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Darwiniana

T >> Thomas Henry Huxley >> Darwiniana




Secondly, with respect to animals, Suarez is no less decided:--

"_De animalium ratione carentium productione quinto et sexto die
facta_. [Footnote: _Loc. cit_. Lib. II. cap. vii. et viii. 1, 32,
35.]

"32. Primo ergo nobis certum sit hæc animantia non in virtute tantum aut in
semine, sed actu, et in seipsis, facta fuisse his diebus in quibus facta
narrantur. Quanquam Augustinus lib. 3, Gen. ad liter, cap. 5 in sua
persistens sententia contrarium sentire videatur."

But Suarez proceeds to refute Augustin's opinions at great length, and his
final judgment may be gathered from the following passage:--

"35. Tertio dicendum est, hæc animalia omnia his diebus producta esse, IN
PERFECTO STATU, IN SINGULIS INDIVIDUIS, SEU SPECIEBUS SUIS, JUXTA
UNIUSCUJUSQUE NATURAM.... ITAQUE FUERUNT OMNIA CREATA INTEGRA ET OMNIBUS
SUIS MEMBRIS PERFECTA."

As regards the creation of animals and plants, therefore, it is clear that
Suarez, so far from "distinctly asserting derivative creating," denies it
as distinctly and positively as he can; that he is at much pains to refute
St. Augustin's opinions; that he does not hesitate to regard the faint
acquiescence of St. Thomas Aquinas in the views of his brother saint as a
kindly subterfuge on the part of Divus Thomas; and that he affirms his own
view to be that which is supported by the authority of the Fathers of the
Church. So that, when Mr. Mivart tells us that Catholic theology is in
harmony with all that modern science can possibly require; that "to the
general theory of evolution, and to the special Darwinian form of it, no
exception ... need be taken on the ground of orthodoxy;" and that "law and
regularity, not arbitrary intervention, was the Patristic ideal of
creation," we have to choose between his dictum, as a theologian, and that
of a great light of his Church, whom he himself declares to be "widely
venerated as an authority, and whose orthodoxy has never been questioned."

But Mr. Mivart does not hesitate to push his attempt to harmonise science
with Catholic orthodoxy to its utmost limit; and, while assuming that the
soul of man "arises from immediate and direct creation," he supposes that
his body was "formed at first (as now in each separate individual) by
derivative, or secondary creation, through natural laws" (p. 331).

This means, I presume, that an animal, having the corporeal form and bodily
powers of man, may have been developed out of some lower form of life by a
process of evolution; and that, after this anthropoid animal had existed
for a longer or shorter time, God made a soul by direct creation, and put
it into the manlike body, which, heretofore, had been devoid of that
_anima rationalis_, which is supposed to be man's distinctive
character.

This hypothesis is incapable of either proof or disproof, and therefore may
be true; but if Suarez is any authority, it is not Catholic doctrine.
"Nulla est in homine forma educta de potentia materiæ," [Footnote: Disput.
xv. § x. No. 27.] is a dictum which is absolutely inconsistent with the
doctrine of the natural evolution of any vital manifestation of the human
body.

Moreover, if man existed as an animal before he was provided with a
rational soul, he must, in accordance with the elementary requirements of
the philosophy in which Mr. Mivart delights, have possessed a distinct
sensitive and vegetative soul, or souls. Hence, when the "breath of life"
was breathed into the manlike animal's nostrils, he must have already been
a living and feeling creature. But Suarez particularly discusses this
point, and not only rejects Mr. Mivart's view, but adopts language of very
theological strength regarding it.

"Possent præterea his adjungi argumenta theologica, ut est illud quod
sumitur ex illis verbis Genes. 2. _Formavit Deus hominem ex limo terræ et
inspiravit in faciem ejus spiraculum vitæ et factus est homo in animam
viventem_: ille enim spiritus, quam Deus spiravit, anima rationalis
fuit, et PER EADEM FACTUS EST HOMO VIVENS, ET CONSQUENTER, ETIAM SENTIENS.

"Aliud est ex VIII. Synodo Generali quæ est Constantinopolitana IV. can.
11, qui sic habet. _Apparet quosdam in tantum impietatis venisse ut
homines duas animas habere dogmatizent: talis igitur impietatis inventores
et similes sapientes, cum Vetus et Novum Testamentum omnesque Ecclesiæ
patres unam animam rationalem hominem habere asseverent, Sancta et
universalis Synodus anathematizat_." [FOOTNOTE: Disput. xv. "De causa
formali substantiali," § x. No. 24.]

Moreover, if the animal nature of man was the result of evolution, so must
that of woman have been. But the Catholic doctrine, according to Suarez, is
that woman was, in the strictest and most literal sense of the words, made
out of the rib of man.

"Nihilominus sententia Catholica est, verba illa Scripturæ esse ad literam
intelligenda. AC PROINDE VERE, AC REALITER, TULISSE DEUM COSTAM ADAMÆ, ET,
EX ILLA, CORPUS EVÆ FORMASSE." [Footnote: _Tractatus de Opere_, Lib.
III. "De hominis creatione," cap. ii. No. 3.]

Nor is there any escape in the supposition that some woman existed before
Eve, after the fashion of the Lilith of the rabbis; since Suarez qualifies
that notion, along with some other Judaic imaginations, as simply
"damnabilis." [Footnote: _Ibid_. Lib. III. cap. iv. Nos. 8 and 9]

After the perusal of the "Tractatus de Opere" it is, in fact, impossible to
admit that Suarez held any opinion respecting the origin of species, except
such as is consistent with the strictest and most literal interpretation of
the words of Genesis. For Suarez, it is Catholic doctrine, that the world
was made in six natural days. On the first of these days the _materia
prima_ was made out of nothing, to receive afterwards those "substantial
forms" which moulded it into the universe of things; on the third day, the
ancestors of all living plants suddenly came into being, full-grown,
perfect, and possessed of all the properties which now distinguish them;
while, on the fifth and sixth days, the ancestors of all existing animals
were similarly caused to exist in their complete and perfect state, by the
infusion of their appropriate material substantial forms into the matter
which had already been created. Finally, on the sixth day, the _anima
rationalis_--that rational and immortal substantial form which is
peculiar to man--was created out of nothing, and "breathed into" a mass of
matter which, till then, was mere dust of the earth, and so man arose. But
the species man was represented by a solitary male individual, until the
Creator took out one of his ribs and fashioned it into a female.

This is the view of the "Genesis of Species" held by Suarez to be the only
one consistent with Catholic faith: it is because he holds this view to be
Catholic that he does not hesitate to declare St. Augustin unsound, and St.
Thomas Aquinas guilty of weakness, when the one swerved from this view and
the other tolerated the deviation. And, until responsible Catholic
authority--say, for example, the Archbishop of Westminster--formally
declares that Suarez was wrong, and that Catholic priests are free to teach
their flocks that the world was _not_ made in six natural days, and
that plants and animals were _not_ created in their perfect and
complete state, but have been evolved by natural processes through long
ages from certain germs in which they were potentially contained, I, for
one, shall feel bound to believe that the doctrines of Suarez are the only
ones which are sanctioned by Infallible Authority, as represented by the
Holy Father and the Catholic Church.

I need hardly add that they are as absolutely denied and repudiated by
Scientific Authority, as represented by Reason and Fact. The question
whether the earth and the immediate progenitors of its present living
population were made in six natural days or not is no longer one upon which
two opinions can be held.

The fact that it did not so come into being stands upon as sound a basis as
any fact of history whatever. It is not true that existing plants and
animals came into being within three days of the creation of the earth out
of nothing, for it is certain that innumerable generations of other plants
and animals lived upon the earth before its present population. And when,
Sunday after Sunday, men who profess to be our instructors in righteousness
read out the statement, "In six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the
sea, and all that in them is," in innumerable churches, they are either
propagating what they may easily know, and, therefore, are bound to know,
to be falsities; or, if they use the words in some non-natural sense, they
fall below the moral standard of the much-abused Jesuit.

Thus far the contradiction between Catholic verity and Scientific verity is
complete and absolute, quite independently of the truth or falsehood of the
doctrine of evolution. But, for those who hold the doctrine of evolution,
all the Catholic verities about the creation of living beings must be no
less false. For them, the assertion that the progenitors of all existing
plants were made on the third day, of animals on the fifth and sixth days,
in the forms they now present, is simply false. Nor can they admit that man
was made suddenly out of the dust of the earth; while it would be an insult
to ask an evolutionist whether he credits the preposterous fable respecting
the fabrication of woman to which Suarez pins his faith. If Suarez has
rightly stated Catholic doctrine, then is evolution utter heresy. And such
I believe it to be. In addition to the truth of the doctrine of evolution,
indeed, one of its greatest merits in my eyes, is the fact that it occupies
a position of complete and irreconcilable antagonism to that vigorous and
consistent enemy of the highest intellectual, moral, and social life of
mankind--the Catholic Church. No doubt, Mr. Mivart, like other putters of
new wine into old bottles, is actuated by motives which are worthy of
respect, and even of sympathy; but his attempt has met with the fate which
the Scripture prophesies for all such.

Catholic theology, like all theologies which are based upon the assumption
of the truth of the account of the origin of things given in the Book of
Genesis, being utterly irreconcilable with the doctrine of evolution, the
student of science, who is satisfied that the evidence upon which the
doctrine of evolution rests, is incomparably stronger and better than that
upon which the supposed authority of the Book of Genesis rests, will not
trouble himself further with these theologies, but will confine his
attention to such arguments against the view he holds as are based upon
purely scientific data--and by scientific data I do not merely mean the
truths of physical, mathematical, or logical science, but those of moral
and metaphysical science. For by science I understand all knowledge which
rests upon evidence and reasoning of a like character to that which claims
our assent to ordinary scientific propositions. And if any one is able to
make good the assertion that his theology rests upon valid evidence and
sound reasoning, then it appears to me that such theology will take its
place as a part of science.

The present antagonism between theology and science does not arise from any
assumption by the men of science that all theology must necessarily be
excluded from science, but simply because they are unable to allow that
reason and morality have two weights and two measures; and that the belief
in a proposition, because authority tells you it is true, or because you
wish to believe it, which is a high crime and misdemeanour when the subject
matter of reasoning is of one kind, becomes under the _alias_ of
"faith" the greatest of all virtues when the subject matter of reasoning is
of another kind.

The Bishop of Brechin said well the other day:--"Liberality in religion--I
do not mean tender and generous allowances for the mistakes of others--is
only unfaithfulness to truth." [Footnote: Charge at the Diocesan Synod of
Brechin. _Scotsman_, Sept. 14, 1871.] And, with the same
qualification, I venture to paraphrase the Bishop's dictum:
"Ecclesiasticism in science is only unfaithfulness to truth."

Elijah's great question, "Will you serve God or Baal? Choose ye," is
uttered audibly enough in the ears of every one of us as we come to
manhood. Let every man who tries to answer it seriously ask himself whether
he can be satisfied with the Baal of authority, and with all the good
things his worshippers are promised in this world and the next. If he can,
let him, if he be so inclined, amuse himself with such scientific
implements as authority tells him are safe and will not cut his fingers;
but let him not imagine he is, or can be, both a true son of the Church and
a loyal soldier of science.

And, on the other hand, if the blind acceptance of authority appears to him
in its true colours, as mere private judgment _in excelsis_, and if he
have the courage to stand alone, face to face with the abyss of the eternal
and unknowable, let him be content, once for all, not only to renounce the
good things promised by "Infallibility," but even to bear the bad things
which it prophesies; content to follow reason and fact in singleness and
honesty of purpose, wherever they may lead, in the sure faith that a hell
of honest men will, to him, be more endurable than a paradise full of
angelic shams.

Mr. Mivart asserts that "without a belief in a personal God there is no
religion worthy of the name." This is a matter of opinion. But it may be
asserted, with less reason to fear contradiction, that the worship of a
personal God, who, on Mr. Mivart's hypothesis, must have used language
studiously calculated to deceive His creatures and worshippers, is "no
religion worthy of the name." "Incredible est, Deum illis verbis ad populum
fuisse locutum quibus deciperetur," is a verdict in which, for once, Jesuit
casuistry concurs with the healthy moral sense of all mankind.

Having happily got quit of the theological aspect of evolution, the
supporter of that great truth who turns to the scientific objections which
are brought against it by recent criticism, finds, to his relief, that the
work before him is greatly lightened by the spontaneous retreat of the
enemy from nine-tenths of the territory which he occupied ten years ago.
Even the Quarterly Reviewer not only abstains from venturing to deny that
evolution has taken place, but he openly admits that Mr. Darwin has forced
on men's minds "a recognition of the probability, if not more, of
evolution, and of the certainty of the action of natural selection" (p.
49).

I do not quite see, myself, how, if the action of natural selection is
_certain_, the occurrence of evolution is only _probable_;
inasmuch as the development of a new species by natural selection is, so
far as it goes, evolution. However, it is not worth while to quarrel with
the precise terms of a sentence which shows that the high water mark of
intelligence among those most respectable of Britons, the readers of the
_Quarterly Review_, has now reached such a level that the next tide
may lift them easily and pleasantly on the once-dreaded shore of evolution.
Nor, having got there, do they seem likely to stop, until they have reached
the inmost heart of that great region, and accepted the ape ancestry of, at
any rate, the body of man. For the Reviewer admits that Mr. Darwin can be
said to have established:

"That if the various kinds of lower animals have been evolved one from the
other by a process of natural generation or evolution, then it becomes
highly probable, _a priori_, that man's body has been similarly
evolved; but this, in such a case, becomes equally probable from the
admitted fact that he is an animal at all" (p. 65).

From the principles laid down in the last sentence it would follow that if
man were constructed upon a plan as different from that of any other animal
as that of a sea-urchin is from that of a whale, it would be "equally
probable" that he had been developed from some other animal as it is now,
when we know that for every bone, muscle, tooth, and even pattern of tooth,
in man, there is a corresponding bone, muscle, tooth, and pattern of tooth,
in an ape. And this shows one of two things--either that the Quarterly
Reviewer's notions of probability are peculiar to himself, or that he has
such an overpowering faith in the truth of evolution that no extent of
structural break between one animal and another is sufficient to destroy
his conviction that evolution has taken place.

But this by the way. The importance of the admission that there is nothing
in man's physical structure to interfere with his having been evolved from
an ape is not lessened because it is grudgingly made and inconsistently
qualified. And instead of jubilating over the extent of the enemy's
retreat, it will be more worth while to lay siege to his last
stronghold--the position that there is a distinction in kind between the
mental faculties of man and those of brutes, and that in consequence of
this distinction in kind no gradual progress from the mental faculties of
the one to those of the other can have taken place.

The Quarterly Reviewer entrenches himself within formidable-looking
psychological outworks, and there is no getting at him without attacking
them one by one.

He begins by laying down the following proposition. "'Sensation' is not
'thought,' and no amount of the former would constitute the most
rudimentary condition of the latter, though sensations supply the
conditions for the existence of 'thought' or 'knowledge'" (p. 67).

This proposition is true, or not, according to the sense in which the word
"thought" is employed. Thought is not uncommonly used in a sense
co-extensive with consciousness, and, especially, with those states of
consciousness we call memory. If I recall the impression made by a colour
or an odour, and distinctly remember blueness or muskiness, I may say with
perfect propriety that I "think of" blue or musk; and, so long as the
thought lasts, it is simply a faint reproduction of the state of
consciousness to which I gave the name in question, when it first became
known to me as a sensation.

Now, if that faint reproduction of a sensation, which we call the memory of
it, is properly termed a thought, it seems to me to be a somewhat forced
proceeding to draw a hard and fast line of demarcation between thoughts and
sensations. If sensations are not rudimentary thoughts, it may be said that
some thoughts are rudimentary sensations. No amount of sound constitutes an
echo, but for all that no one would pretend that an echo is something of
totally different nature from a sound. Again, nothing can be looser, or
more inaccurate, than the assertion that "sensations supply the conditions
for the existence of thought or knowledge." If this implies that sensations
supply the conditions for the existence of our memory of sensations or of
our thoughts about sensations, it is a truism which it is hardly worth
while to state so solemnly. If it implies that sensations supply anything
else, it is obviously erroneous. And if it means, as the context would seem
to show it does, that sensations are the subject-matter of all thought or
knowledge, then it is no less contrary to fact, inasmuch as our emotions,
which constitute a large part of the subject-matter of thought or of
knowledge, are not sensations.

More eccentric still is the Quarterly Reviewer's next piece of psychology.

"Altogether, we may clearly distinguish at least six kinds of action to
which the nervous system ministers:--

"I. That in which impressions received result in appropriate movements
without the intervention of sensation or thought, as in the cases of injury
above given.--This is the reflex action of the nervous system.

"II. That in which stimuli from without result in sensations through the
agency of which their due effects are wrought out.--Sensation.

"III. That in which impressions received result in sensations which give
rise to the observation of sensible objects.--Sensible perception.

"IV. That in which sensations and perceptions continue to coalesce,
agglutinate, and combine in more or less complex aggregations, according to
the laws of the association of sensible perceptions.--Association.

"The above four groups contain only indeliberate operations, consisting, as
they do at the best, but of mere _presentative_ sensible ideas in no
way implying any reflective or _representative_ faculty. Such actions
minister to and form _Instinct_. Besides these, we may distinguish two
other kinds of mental action, namely:--

"V. That in which sensations and sensible perceptions are reflected on by
thought, and recognised as our own, and we ourselves recognised by
ourselves as affected and perceiving.--Self-consciousness.

"VI. That in which we reflect upon our sensations or perceptions, and ask
what they are, and why they are.--Reason.

"These two latter kinds of action are deliberate operations, performed, as
they are, by means of representative ideas implying the use of a
_reflective representative_ faculty. Such actions distinguish the
_intellect_ or rational faculty. Now, we assert that possession in
perfection of all the first four (_presentative_) kinds of action by
no means implies the possession of the last two (_representative_)
kinds. All persons, we think, must admit the truth of the following
proposition:--

"Two faculties are distinct, not in degree but _in kind_, if we may
possess the one in perfection without that fact implying that we possess
the other also. Still more will this be the case if the two faculties tend
to increase in an inverse ratio. Yet this is the distinction between the
_instinctive_ and the _intellectual_ parts of man's nature.

"As to animals, we fully admit that they may possess all the first four
groups of actions--that they may have, so to speak, mental images of
sensible objects combined in all degrees of complexity, as governed by the
laws of association. We deny to them, on the other hand, the possession of
the last two kinds of mental action. We deny them, that is, the power of
reflecting on their own existences, or of inquiring into the nature of
objects and their causes. We deny that they know that they know or know
themselves in knowing. In other words, we deny them _reason_. The
possession of the presentative faculty, as above explained, in no way
implies that of the reflective faculty; nor does any amount of direct
operation imply the power of asking the reflective question before
mentioned, as to 'what' and 'why.'" (_Loc. cit_. pp. 67, 68.)

Sundry points are worthy of notice in this remarkable account of the
intellectual powers. In the first place the Reviewer ignores emotion and
volition, though they are no inconsiderable "kinds of action to which the
nervous system ministers," and memory has a place in his classification
only by implication. Secondly, we are told that the second "kind of action
to which the nervous system ministers" is "that in which stimuli from
without result in sensations through the agency of which their due effects
are wrought out.--Sensation." Does this really mean that, in the writer's
opinion, "sensation" is the "agent" by which the "due effect" of the
stimulus, which gives rise to sensation, is "wrought out"? Suppose somebody
runs a pin into me. The "due effect" of that particular stimulus will
probably be threefold; namely, a sensation of pain, a start, and an
interjectional expletive. Does the Quarterly Reviewer really think that the
"sensation" is the "agent" by which the other two phenomena are wrought
out?

But these matters are of little moment to anyone but the Reviewer and those
persons who may incautiously take their physiology, or psychology, from
him. The really interesting point is this, that when he fully admits that
animals "may possess all the first four groups of actions," he grants all
that is necessary for the purposes of the evolutionist. For he hereby
admits that in animals "impressions received result in sensations which
give rise to the observation of sensible objects," and that they have what
he calls "sensible perception." Nor was it possible to help the admission;
for we have as much reason to ascribe to animals, as we have to attribute
to our fellow-men, the power, not only of perceiving external objects as
external, and thus practically recognizing the difference between the self
and the not-self; but that of distinguishing between like and unlike, and
between simultaneous and successive things. When a gamekeeper goes out
coursing with a greyhound in leash, and a hare crosses the field of vision,
he becomes the subject of those states of consciousness we call visual
sensation, and that is all he receives from without. Sensation, as such,
tells him nothing whatever about the cause of these states of
consciousness; but the thinking faculty instantly goes to work upon the raw
material of sensation furnished to it through the eye, and gives rise to a
train of thoughts. First comes the thought that there is an object at a
certain distance; then arises another thought--the perception of the
likeness between the states of consciousness awakened by this object to
those presented by memory, as, on some former occasion, called up by a
hare; this is succeeded by another thought of the nature of an
emotion--namely, the desire to possess the hare; then follows a longer or
shorter train of other thoughts, which end in a volition and an act--the
loosing of the greyhound from the leash. These several thoughts are the
concomitants of a process which goes on in the nervous system of the man.
Unless the nerve-elements of the retina, of the optic nerve, of the brain,
of the spinal cord, and of the nerves of the arms, went through certain
physical changes in due order and correlation, the various states of
consciousness which have been enumerated would not make their appearance.
So that in this, as in all other intellectual operations, we have to
distinguish two sets of successive changes--one in the physical basis of
consciousness, and the other in consciousness itself; one set which may,
and doubtless will, in course of time, be followed through all their
complexities by the anatomist and the physicist, and one of which only the
man himself can have immediate knowledge.

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