get
the better, if not of his judgment, certainly of his expression of it.
Thinking that fossil remains of shells, &c., were evidence in favour of
orthodox views, Voltaire, Sir Charles Lyell (Principles, p. 56) tells us,
"endeavoured to inculcate scepticism as to the real nature of such shells,
and to recall from contempt the exploded dogma of the sixteenth century,
that they were sports of nature. He also pretended that vegetable
impressions were not those of real plants." ... "He would sometimes, in
defiance of all consistency, shift his ground when addressing the vulgar;
and, admitting the true nature of the shells collected in the Alps and
other places, pretend that they were Eastern species, which had fallen from
the hats of pilgrims coming from Syria. The numerous essays written by him
on geological subjects were all calculated to strengthen prejudices, partly
because he was ignorant of the real state of the science, and partly from
his bad faith." As to the harmony between many early Church writers of
great authority and modern views as regards certain matters of geology, see
"Geology and Revelation," by the Rev. Gerald Molloy, D.D., London, 1870.

[269] "De Genesi ad Litt.," lib. v., cap. v., No. 14 in Ben. Edition, voi.
iii. p. 186.

[270] Lib. cit., cap. xxii., No. 44.

[271] Lib. cit., "De Trinitate," lib. iii., cap. viii, No. 14.

[272] Lib. cit., cap. ix., No. 16.

[273] St. Thomas, Summa, i., quest. 67, art. 4, ad 3.

[274] Primae Partis, vol. ii., quest. 74, art. 2.

[275] Lib. cit., quest. 71, art. 1.

[276] Lib. cit., quest. 45, art. 8.

[277] _Vide_ In Genesim Comment, cap. i.

[278] Roger Bacon, Opus tertium, c. ix. p. 27, quoted in the _Rambler_ for
1859, vol. xii. p. 375.

[279] See _Nature_, June and July, 1870. Those who, like Professors Huxley
and Tyndall, do not accept his conclusions, none the less agree with him in
principle, though they limit the evolution of the organic world from the
inorganic to a very remote period of the world's history. (See Professor
Huxley's address to the British Association at Liverpool, 1870, p. 17.)

[280] "Lectures on Metaphysics and Logic," vol. i. Lecture ii., p. 40.

[281] In the same way that an undue cultivation of any one kind of
knowledge is prejudicial to philosophy. Mr. James Martineau well observes,
"Nothing is more common than to see maxims, which are unexceptionable as
the assumptions of particular sciences, coerced into the service of a
universal philosophy, and so turned into instruments of mischief and
distortion. That "we can know nothing but phenomena,"--that "causation is
simply constant priority,"--that "men are governed invariably by their
interests," are examples of rules allowable as dominant hypotheses in
physics or political economy, but exercising a desolating tyranny when
thrust on to the throne of universal empire. He who seizes upon these and
similar maxims, and carries them in triumph on his banner, may boast of his
escape from the uncertainties of metaphysics, but is himself all the while
the unconscious victim of their very vulgarest deception." ("Essays,"
Second Series, _A Plea for Philosophical Studies_, p. 421.)

[282] Lecky's "History of Rationalism," vol. i. p. 73.

[283] "Lectures on University Subjects," by J. H. Newman, D.D., p. 322.

[284] Loc. cit. p. 324.

[285] Thus Professor Tyndall, in the _Pall Mall Gazette_ of June 15, 1868,
speaking of physical science, observes, "The _logical feebleness_ of
science is not sufficiently borne in mind. It keeps down the weed of
superstition, not by logic, but by slowly rendering the mental soil unfit
for its cultivation."

[286] By this it is not, of course, meant to deny that the existence of God
can be demonstrated so as to demand the assent of the intellect taken, so
to speak, by itself.

[287] See some excellent remarks in the Rev. Dr. Newman's Parochial
Sermons--the new edition (1869), vol. i. p. 211.

[288] _American Journal of Science_, July 1860, p. 143, quoted in Dr. Asa
Gray's pamphlet, p. 47.

[289] See _The Academy_ for October 1869, No. 1, p. 13.

[290] Professor Huxley goes on to say that the mechanist may, in turn,
demand of the teleologist how the latter knows it was so intended. To this
it may be replied he knows it as a necessary truth of reason deduced from
his own primary intuitions, which intuitions cannot be questioned without
_absolute_ scepticism.

[291] The Professor doubtless means the _direct_ and _immediate_ result.
(See Trans. Zool. Soc. vol. v. p. 90.)

[292] "Natural Selection," p. 280.

[293] Dr. Asa Gray, _e.g._, has thus understood Mr. Darwin. The Doctor says
in his pamphlet, p. 38, "Mr. Darwin uses expressions which imply that the
natural forms which surround us, because they have a history or natural
sequence, could have been only generally, but not particularly designed,--a
view at once superficial and contradictory; whereas his true line should
be, that his hypothesis concerns the _order_ and not the _cause_, the _how_
and not the _why_ of the phenomena, and so leaves the question of design
just where it was before."

[294] "All science is but the partial reflexion in the _reason of man_, of
the great all-pervading _reason of the universe_. And the _unity_ of
science is the reflexion of the _unity_ of nature and of the _unity_ of
that supreme reason and intelligence which pervades and rules over nature,
and from whence all reason and all science is derived." (Rev. Baden Powell,
"Unity of the Sciences," Essay i. Sec. ii. p. 81.)

[295] "The Reign of Law," p. 40.

[296] Though Mr. Darwin's epithets denoting design are metaphorical, his
admiration of the result is unequivocal, nay, enthusiastic!

[297] See "Habit and Intelligence," vol. i. p. 348.

[298] The term, as before said, not being used in its ordinary theological
sense, but to denote an immediate Divine action as distinguished from God's
action through the powers conferred on the physical universe.

[299] See "Natural Selection," pp. 332 to 360.

[300] Loc. cit., p. 349.

[301] See Professor Huxley's "Lessons in Elementary Physiology," p. 218.

[302] It may be objected, perhaps, that excessive delicacy of the ear might
have been produced by having to guard against the approach of enemies, some
savages being remarkable for their keenness of hearing at great distances.
But the perceptions of _intensity_ and _quality_ of sound are very
different. Some persons who have an extremely acute ear for delicate
sounds, and who are fond of music, have yet an incapacity for detecting
whether an instrument is slightly out of tune.

[303] Loc. cit., pp. 351, 352.

[304] Loc. cit., p. 368.

[305] Loc. cit., p. 350.

[306] Published by John Churchill.

[307] Natural Selection, p. 324.

[308] The italics are not Mr. Wallace's.

[309] "Unity of Worlds," Essay ii. Sec. ii. p. 247.

[310] Ibid. Essay i. Sec. ii. p. 76.

[311] Ibid. Essay iii. Sec. iv. p. 466.

[312] A good exposition of how an inferior action has to yield to one
higher is given by Dr. Newman in his "Lectures on University Subjects," p.
372. "What is true in one science, is dictated to us indeed according to
that science, but not according to another science, or in another
department.

"What is certain in the military art, has force in the military art, but
not in statesmanship; and if statesmanship be a higher department of action
than war, and enjoins the contrary, it has no force on our reception and
obedience at all. And so what is true in medical science, might in all
cases be carried out, _were_ man a mere animal or brute without a soul; but
since he is a rational, responsible being, a thing may be ever so true in
medicine, yet may be unlawful in fact, in consequence of the _higher_ law
of morals and religion coming to some different conclusion."

[313] Quoted from the _Rambler_ of March 1860, p. 364: [Greek: "Hopou men
oun hapanta sunebe, hosper kain ei heneka tou egineto, tauta men esothe apo
tou automatou sustanta epitedeios hosa de me houtos apoleto kai apollutai,
kathapeo Empedokles legei ta bougene kai androprora.]"--ARIST. _Phys._ ii.
c. 8.

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