SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTER.³⁴³⁴   The character of the evidence treated of in this chapter sufficiently separates it from the general range of merely illustrative evidence. This, upon the whole, seemed to be the proper position for it.

SPECIAL (GEOLOGICAL) EVIDENCE OF A CREATOR.

THE doctrine of an Intelligent First Cause, which it has been the aim of the foregoing chapter to establish, has been supposed to derive a special testimony and confirmation from the facts of Geological science. It has been maintained that these facts not only enable the Natural Theologian—as in the case of existing organic products—to infer a supreme Creative Mind, although this, too, they eminently do; but moreover conduct us directly backwards to the presence and agency of such a Mind. In a word, they are said to take us out of the region of natural cause and effect, and to bring us face to face with the great Creative Cause. Lord Brougham, in his review of the memorable labours of Cuvier in the department of Fossil Osteology, was among the first to draw attention to the distinctive character and cogency of this branch of the theistic evidence. Dr Chalmers was disposed 69to place great stress upon it, especially as serving in a direct and tangible way to extricate the Natural Theologian from the meshes of Hume’s sophistry. The question it involves, the reader will at once recognise as one which has recently assumed a peculiar prominence and importance in scientific discussions.

Interesting, however, as this question is to the Natural Theologian, it is right to observe that we do not hold it to involve the essential interests of Theism. The theistic argument no doubt receives a striking illumination from the idea of successive creative interpositions, manifest in the very structure of the earth and its organic remains. It is in the highest degree significant, that, as we turn over the stony tablets of the Geological volume, we should not merely be arrested at every page with impressive manifestations of that pervading design which we perceive everywhere, but at definite intervals should gaze with awe upon the very record of Creation, and behold, as it were, the finger of Omnipotence in mysterious operation. Yet it is clearly evident to us, and deserves to be carefully considered, that even should advancing science tend to throw obscurity upon the supposed traces of direct Creative Energy, the great doctrine of Theism would remain altogether untouched. Even if those finger-prints of the Creator, upon which the Christian Geologist has delighted to expatiate, should become dim and obliterated, as the eye of Science grows more familiar with them, and pierces them with a keener scrutiny, the fact of a Creative Presence would not thereby be really affected. God would equally, if 70not so strikingly, live and work in the supposed extended development of creation, as in the supposed instances of direct Creative Power.

It is worthy of notice how completely this is admitted by the chief expounder of the development hypothesis in our own country.³⁵³⁵   This admission is, upon the whole, so clearly and happily expressed, that we are prompted to submit it to the reader. “What, in the Science of Nature,” asks the author of the Vestiges, “is a law? It is merely the term applicable where any series of phenomena is seen invariably to occur in certain given circumstances, or in certain given conditions. Such phenomena are said to obey a law, because they appear to be under a rule or ordinance of constant operation. In the case of these physical laws, we can bring the idea to mathematical elements, and see that numbers, in the expression of space or of time, form, as it were, its basis. We thus trace in law, Intelligence. Often we can see that it has a beneficial object, still more strongly speaking of Mind as concerned in it. There cannot, however, be an inherent intelligence in these laws. The intelligence appears external to the laws: something of which the laws are but as the expressions of the Will and Power. If this be admitted, the laws cannot be regarded as primary or independent causes of the phenomena of the physical world. We come, in short, to a Being beyond nature—its Author, its God; infinite, inconceivable, it may be, and yet one whom these very laws present to us with attributes showing that our nature is in some way a faint and far-cast shadow of His, while all the gentlest and beautifullest of our emotions lead us to believe that we are as children in His care, and as vessels in His hand. Let it then be understood—and this is for the reader’s special attention—that when rational law is spoken of here, reference is only made to the mode in which the Divine Power is exercised. It is but another phrase for the action of the ever-present and sustaining God.”—P. 10. However his conclusions may seem, as they certainly seem to us, to obscure and pervert, in its highest meaning, the doctrine of Theism, they are yet by no means essentially, still less expressly, atheistic. On the contrary, the author strongly recognises a Supreme Mind, as necessarily implied in all the order of the universe; and, in the most recent edition of his work, he has added the special confession, that he “believes” in a personal and intelligent God, and 71cannot conceive of dead matter receiving life otherwise than through Him.³⁶³⁶   Appendix to Vestiges, p. 55; tenth edition.

The peculiar question involved is not one which properly affects the existence of God, however deeply it may affect all for which that truth is important and dear to us. It is truly a question as to the mode of the Divine Agency. In the one case as in the other, a Creator is admitted; only in the one case it is maintained that we have (in the fact of the origin of life, for example—and again, of the successive animal species that have peopled the earth) the manifestations of a special Creative Energy; in the other, that we have merely the manifestations of an advance in the course of natural law—an advance not alleged to exclude the Creator, yet the immediate result of an inherent impulse originally imparted to matter, and not of a special creative fiat.

In the question thus at issue, the burden of proof lies plainly upon the advocate of the development hypothesis. He proposes a special theory to account for the ascending phenomena of creation, and the successive changes of organic being to which Geology testifies. This theory is one which is undeniably at variance with the law which now most obviously regulates the production of life. The very words in which the author of the Vestiges has expressed his theory imply this. The hypothetical development which he defends is one whereby, he says, “the simplest and most primitive type, under a law to which that of like production is subordinate, 72gave birth to the type next above it—this again produced the next type, and so on to the highest.”³⁷³⁷   Vestiges; Appendix, p. 60. But the law of like production, which he here subordinates to a higher and more comprehensive law, is the only one with which, in the historical period of creation, we are familiar. As yet we certainly possess no valid evidence of a different law—or, in other words, of the transmutation of species—and still less of the origin of life under any material influences, electrical or otherwise.

True, it is admitted on all hands, that both vegetable and animal organisms are capable of certain degrees of variation and modification under external circumstances. There are even, it must be granted, certain indications among the lower forms of life of this modifiable capacity extending farther than was at first supposed. The alleged case of the Ægilops ovata³⁸³⁸   This naturally barren grass, according to the alleged discovery of M. Esprit Fabre, is merely the wild form of cultivated wheat. is an illustration. But, admitting all this, it will not be contended that any series of facts, as yet discovered by science, tends to establish a doctrine of mutation of species. Indications there have been sufficiently curious, and fitted to arrest the inductive inquirer as to the supposed accuracy of his specific distinctions, but certainly no foundation whatever for denying the reality of such distinctions. Nay, the fact that organisms generally are modifiable within certain limits, but not beyond them—that this is the unquestionable law of organic species within the historical period, would seem to imply that there is, in all 73cases, a set boundary to the operation of external influences. Definite variability within the range of species would seem to form just the most strongly presumptive evidence of the substantive and radical distinction of species. This is clearly the truth to which the “overbalance of physiological authority” testifies. The decision of the authority is thus expressed by Dr Whewell: “There is a capacity in all species to accommodate themselves, to a certain extent, to a change of external circumstances, this extent varying greatly according to the species. There may thus arise changes of appearance or structure, and some of these changes are transmissible to the offspring; but the mutations thus superinduced are governed by constant laws, and confined within certain limits. Indefinite divergence from the original type is not possible; and the extreme limit of possible variation may usually be reached in a short period of time. In short, species have a real existence in nature, and a transmutation from one to another does not exist.”³⁹³⁹   Indications of the Creator, p. 100.

We are aware that it is argued by the advocate of development that the law of mutation of species, which we fail to discover in the present order of things, may yet have been in active operation throughout the lengthened periods of Geological history, in comparison with which the years of man’s scientific observation of the earth are not to be reckoned; but until he can show this, it is at least the safer course to abide by the testimony of historical experience. Here and now we perceive that the law of like from like is 74the law of organic production; and if the fact of this being the present law will not perhaps entitle us to pronounce authoritatively that it was the law as well of the ancient periods of the earth, still less, surely, are we warranted in admitting the operation of a wholly different law during these periods, without a wholly different kind of evidence from that which Geology has yet furnished.

But even if there were as many presumptions in favour of the theory of the transmutation of species as there are presumptions against it, there would still remain the stubborn and inexplicable fact of LIFE (not to mention the higher facts of Intelligence and Responsibility) in the way of the adoption of the hypothesis of the Vestiges. For it will hardly be seriously maintained that any of the attempts which have been made to explain by natural means the genesis of life from dead matter, deserves from us other acknowledgment than is ever due to the persevering and aspiring efforts of Science, in whatever direction. The theory of spontaneous generation, in any shape, has undoubtedly been losing rather than gaining ground from the late advances of physiology. Suppositions, at one time pretty generally entertained, as to the production of infusory animalcula apart from ova, have been pronounced by Professor Owen, in conformity with the result of his recent researches into the various modes of reproduction with which nature has provided these animals, to be “quite gratuitous.”⁴⁰⁴⁰   Lectures on Comparative Anatomy, vol. ii. p. 190, quoted by Hitchcock in his Religion of Geology, p. 269. The more thoroughly, indeed, the minuter facts of nature are apprehended—the 75 more the light of science is cast upon them—only the deeper becomes the mystery of Life. Instead of our approaching the exposure of this secret, we are only the more fully taught that it lies beyond our scrutiny, and must for ever baffle our research.

In the view of the facts thus briefly urged, which leave the development hypothesis at the best a mere unsupported, if not uninteresting, conjecture, it cannot be doubted that the theory of successive creations, defended by all our highest Geologists, is the one which has most claim to our acceptance. It proceeds on an obvious basis of facts, which not only warrants, but, in the mean time at least, seems to necessitate it. In tracing backwards the Geological history, we meet with phenomena which do not relate themselves to antecedent phenomena in the way of natural cause and effect. The supposition of a Supernatural or Creative Cause seems inevitable. Be it observed that this theory, according to its just meaning, does not put itself forward as a dogma. It does not interdict inquiry, and pronounce that there are no links of natural sequence between the phenomena in question; it only states that none such have been proved. It does not judge nature, but simply interprets it; asserting merely as matter of fact, that no such links have been exposed; that in our retrogressive ascent along the course of creation we reach gaps in the evolution of physical sequences—points which yield no natural explanation, and which therefore necessitate a Supernatural. We trace backwards the threads of physical relations, till we can go no farther by the boldest light of Science, until, by the very penetrating blaze 76of its torch, we are brought face to face with directly Creative Power.

In thus recognising successive interventions of direct Creative Power in the Geological history, we do not for a moment necessarily deny the presence of a general order of procession among the phenomena of creation. The advocates of development have indeed dexterously sought to represent their theory as the only possible conception of processional order, applied to the universe. They have put the question as between it and any intelligible theory at all. But this is wholly unwarrantable; for it surely is not in the least degree necessary that we hold that the whole process of creation has been a mere evolution from primordial principles at first imparted to matter—that, in the language of Dr Whewell, “Life grows out of dead matter, the higher animals out of the lower, and man out of brutes,”⁴¹⁴¹   Dr WHEWELL’S Indications, Preface, p. 12. in order to be able to discover a true and vast order of progress in the course of creation. Such a merely mechanical development appears, on the contrary, from its very affectation of simplicity, to be an ambiguous and suspicious conception. In any case it can have no claim, a priori, to represent the process of creation; and they who discredit it are not to be supposed at all insensible “to the wonderful order and harmony, the gradations and connections, which run through the forms of animal life, and enable the anatomist and physiologist to pass in thought, along the unbroken line, from the rudest and simplest organic germs to the most completely developed animal structure.”⁴²⁴²   Ibid., p. 13.

The idea of an ascensional order of creation is one which, in our opinion, the Christian Theist is by no means called upon to dispute; and perhaps it will be admitted, on a calm review of the recent controversy on the subject, that too much anxiety has been evinced to break up the alleged evidence of ascension—of development, in a true sense, upon which the author of the Vestiges has founded his conclusions. Even should the supposed discovery of vertebrated fossils in the lower Silurian rocks, as recently reported, be, in the end, able to sustain itself, this would by no means settle the matter against the theory of ascent. It would by no means follow that the course of creation may not have been, as a whole, from the lower to the higher, although we may yet discover the highest animals in the lowest stratified rocks. Such a discovery would, no doubt, bear with damaging effect against the author of the Vestiges, but it would not at all necessarily destroy a rational theory of development. It does not and cannot overturn the idea of a regular procession of species; it only removes the date and verge of that procession farther back. This is all that such a discovery would necessarily imply; and as Theism has nothing to dread from the idea of a processional advance from the lower to the higher types of being, rightly apprehended—while this idea is one which commends itself by its suggestive grandeur—we do not see that it should either attract suspicion or provoke refutation.

If only we hold by the clear conception of the course of nature—or, in other words, Providence—being nothing else than a continued forth-putting of originally Creative Energy, 78we shall see nothing to surprise us in the gradual rise and ever-expanding development of new forms of being along the march of creation. These will seem to us, on the contrary, just what we might expect, so far as our expectations have any claim to be regarded in the matter; only brighter flushings, as it were, of the Divine Presence, here and there, along the extended scroll of creation, telling more directly of the radiant Power which it everywhere reveals.

And this view is that which no less tells most decisively against the hypothesis of the Vestiges. It is the same vicious metaphysical assumption which we have seen to underly the reasoning of the Positive School as to the direct action of Divine Will being something necessarily irregular—being what is called (in language which concentrates the whole perverted essence of the assumption) an “interference.” It is undoubtedly this vicious idea, as to a necessary opposition between law and Creative Will, which lies at the root of the whole reasoning of the Vestiges, and forms the most vital question between the author and his opponents. But why, we may surely ask, should direct Creative action be necessarily conceived of as an interference, and, as such, unworthy of the Infinite repose and majesty of God?⁴³⁴³   Every one familiar with the Vestiges will recall how repeatedly the author falls back upon this assumption as to the Divine character and mode of action. It is the pervading idea, in fact, in which the book obviously originated. What is law itself, according to the clear admission of the writer, but a mode of the Divine Efficiency—an expression of the Divine Mind or Will? What is it that constitutes the permanence which we peculiarly ascribe to law—79to the order of Providence—but the continued forthputting of that Efficiency? Were this forth-putting to cease any moment, the law would disappear, the course of Providence would dissolve and vanish away. Now, because God, for obvious reasons, maintains the forth-puttings of His Efficient Energy, after certain modes which, collectively, we call Nature, why should this exclude new and special forth-puttings of that energy, when He may see meet—in other words, when fitting occasions may arise? Why should such fresh expressions of Creative Power be supposed to be irregularities, “interferences” in the great plan of creation—and not, as according to the genuine theistic conception they truly are, parts in the development of that great plan contemplated from the first? Is not the former supposition the one which truly degrades that Infinite Being, “who knoweth all His works from the beginning to the end?”

The truth is, it is only the most deep-seated anthropomorphism (which is yet the peculiar contempt of Materialism) that gives rise to the imagination of a conflict between law or order, and the special action of the Divine Will, in any case. For if we remove the wholly human element of imperfection, all such possible discrepancy disappears. In this conception of the Highest, all arbitrariness vanishes, and the whole order of nature is apprehended as simply a continued efflux of Infinite Power and Wisdom.