CONTENTS Arguments from Pathology; from Comparative Anatomy; and from Physiology - Physicism and Automatism-Professor Statement of the doctrine-Professor Tyndall's views-Origin of life and organic matter-Theory of continuity-Chemical relations-Organic force-Conservation and correlation of Alleged superiority of Evolution over all other theories of Onto- logy-Mr. Spencer's 'Evanescence of Evil'-Origin and transmutation of species-Various theories-Mr. Darwin's WINDS OF DOCTRINE. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. THE doctrines of Evolution, as held at the present time, by a large and influential section of the scientific world, logically culminate, as has been forcibly observed by Mr. St. George Mivart,' in 'three negations-viz. of God, the soul, and of virtue.' The idea of a personal Creator of the universe is proved, as an inevitable corollary of these doctrines, not only to be untenable and impossible, but to be so supremely irrational, that it can only have arisen in what represented the minds of men, during those inconceivably dark ages when they were slowly evolving themselves from their ancestral apes, into something resembling humanity.2 Until recent times, notwithstanding its absurdity, 1 Contemporary Review for September 1874. 2 See Haeckel's Natürliche Schöpfungs-Geschichte, p. 68. B this belief has been for the most part deemed an innocent one, and not without some favourable influence on the minds of men. It was reserved for Professor Clifford to make the noteworthy discovery that, ‘if it is right to call any doctrine immoral, it is right so to call this doctrine,' which recognises a 'destiny or a Providence outside of us, overruling the efforts of men;' or, in fact, any higher power or authority than that of man himself. 1 What has been considered as the soul is now shown to be merely the mechanical result of the interactions and affinities of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen; existing only by virtue of the combinations of these elements; ceasing to be when such combinations are resolved. Virtue, under such conditions, ceases to have any possible meaning. Every action of life and mind being determined and limited absolutely by physical laws, can only be mechanical or automatic in its nature; and its relation to morality, either as virtue. or vice, is as unreal as the morality itself. The demonstration of this Automatism is the latest achievement of a science which is daily becoming more unscientific-a thing of conjecture and assertion, rather than of fact and induction. On the question 'between Anthropomorphism (or freedom of volition), and Physicism (or Automatism), Professor Huxley says that 'science closely invests the walls; and philo 1 Fortnightly Review, December 1874, p. 730. |