Divine Selection or The Survival of the Useful/Chapter 1
CHAPTER I
IT HAS been the work of the last century to present a nearly complete theory of Evolution, and to formulate a chain of reasoning that upholds the doctrine that every genus and species of plants and animals are derived from simple forms through gradual modification of functions.
The first suggestion of this doctrine threw the religious world into consternation. At first its advocates did not openly attack the fundamentals of religion, but with ominous reticence in regard to the spiritual and the Divine, or with the subtlety of cautious but factitious wisdom pleading them unknown, they proceeded to elaborate a theory that, if true, not only undermines all religion, but so thoroughly denies God as to render Him unnecessary.
The religiously inclined saw in Evolution, with its theories of "natural selection" and "survival of the fittest," a most dangerous enemy, threatening to do away with religion, spirituality, the Scriptures, and God, as the impressions of superstition made in the childhood of our race.
Evolution was too formidably intrenched behind apparent fact and crafty reason to admit of absolute defeat with the weapons then at hand. Some scoffed, others ridiculed; but never in the world's history have these resorts stayed the progress of good or evil. Yet here and there a stalwart nature has risen and dealt the theory a staggering blow, from which it has tried to recover by shifting position or by re-intrenchment.
Nevertheless, Evolution has extended its lines until it is accepted by many among all thinking classes. There are many of the religious who accept it, in one form or another, as the Creator's method of bringing the universe into existence as it is to-day; though it is a little difficult to comprehend how a system of creation that is all-sufficient in itself could be a method employed by any one.
Yet there has ever been a feeling of dissatisfaction, a sense that Evolution is not all, that it is sadly inadequate. Consequently Evolution has made its way against a reluctance almost universal, and has been accepted, openly by some and tacitly by others, because backed by so formidable an array of apparent fact and contrived reason that no one has been found who could satisfactorily defeat it all along the line and at the same time offer a better solution of phenomena.
In this regard it may be said that the favor with which Evolution is met exists more from the lack of any other well-defined system than from its own merits.
The most prominent defect in Evolution is that it does not go deep enough. It is too superficial. It purports to give a history of outward effects, but openly avows that it cannot explain their inner causes. And so far as the causes are approached, the explanation is ridiculously inadequate to the effect, involving even a greater mystery than the cause itself. For it is easier to conceive of the governing intelligence, order, power, truth, love, and righteousness as existing in a personal God who creates from Himself, than it is to imagine these wonderful things existing in the "primeval units," which hypothesis assumes the very thing to be proved. That society with its marvelous developments, scientific, civil, and spiritual, should have started by the "fortuitous concourse of atoms," is more strange than the creation which it cannot explain. And when we come to the application of the principles of Evolution to social problems, and witness the final conclusions in regard to the origin of right, good, spirituality, conceptions of God, and the like, we are led so far away from the possible, and so deeply into the absurd and profane, that only the most sordid devotee, the shallow, and the credulous can entertain the doctrine.
The same causes that started creation have continued it, even to bringing forth its final form, which is the righteous and holy Christian, with a rational comprehension of a spiritual world, aspirations for eternal life, a living faith in God, and inmost desire to become more and more His image and likeness.
Now if fortune began creation, it has been by luck and chance that each step in the upward development was made; and luck, chance, and fortune are the sum of all intelligence, design, wisdom, love, and life that is or is to come. In which case the essential nature of the creative power and the supreme intelligence is luck, for the first cause must terminate in the last effect. The first cause and all derivative or subsequent causes must be the same in essence.
If luck and chance had failed in one instance in the long line of development, creation would have ended in chaos. If chance started creation it is by chance that oaks bear acorns and not beech-nuts, and that beech-nuts grow into beech-trees rather than into oaks. It is by fortune that of the myriads of plants and animals each bears its kind, and not one mistake ever occurs. It is by luck that the universe is kept in its order, and law itself is merely such good fortune that it never varies. These are legitimate, inevitable conclusions from the premises of Evolution, to which every close and consistent thinker must be forced.
It is creation itself upon which the scholarship of the world should center, and of which it should seek a rational explanation, for the evident reason that the same principles are applicable to each step in its development. Since the superstructure can be no more stable than the foundation upon which it rests, we should not be surprised at the revulsion that the theory of Evolution meets among the more discerning thinkers. For it is this irrational quality carried throughout Evolution that causes a great body of the religious and intelligent to hold the theory in abeyance as something yet inadequate and unsatisfactory.
The unmodified law of the "survival of the fittest" is instinctively seen as pure selfishness. It does not answer back to the unselfishness in human kind. It is not a human explanation. God is good, we feel. His works are good. But if the cold and cruel struggle for self-existence is the energizing and inmost thing, nature's beauty is false, the song of the stars is a dirge, and the grand anthem of the universe is a rasping chord. If Evolution, with its theory of "natural selection" and "survival of the fittest," with its theory of the "fortuitous concourse of atoms," and the final dissolution of the universe into the nebulas from which it sprang, and the consequent obliteration of human kind, tells the whole story, mankind has been all wrong, and they who rejoice in beauty, love, righteousness, eternal life, and God, are doomed to final disappointment and sorrow, for what they hold most dear, and regard as an expression of the wisdom and love of their Creator, are but as the smooth fur and soft purring of ravenous animals, rending not only the body, but tearing apart the tenderest feelings of faith and love, and devouring all human hopes. If such theories were to prevail, the Harpies and cannibal Cyclops are not fabulous creatures of ancient times, but real monsters dwelling in civilized countries, still satiating their cruel appetites with human flesh.
Mr. Drummond saw this, and endeavored to repair the defect by supplementing the struggle for self by the struggle for the lives of others, as observed in the surrender of life-force by plants and animals in the propagation of their kind. And others, feeling deeply the wrong of Evolution as taught by the school of Messrs, Darwin, Huxley, Tyndall, Spencer, and Hæckel, have worked to modify the theory; so that already, in these rapidly changing times, the old school of Evolution is quite antiquated.
Strong and godly men have taken the more likely part of Evolution as devised by the Sensists, and used it not to confirm materialism and excuse agnosticism, but as a means of advancing nearer to the Divine, into clearer light, and into more intelligent faith. With unsurpassed skill they have used Evolution more effectually in proving what it was intended to disprove than did its inventors in establishing materialism.
It is not only gratifying, but surprisingly so, to notice how righteous men have step by step gone on. Modification upon modification has produced in advanced thought as much difference between evolutionary reasonings now and a few years ago as Evolution is claimed to have wrought between man and the ape. A few more Drummonds, Mivarts, Fiskes, and there will be left none of the sad conclusions of materialistic Evolution, which regards man soulless, the universe Godless, and crowns development not with the break of a radiant world of eternal life and beauty, but with the black pall of "omnipresent death."