The Sense in which Mr. Darwin uses the Word "Natural."

We have not yet reached the heart of Mr. Darwin's theory. The main idea of his system lies in the word "natural." He uses that word in two senses: first, as antithetical to the word artificial. Men can produce very marked varieties as to structure and habits of animals. This is exemplified in the production of the different breeds of horses, cattle, sheep, and dogs; and specially, as Mr. Darwin seems to think, in the case of pigeons. Of these, he says, "The diversity of breeds is something astonishing." Some have long, and some very short bills; some have large feet, some small; some long necks, others long wings and tails, while others have singularly short tails; some have thirty,41 and even forty, tail-feathers, instead of the normal number of twelve or fourteen. They differ as much in instinct as they do in form. Some are carriers, some pouters, some tumblers, some trumpeters; and yet all are descendants of the Rock Pigeon which is still extant. If, then, he argues, man, in a comparatively short time, has by artificial selection produced all these varieties, what might be accomplished on the boundless scale of nature, during the measureless ages of the geologic periods.

Secondly, he uses the word natural as antithetical to supernatural. Natural selection is a selection made by natural laws, working without intention and design. It is, therefore, opposed not only to artificial selection, which is made by the wisdom and skill of man to accomplish a given purpose, but also to supernatural selection, which means either a selection originally intended by a power higher than nature; or which is carried out by such power. In using the expression Natural Selection, Mr. Darwin intends to exclude design, or final causes. All the changes in structure, instinct, or intelligence, in the plants or animals, including man, descended from the primordial germ,42 or animalcule, have been brought about by unintelligent physical causes. On this point he leaves us in no doubt. He defines nature to be "the aggregate action and product of natural laws; and laws are the sequence of events as ascertained by us." It had been objected that he often uses teleological language, speaking of purpose, intention, contrivance, adaptation, etc. In answer to this objection, he says: "It has been said, that I speak of natural selection as a power or deity; but who objects to an author speaking of the attraction of gravity as ruling the movements of the planet?" He admits that in the literal sense of the words, natural selection is a false term; but "who ever objected to chemists, speaking of the elective affinities of various elements?—and yet an acid cannot strictly be said to elect the base with which it in preference combines." (p. 93) We have here an affirmation and a negation. It is affirmed that natural selection is the operation of natural laws, analogous to the action of gravitation and of chemical affinities. It is denied that it is a process originally designed, or guided by intelligence, such as the activity which foresees an end and consciously selects and controls the means of its accomplishment.43 Artificial selection, then, is an intelligent process; natural selection is not.

There are in the animal and vegetable worlds innumerable instances of at least apparent contrivance, which have excited the admiration of men in all ages. There are three ways of accounting for them. The first is the Scriptural doctrine, namely, that God is a Spirit, a personal, self-conscious, intelligent agent; that He is infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in his being and perfections; that He is ever present; that this presence is a presence of knowledge and power. In the external world there is always and everywhere indisputable evidence of the activity of two kinds of force: the one physical, the other mental. The physical belongs to matter, and is due to the properties with which it has been endowed; the other is the everywhere present and ever acting mind of God. To the latter are to be referred all the manifestations of design in nature, and the ordering of events in Providence. This doctrine does not ignore the efficiency of second causes; it simply asserts that God over-rules and controls them. Thus the Psalmist says, "I am fearfully and wonderfully made.... My substance was not hid from thee, when44 I was made in secret, and curiously wrought (or embroidered) in the lower parts of the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance yet being imperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there were none of them." "He who fashioned the eye, shall not He see? He that formed the ear shall not He hear?" "God makes the grass to grow, and herbs for the children of men." He sends rain, frost, and snow. He controls the winds and the waves. He determines the casting of the lot, the flight of an arrow, and the falling of a sparrow. This universal and constant control of God is not only one of the most patent and pervading doctrines of the Bible, but it is one of the fundamental principles of even natural religion.

The second method of accounting for contrivances in nature admits that they were foreseen and purposed by God, and that He endowed matter with forces which He foresaw and intended should produce such results. But here his agency stops. He never interferes to guide the operation of physical causes. He does nothing to control the course of nature, or the events of history. On this theory it may be said, (1.) That it is utterly inconsistent with the45 Scriptures. (2.) It does not meet the religious and moral necessities of our nature. It renders prayer irrational and inoperative. It makes it vain for a man in any emergency to look to God for help. (3.) It is inconsistent with obvious facts. We see around us innumerable evidences of the constant activity of mind. This evidence of mind and of its operations, according to Lord Brougham and Dr. Whewell, is far more clear than that of the existence of matter and of its forces. If one or the other is to be denied, it is the latter rather than the former. Paley indeed says, that if the construction of a watch be an undeniable evidence of design it would be a still more wonderful manifestation of skill, if a watch could be made to produce other watches; and, it may be added, not only other watches, but all kinds of time-pieces in endless variety. So it has been asked, if man can make a telescope, why cannot God make a telescope which produces others like itself? This is simply asking, whether matter can be made to do the work of mind? The idea involves a contradiction. For a telescope to make a telescope, supposes it to select copper and zinc in due proportions and fuse them into brass; to fashion that brass46 into inter-entering tubes; to collect and combine the requisite materials for the different kinds of glass needed; to melt them, grind, fashion, and polish them; adjust their densities and focal distances, etc., etc. A man who can believe that brass can do all this, might as well believe in God. The most credulous men in the world are unbelievers. The great Napoleon could not believe in Providence; but he believed in his star, and in lucky and unlucky days.

This banishing God from the world is simply intolerable, and, blessed be his name, impossible. An absent God who does nothing is, to us, no God. Christ brings God constantly near to us. He said to his disciples, "Consider the ravens, for they neither sow nor reap; which have neither store-house nor barn; and God feedeth them; how much better are ye than the fowls. And which of you by taking thought can add to his stature one cubit? Consider the lilies how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin; and yet I say unto you that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. If then God so clothe the grass, which is to-day in the field, and to-morrow is cast into the oven; how much47 more will He clothe you, O ye of little faith." "And seek ye not what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, neither be ye of doubtful mind. For all these things do the nations of the world seek after; and your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things." It may be said that Christ did not teach science. True, but He taught truth; and science, so called, when it comes in conflict with truth, is what man is when he comes in conflict with God.

The advocates of these extreme opinions protest against being considered irreligious. Herbert Spencer says, that his doctrine of an inscrutable, unintelligent, unknown force, as the cause of all things, is a much more religious doctrine than that of a personal, intelligent, and voluntary Being of infinite power and goodness. Matthew Arnold holds that an unconscious "power which makes for right," is a higher idea of God than the Jehovah of the Bible. Christ says, God is a Spirit. Holbach thought that he made a great advance on that definition, when he said, God is motion.

The third method of accounting for the contrivances manifested in the organs of plants and animals, is that which refers them to the blind operation of natural causes. They are48 not due to the continued coöperation and control of the divine mind, nor to the original purpose of God in the constitution of the universe. This is the doctrine of the Materialists, and to this doctrine, we are sorry to say, Mr. Darwin, although himself a theist, has given in his adhesion. It is on this account the Materialists almost deify him.

From what has been said, it appears that Darwinism includes three distinct elements. First, evolution; or the assumption that all organic forms, vegetable and animal, have been evolved or developed from one, or a few, primordial living germs; second, that this evolution has been effected by natural selection, or the survival of the fittest; and third, and by far the most important and only distinctive element of his theory, that this natural selection is without design, being conducted by unintelligent physical causes. Neither the first nor the second of these elements constitute Darwinism; nor do the two combined. As to the first, namely, evolution, Mr. Darwin himself, in the historical sketch prefixed to the fifth edition of his "Origin of Species," says, that Lamarck, in 1811 and more fully in 1815, "taught that all species, including man, are49 descended from other species." He refers to some six or eight other scientists, as teaching the same doctrine. This idea of Evolution was prominently presented and elaborated in the "Vestiges of Creation," first published in 1844. Ulrici, Professor in the University of Halle, Germany, in his work "Gott und die Natur," says that the doctrine of evolution took no hold on the minds of scientific men, but was positively rejected by the most eminent physiologists, among whom he mentions J. Müller, K. Wagner, Bischoff, Hoffmann, and others.⁸⁸Gott und die Natur. Von D. Hermann Ulrici. Zweite Auflage. Leipzig, 1866, p. 394. The Rev. George Henslow, Lecturer on Botany at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, London, himself a pronounced evolutionist, says the theories of Lamarck and of the "Vestiges of Creation" have given place to that of Mr. Darwin; "and there are not wanting many symptoms of decay in the acceptance even of his. Not only has he considerably modified his views in later editions of the 'Origin of Species,' distinctly expressing the opinion that he attributed too great influence to natural selection, but even men of science, Owen, Huxley,—and at least in its application50 to man, Wallace himself,—are either opposed to it in great measure, or else give it but a qualified assent. Thus, it has been the fate of all theories of the development of living things to lapse into oblivion. Evolution itself, however, will stand the same."⁹⁹The Theory of Evolution of Living Things and the Application of the Principles of Evolution to Religion. By Rev. George Henslow, M. A., F. L. S., F. G. S. London, 1873, pp. 27, 28. We find in the "Transactions of the Victoria Institute," a still more decided repudiation of Darwinism on the part of Mr. Henslow. He there says: "I do not believe in Darwin's theory; and have endeavored to refute it by showing its utter impossibility."¹⁰¹⁰Journal of the Transactions of the Victoria Institute, or Philosophical Society of Great Britain. Vol. iv. London, 1870, p. 278. He defines Evolution by saying, "It supposes all animals and plants that exist now, or have ever existed, to have been produced through laws of generation from preëxisting animals and plants respectively; that affinity amongst organic beings implies, or is due to community of descent; and that the degree of affinity between organisms is in proportion to their nearness of generation, or, at least, to the persistence of common characters, they being the products of originally the same parentage."¹¹¹¹Evolution and Religion, p. 29. A man, therefore, may be an51 evolutionist, without being a Darwinian. It should be mentioned that Mr. Henslow expressly excludes man, both as to body and soul, from the law of evolution.

Nor is the theory of natural selection the vital principle of Mr. Darwin's theory, unless the word natural be taken in a sense antithetical to supernatural. In the historical sketch just referred to, Mr. Darwin not only says that he had been anticipated in teaching the doctrine of Evolution by Lamarck and the author of the "Vestiges of Creation;" but that the theory of natural selection, as the means of accounting for evolution, was not original with him. He tells us that as early as 1813, Dr. W. C. Wells "distinctly recognizes the principle of natural selection;" and that Mr. Patrick Matthew, in 1831, "gives precisely the same view of the origin of species as that propounded by Mr. Wallace and myself." Ideas are like seed: they are often cast forth, and not finding a congenial soil produce no fruit. To Mr. Darwin is undoubtedly due the elaboration and thoroughly scientific defence of the theory of natural selection, and to him is to be referred the deep and widespread interest which it has excited.