Principal Dawson.

Dr. Dawson, as we are informed, is regarded as the first palæontologist, and among the first geologists, in America. In his "Story of Earth and Man,"³⁹³⁹The Story of Earth and Man. By J. W. Dawson, LL. D., F. R. S., F. G. S., Principal and Vice-Chancellor of McGill University, Montreal. Author of Archaia, Acadian Geology, etc. Second edition. London, 1873, pp. 397. he passes in review the several geological periods recognized by geologists; describes as far as knowable the distribution of land and water during each period, and the vegetable and animal productions by which they were distinguished. His book from beginning to end is anti-Darwinian. In common with other naturalists, his attention is directed principally to the doctrine of evolution, which he endeavors to prove is utterly untenable. That Mr. Darwin's theory excludes teleology is everywhere assumed as an uncontroverted and uncontrovertible fact. "The evolutionist doctrine," he says, "is itself one of the strangest phenomena of humanity. It existed, and most naturally, in the oldest philosophy and poetry, in connection with the crudest and most uncritical attempts of the120 human mind to grasp the system of nature; but that in our day a system destitute of any shadow of proof, and supported merely by vague analogies and figures of speech, and by the arbitrary and artificial coherence of its own parts, should be accepted as philosophy, and should find able adherents to string on its thread of hypotheses our vast and weighty stores of knowledge, is surpassingly strange.... In many respects these speculations are important, and worthy the attention of thinking men. They seek to revolutionize the religious belief of the world, and if accepted would destroy most of the existing theology and philosophy. They indicate tendencies among scientific thinkers, which, though probably temporary, must, before they disappear, descend to lower strata, and reproduce themselves in grosser forms, and with most serious effects on the whole structure of society. With one class of minds they constitute a sort of religion, which so far satisfies the craving for truth higher than those which relate to immediate wants and pleasures. With another and perhaps larger class, they are accepted as affording a welcome deliverance from all scruples of conscience and fears of a hereafter. In the121 domain of science evolutionism has like tendencies. It reduces the position of man, who becomes a descendant of inferior animals, and a mere term in a series whose end is unknown. It removes from the study of nature the ideas of final cause and purpose; and the evolutionist, instead of regarding the world as a work of consummate plan, skill, and adjustment, approaches nature as he would a chaos of fallen rocks, which may present forms of castles, and grotesque profiles of men and animals, but they are all fortuitous and without significance." (pp. 317, 318)

"Taking, then, this broad view of the subject, two great leading alternatives are presented to us. Either man is an independent product of the will of a Higher Intelligence, acting directly or through the laws and materials of his own institution and production, or he has been produced by an unconscious evolution from lower things. It is true that many evolutionists, either unwilling to offend, or not perceiving the logical consequences of their own hypothesis, endeavor to steer a middle course, and to maintain that the Creator has proceeded by way of evolution. But the bare, hard logic of Spencer, the greatest English122 authority on evolution, leaves no place for this compromise, and shows that the theory, carried out to its legitimate consequences, excludes the knowledge of a Creator and the possibility of his work. We have, therefore, to choose between evolution and creation, bearing in mind, however, that there may be a place in nature for evolution, properly limited, as well as for other things, and that the idea of creation by no means excludes law and second causes." (p. 321)

"It may be said, that evolution may be held as a scientific doctrine in connection with a modified belief in creation. The work of actual creation may have been limited to a few elementary types, and evolution may have done the rest. Evolutionists may still be theists. We have already seen that the doctrine, as carried out to its logical consequences, excludes creation and theism. It may, however, be shown that even in its more modified form, and when held by men who maintain that they are not atheists, it is practically atheistic, because excluding the idea of plan and design, and resolving all things into the action of unintelligent forces. It is necessary to observe this, because it is the half-way-evolutionism,123 which professes to have a creator somewhere behind it, that is most popular; though it is, if possible, more unphilosophical than that which professes to set out with absolute and determined nonentity, or from self-existing stardust containing all the possibilities of the universe."

In reference to the objection of evolutionists, that the origin of every new species, on the theistic doctrine, supposes "a miracle," an intervention of the divine efficiency without the agency of second causes, Principal Dawson asks, "What is the actual statement of the theory of creation as it may be held by a modern man of science? Simply this: that all things have been produced by the Supreme Creative will, acting either directly, or through the agency of the forces and material of his own production." (p. 340)

He thus sums up his argument against the doctrine of evolution, specially in its application to man: "Finally, the evolutionist picture wants some of the fairest lineaments of humanity, and cheats us with the semblance of man without the reality. Shave and paint your ape as you may, clothe him and set him up upon his feet, still he fails greatly of the 'hu124man form divine;' and so it is with him morally and spiritually as well. We have seen that he wants the instinct of immortality, the love of God, the mental and spiritual power of exercising dominion over the earth. The very agency by which he is evolved is of itself subversive of all these higher properties; the struggle for existence is essentially selfish, and, therefore, degrading. Even in the lower animals, it is a false assumption that its tendency is to elevate; for animals, when driven to the utmost verge of the struggle for life, become depauperated and degraded. The dog which spends its life in snarling contention with its fellow curs for insufficient food, will not be a noble specimen of its race. God does not so treat his creatures. There is far more truth to nature in the doctrine which represents Him as listening to the young ravens when they cry for food. But as applied to man, the theory of the struggle for existence, and survival of the fittest, though the most popular phase of evolutionism at present, is nothing less than the basest and most horrible of superstitions. It makes man not merely carnal but devilish. It takes his lowest appetites and propensities, and makes them his God and Creator. His125 higher sentiments and aspirations, his self-denying philanthropy, his enthusiasm for the good and true, all the struggles and sufferings of heroes and martyrs, not to speak of that self-sacrifice which is the foundation of Christianity, are, in the view of the evolutionist, mere loss and waste, failure in the struggle of life. What does he give us in exchange? An endless pedigree of bestial ancestors, without one gleam of high and holy tradition to enliven the procession; and for the future, the prospect that the poor mass of protoplasm, which constitutes the sum of our being, and which is the sole gain of an indefinite struggle in the past, must soon be resolved again into inferior animals or dead matter. That men of thought and culture should advocate such a philosophy, argues either a strange mental hallucination, or that the higher spiritual nature has been wholly quenched within them. It is one of the saddest of many sad spectacles which our age presents." (p. 395)