immortality? Was it an accidental variety,' seized upon by the power of natural selection,' and made permanent? Is the step from the finite to the infinite to be regarded as one of the indefinitely small steps in man's continuous progress of development, and effected by the operation of ordinary natural causes ?"1 hand, however, is that Mr. Darwin's theory

The point now in is incapable of proof. From the nature of the case, what concerns the origin of things cannot be known except by a supernatural revelation. All else must be speculation and conjecture. And no man under the guidance of reason will renounce the teachings of a well-authenticated revelation, in obedience to human speculation, however ingenious. The uncertainty attending all philosophical or scientific theories as to the origin of things, is sufficiently apparent from their number and inconsistencies. Science as soon as she gets past the actual and the extant, is in the region of speculation, and is merged into philosophy, and is subject to all its hallucinations.

Thus we have,

Theories of the Universe.

1. The purely atheistic theory; which assumes that matter has existed forever, and that all the universe contains and reveals is due to material forces.

2. The theory which admits the creation of matter, but denies any further intervention of God in the world, and refers the origin of life to physical causes. This was the doctrine of Lamarck, and of the author of the "Vestiges of Creation," and is the theory to which Professor Huxley, notwithstanding his denial of spontaneous generation in the existing state of things, seems strongly inclined. In his address as President of the British Association for the Promotion of Science, delivered in September, 1870, he said: “Looking back through the prodigious vista of the past, I find no record of the commencement of life, and therefore I am devoid of any means of forming a definite conclusion as to the conditions of its appearance. Belief, in the scientific sense of the word, is a serious matter, and needs strong foundations. To say, therefore, in the admitted absence of evidence, that I have any belief as to the mode in which the existing forms of life have originated, would be using words in a wrong sense. But expectation is permissible, where belief is not; and if it were given me to look beyond the abyss of genealogically recorded time to the still more remote period when the earth was passing through physical and chemical conditions,

1 Frazer's Magazine, July, 1860 p. 88.

1

which it can no more see again than a man may recall his infancy, I should expect to be a witness of the evolution of living protoplasm from not living matter. I should expect to see it appear under forms of great simplicity, endowed, like existing fungi, with the power of determining the formation of new protoplasm from such matters as ammonium carbonates, oxalates and tartrates, alkaline and earthy phosphates, and water, without the aid of light." It had been well for the cause of truth, and well for hundreds who have been perverted by his writings, if Mr. Darwin had recognized this distinction between "scientific belief" needing "strong foundations," and "expectation" founded, as Professor Huxley says in a following sentence, "on analogical reasoning." In the paper already quoted in "Fraser's Magazine," the writer says in reference to Darwin: "We would also further remind him that the philosophical naturalist must not only train the eye to observe accurately, but the mind to think logically; and the latter will often be found the harder task of the two. With respect to all but the exact sciences, it may be said that the highest mental faculty which they call upon us to exert is that by which we separate and appreciate justly the possible, the probable, and the demonstrable." 2

Darwin.

3. The third speculative view is that of Mr. Darwin and his associates, who admit not only the creation of matter, but of living matter, in the form of one or a few primordial germs from which without any purpose or design, by the slow operation of unintelligent natural causes, and accidental variations, during untold ages, all the orders, classes, genera, species, and varieties of plants and animals, from the lowest to the highest, man included, have been formed. Teleology, and therefore, mind, or God, is expressly banished from the world. In arguing against the idea of God's controlling with design the operation of second causes, Mr. Darwin asks, "Did He ordain that the crop and tail-feathers of the pigeon should vary, in order that the fancier might make his grotesque pouter and fan-tail breeds? Did He cause the frame and mental qualities of the dog to vary in order that a breed might be formed of indomitable ferocity, with jaws fitted to pin down the bull for man's brutal sport? But, if we give up the principle in one case, if we do not admit that the variations of the primeval dog were intentionally guided, in order that the greyhound, for instance, that perfect image of symmetry and vigour, might be formed, 1 Athenæum, London, September 17, 1870, p. 376. 2 July, 1860, p. 90.

-no shadow of reason can be assigned for the belief that variations, alike in nature and the result of the same general laws, which have been the groundwork through natural selection of the formation of the most perfectly adapted animals in the world, man included, were intentionally and specially guided. However much we may wish it, we can hardly follow Professor Asa Gray in his belief that variation has been led along certain beneficial lines,' like a stream ' along definite and useful lines of irrigation."" In this paragraph man is declared to be an unintended product of nature.

J. J. Murphy.

1

4. Others again, unable to believe that unintelligent causes can produce effects indicating foresight and design, insist that there must be intelligence engaged in the production of such effects, but they place this intelligence in nature and not in God. This, as remarked above, is a revival of the old idea of a Demiurgus or Anima mundi. Mr. J. J. Murphy, in his work on "Habit and Intelligence," says, I believe" that there is something in organic progress which mere natural selection among spontaneous variations will not account for. Finally, I believe this something is that organizing intelligence which guides the action of the inorganic forces and forms structures which neither natural selection nor any other unintelligent agency could form." 2 What he means by intelligence and where it resides we learn from the preface to the first volume of his book. "The word intelligence," he says, scarcely needs definition, as I use it in its familiar sense. It will not be questioned by any one that intelligence is found in none but living beings; but it is not so obvious that intelligence is an attribute of all living beings, and coextensive with life itself. When I speak of intelligence, however, I mean not only the conscious intelligence of the mind, but also the organizing intelligence which adapts the eye for seeing, the ear for hearing, and every other part of an organism for its work. The usual belief is, that the organizing intelligence and the mental intelligence are two distinct intelligences. I have stated the reasons for my belief that they are not distinct, but are two separate manifestations of the same intelligence, which is coextensive with life, though it is for the most part unconscious, and only becomes conscious of itself in the brain of man.'

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1 The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication, edit. New York, 1868, vol. ii. pp. 515, 516.

2 Habit and Intelligence, in their connection with the Laws of Matter and Force. A Series of Scientific Essays. By Joseph John Murphy. London, 1869, vol. i. p. 348.

8 Ibid. vol. i. p. vi.

Owen.

5. Professor Owen, England's great naturalist, agrees with Darwin in two points: first, in the derivation or gradual evolution of species; and secondly, that this derivation is determined by the operation of natural causes. "I have been led," he says, "to recognize species as exemplifying the continuous operation of natural law, or secondary cause; and that, not only successively, but progressively; from the first embodiment of the vertebrate idea under its old ichthyic vestment until it became arrayed in the glorious garb of the human form." 1 He differs from Darwin in that he does not refer the origin of species to natural selection, i. e., to the law of the survival of the fittest of accidental variations; but to inherent or innate tendencies. "Every species changes, in time, by virtue of inherent tendencies thereto." 2 And in the second place he does not regard these changes as accidental variations, but as designed and carried out in virtue of an original plan. Species owe as little," he says 3 to the accidental concurrence of environing circumstances as Kosmos depends on a fortuitous concourse of atoms. A purposive route of development and change, of correlation and interdependence, manifesting intelligent will, is as determinable in the succession of races as in the development and organization of the individual. Generations do not Generations do not vary accidentally, in any and every direction; but in preordained, definite, and correlated courses." 4

The Reign of Law Theory.

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6. Still another view is that which demands intelligence to account for the wonders of organic life, and finds that intelligence in God, but repudiates the idea of the supernatural. That is, it does not admit that God ever works except through second causes or by the laws of nature. Those who adopt this view are willing to admit the derivation of species; and to concede that extant species were formed by the modifications of those which preceded them; but maintain that they were thus formed according to the purpose, and by the continued agency, of God; an agency ever operative in guiding the operation of natural laws so that they accomplish the designs of God. The difference between this and Professor Owen's theory is, that he does not seem to admit of this continued 1 American Journal of Science, 1869, p. 43.

2 Ibid. p. 52.

8 Ibid. p. 52.

4 See Prof. Owen's work on the Anatomy of Vertebrates, the fortieth chapter, which chapter was reprinted in the American Journal of Science for January 1869.

intelligent control of God in nature, but refers everything to the original, preordaining purpose or plan of the Divine Being.

7. Finally, without pretending to exhaust the speculations on this subject, we have what may be called the commonly received and Scriptural doctrine. That doctrine teaches, — (1.) That the universe and all it contains owe their existence to the will and power of God; that matter is not eternal, nor is life self-originating. (2.) God endowed matter with properties or forces, which He upholds, and in accordance with which He works in all the ordinary operations of his providence. That is, He uses them everywhere and constantly, as we use them in our narrow sphere. (3.) That in the beginning He created, or caused to be, every distinct kind of plant and animal" And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit-tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.' "And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind and it was so.' This is the Scriptural account of the origin of species. According to this account each species was specially created, not ex nihilo, nor without the intervention of secondary causes, but nevertheless originally, or not derived, evolved, or developed from preexisting species. These distinct species, or kinds of plants and animals thus separately originated, are permanent. They never pass from one into the other. It is, however, to be remembered that species are of two kinds, as naturalists distinguish them, namely, natural and artificial. The former are those which have their foundation in nature; which had a distinct origin, and are capable of indefinite propagation. The latter are such distinctions as naturalists have made for their own convenience. Of course, it is not intended that every one of the so-called species of plants and animals is original and permanent, when the only distinction between one species and another may be the accidental shape of a leaf or colour of a feather. It is only of such species as have their foundation in nature that originality and permanence are asserted. Artificial species, as they are called, are simply varieties. Fertility of offspring is the recognized criterion of sameness of species. If what has been just said be granted, then, if at any time since the original creation, new species have appeared on the earth, they owe their existence to the immediate intervention of God.

Here then are at least seven different views as to the origin of species. How is it possible for science to decide between them?