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1. Show in a few instances how the Argument from Design is drawn from Animal Organisms, from Man's Mental and Emotional Structure, and from the Adaptation of Matter to our Mental Faculties.
See Paley, Nat. Theol. bk. iv, ch. iii, i6. Chalmers' Nat. Theol. bk. iv, ch. i, 2-5
2. Can the being of God be argued from the existence of Conscience ? Turrettin, Loc. iii, Qu. i, ^14 15. Hodge, Syst. Theol. part i, ch ii, ^5. Alexander's Moral Science, ch. xii. Chalmers' Nat. Thegl. bk. iii, ch. 2. Charnock Attributes, Discourse i, §3. Kant, Critique of the Practical Reason. Thornwell, Lect. ii.
3. What the value of the Argument from the Consensus Populorum'^. Turrettin, Loc. iii, Qu. i, gi6-i8. Dick, Lect. xvii. Cicero de Nat. Deo7-uni, lib. i. Charnock, Discourse i, §1
4. Refute the evasion of Hume : That the Universe is a Singular Effect. Alexander's Moral Science, ch. xxviii. Chalmer's Nat. Theol. bk. i, ch. 4. Watson's Theo. Institutes, pt ii, cli. i. Hodge, pt. i, ch. ii. §4. Reign of Law, Duke of Argyle, ch. iii.
5. Can the Universe be accounted for without a Creator, as an infinite series of Temporal Effects ?
Alexander's Moral Science, ch. xxviii. Turrettin, as above, §6-7. Dr. S. Clarke's Discourse \2. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, 1st Antinomy.
6. Refute the Pantheistic Scheme of the Universe.
Thornwell, Lect. ix. Alex. Moral Science, ch. xxviii. Dr. S. Clarke's Discourse, &c. \ 3, 7, 9, &c. Chalmers' Nat. Theol., bk. i, ch, v. Hodge, pt. i, ch. iii \ 5, Thornwell, "Personality of God," in Works, vol. i, p. 490.
' I ^O resume: A single instance of intelligent contrivance ■*■ in the works of creation would prove an intelligent Creator. Yet, it is Avell to multiply these proofs, ir^l^XT:tt^' even largely: for they give us then a wider foundation of deduction, stronger views of the extent of the creative wisdom and power; and better evidence of God's unity.
Hence, as instances, showing how the argument is constructed : If the design is to produce the imS"'°''^^"'°^^'" physical part of the sensation of vision ; the eye is obviously an optical instrument, contrived with lenses to refract, expedients for obtaining an achromatic spectrum, adjustments for distance and quantity of light, and protection of the eye, by situation, bony socket, brow, lids, lubricating fluids; and in birds, the nictitating membrane. Different creatures also have eyes adapted to their lives and media of vision ; as birds, cats, owls, fishes. So, the ear is an auditory apparatus, with a concha to converge the sound-waves, a tube, a tympanum to transmit vibration, the three bones [malleus, stipes and mens) in instable equilibrium, to convey it to the sensorutvi, &c.
The world of spirit is just as full of evident contrivances. See (e. g.) the laws of habit and imtur^jMan"*''^^^^''''' ^^^^^0"' exactly adjusted to educate and to form the character ; and the faculties of
IS
1 6 SYLLABUS AND NOTES
memory, association, taste, &c. The evidences of contrivance are, if possible, still more beautiful in our emotional structure ^ e. g. in the instincts of parental love, sympathy, resentment and its natural limits, sexual love, and its natural check, modesty ;. and above all, conscience, with its self-approval and remorse. All these are adjusted to obvious ends.
We see marks of more recondite design, in the natural
compensation for necessary defects. The
In Compensating elephant's short neck is made up by a lithe
Arrangements. \ . -i->- i > i ir j
proboscis. Birds heads cannot carry teeth : but they have a gizzard. Insects with fixed heads, have a number of eyes to see around them. Brutes have less reason, but more instinct ; &c., &c.
The adaptations of one department of nature to another
show at once contrivance, selecting will and In Adaptations. unity of mind. Thus, the media and the
organs of sense are made for each other^ The forms and colours of natural objects are so related to taste ; the degree of fertility imparted to the earth, to man's necessity for labour; the stability of physical law, to the necessary judgments of the reason thereabout. So all nature, material and spiritual, animal, vegetable, inorganic, on our planet, in the starry skies, are full of wise contrivance.
The moral phenomena of conscience present a twofold
evidence for the being of a God, worthy scitnfe'!"''"'^''°'''^°"' of fuller illustration than space allows. This
faculty is a most ingenious spiritual contrivance, adjusted to a beneficent end : viz., the promotion of virtuous acts, and repression of wicked. As such, it proves a contriver, just as any organic adjustment does. But second : we shall find, later in the course, that our moral judgments are intuitive, primitive, and necessary; the most inevitable functions of the reason. Now, the idea of our acts which have rightness, is unavoidably attended with the judgment that they are obligatory. Obligation must imply an obliger. This is not always any known creature : hence, the Creator. Again, our conscience of wrong-doing unavoidably suggests fear ; but fear implies an avenger. The secret sinner, the imperial sinner above all creature-power, shares this dread. Now, one may object, that this process is not valid, unless we hold God's mere will the sole source of moral distinctions : which we do not teach, since an atheist is reasonably compelled to hold them. But the objection is not just. The primitive law of the reason must be accepted as valid to us, whatever its source. For parallel : The intuitive belief in causation is found on inspection, to contain the proposition, 'There is a first Cause.' But in order for the validity of this proposition, it is not necessary for us to say that this intuition is God's arbitrary implantation. It is intrinsically true to the nature of
OF LECTURES IN THEOLOGY. 1/
things ; and the argument to a first Cause therefore only the more vaHd.
This moral argument to the being of a God, as it is immediate and strictly logical, is doubtless far the most practical. Its force is seen in this, that theoretical atheists, in danger and death, usually at the awakening of remorse, acknowledge God.
You find the argument from the Consensus Populorum, much elaborated by your authorities. I conUnivelsH'consen^™ ^lude that it gives a strong probable evidence for the being of a God, thus : The truth is abstract; its behef would not have been so nearly universal, nor so obviously essential to man's social existence, did not a valid ground for it exist in man's laws of thought. For it can be accounted for neither by fear, policy, nor self-interest.
From the afifirmative argument, we return to evasions. 4. Objected, that -^^^ objection is urged, that the argument Contrivance betrays from design, if valid, proves only a creaLunitation. ^qj. ^f liniited powers. For contrivance is
the expedient of weakness. E. g. one constructs a derrick, because he is too weak to lift the mass as a Samson. If the Creator has eternal power and godhead, why did He not go straight to His ends, without means, as in Ps. 33 : 9? I answer, design proves a designer, though in part unintelligible. 2nd. It w^ould not be unworthy of the Almighty to choose this manner of working, in order to leave His signature on it for man to read. 3d. Chiefly : Had God employed no means to ends, he must have remained the only agent ; there would have been no organized nature ; but only the one supernatural agent.
Hume strives to undermine the argument from the creation Hume Objects that ^^ a Creator, by urging that, since only expethe World is a Singular rience teaclies us the uniformity of the tie '^^^^^- between effect and cause, it is unwarranted
to apply it farther than experience goes with us. But no one has had any experience of a Vv^orld-maker, as we have of making implements in the arts. The universe, if an effect at all, is one wholly singular : the only one anybody has known, and from the earliest human experience, substantially as it is now. Hence the empirical induction to its first Cause is unauthorized.
Note first : this is from the same mint with his argument against miracles. Creation is simply the first Dr. Alexander's An- miracle ; the same objection is in substance
svver
brought; viz: no testimony can be weighty enough to prove, against universal experience, that a miracle has occured. Next, Dr. Alexander, to rebut, resorts to an illustration ; a country boy who had seen only ploughs and horse-carts, is shown a steam-frigate ; yet he immediately infers a mechanic for it. The fact will be so; but it will not give us the whole analysis. True, the frigate is greatly larger and more complicated than a horse cart; (as the universe is than any
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1 8 SYLLABUS AND NOTES
human machine). But still, Hume might urge that the boy would see a thousand empirical marks, cognizable to his experiences, (timber with marks of the plane on it, as on his plough-beam, the cable as evidently twisted of hemp, as his plough-lines ; the huge anchor with as evident dints of the hammer, as his plough-share,) which taught him that the wonderful ship was also a produced mechanism. Astonishing as it is to him, compared with the plough, it is experimentally seen to be not natural, like the universe,
Chalmers, in a chapter full of contradictions, seems to grant that experience alone teaches us the mers nswer. ^^^^^ ^^ causation, and asserts that still the universe is not "a singular effect." To show this, he supposes, with Paley, the peasant from a watch inferring a watch-maker : and then by a series of abstractions, he shows that the logical basis of the inference is not anything peculiar to that watch, as that it is a gold, or a silver, a large, a small, or a good watch, or a machine to measure time at all ; but simply the fact that it is a manifest contrivance for an end. The effect then, is no longer singular ; yet the inference to some adequate agent holds. To this ingenious process, Hume would object that it is experience alone which guides in making those successive abstractions, by which we separate the accidental from the essential effect and cause. This, Chalmers himself admits. Hence, as we have no experience of world-making, no such abstraction is here allowable, to reduce the world to the class of common effects. Besides ; has Hume admitted that it is an effect at all ? In fine, he might urge this difference, that the world is native, while the watch, the plough, the ship bears, to the most unsophisticated observer, empirical marks of being made, and not native.
Let us not then refute Hume from his own premises ; for they are false. It is not experience which teaches us that every effect has its cause, but the a priori reason. (This Chalmers first asserts, and then unwisely surrenders.) Neither child nor man believes that maxim to be true in the hundredth case, because he has experienced its truth in ninty-nine ; he instinctively believed it in the first case. It is not a true canon of inductive logic, that the tie ot cause and effect can be asserted only so far as experience proves its presence. If it were, would induction ever teach us anything we did not know before ? Would there be any inductive science ? Away with the nonsense ! Grant that the world is a "singular effect." It is a phenomenon, it
OF LECTURES IN THEOLOGY. I9
But may not this universe have the ground of its being in Can the Present Uni- i^^elf? This is another evasion of the atheverse be the result of ists. Grant, they Say, that nothing cannot an Infinite Series of produce Something. Theists sfo outside the " ■ universe to seek its cause ; and when they suppose they have found it in a God, they are unavoidably driven to represent Him as uncaused from without,eternal, self-existent,and necessary. Now it is^ simpler hpyothesis, just to suppose that the universe which we see, is the uncaused, eternal, self-existent, necessary Being. Why may we not adopt it? Seeing we must run back to the mystery of some uncaused, eternal being, whv may we not accept the obvious teaching of nature and experience and conclude that this is it ? Since the organisms which adorn this universe are all temporal, and since the earth and other stars move in temporal cycles, we shall then have to suppose that the infinite past eternity, through which this self-existent universe has existed, was made up of an infinite succession of these organisms and cycles, each previous one producing the next : as the infinite future eternity which will be. But what is absurd in such a hypothesis ?
Now I will not repl}^ with Dr. Clarke and others, that if the universe is eternal, it must be necessar\' ; and sw^s.^'^^'^'^''''''' ^"' this necessity must make its substance homogeneous and unchangeable throughout infinite time and space. It might be plausibly retorted, that this tendency to regular, finite organisms, which we see, was the v^cy necessity of nature inherent in matter. Nor does it seem to me solid to say, with Robert Hall in his sermon, Turrettin, and others, that an eternal series of finite durations is impossible ; because if each particular part had a beginning, while the series had none, we should have the series existing before its first member ; the chain stretching farther back 'than its farthest link. The very supposition was, that the series had no first member. Is a past eternity any more impossible to be made up of the addition of an infinite number of finite parts, than an abstract infinite future? Surely not. Now there is to be just such an infinite future : namely, your and my immortality, which, although it may not be measured by solar days and years, will undoubtedly be composed of parts of successive time infinitely multiplied. But to this future eternity, it would be exactly parallel to object, that we make each link in it have an end, while the whole is endless ; which would involve the same absurdity, of a chain extended forward after the last link was ended. The answer again is : that according to the supposition, there is no last link, the number thereof being infinite. In a word, what mathematician does not know that infinitude may be generated by the addition of finites repeated an infinite number of times ?
20 SYLLABUS AND NOTES
Turrettin, among many ingenious argumenls, advances Tunetiin's Argu- another which seems more respectable. It is ment from Unequal In- in substance this: If this universe has no fi"'''^s. Creator, then its past duration must be a proper
and absolute infinity. But created things move or succeed each other in finite times. See, for instance, the heavenly bodies : The sun revolves on its axis daily ; around its orbit, annually. If this state of things has been eternal, there must have been an infinite number of days, and also an infinite number of years. But since it requires three hundred and sixty-five days to a year, we have here two temporal infinities, both proper and absolute, yet one three hundred and sixty-five times as large as the other ! Now, the mathematicians tell us, that proper infinities may be unequal ; that an infinite plane, for instance, may be conceived as constituted of infinite straight lines infinitely numerous ; and an infinite solid, of an infinite number of such planes, superposed the one on the other. But it is at least questionable, whether the evasion is valid against Turrettin's argument. For these differing infinities are in different dimensions, of length, breadth and thickness. Can there be, in the same dimension, two lines, each infinite in length, and yet the one three hundred and sixtyfive as great as the other, in length ?
Turrettin attempts to reply to the answer drawn from the eternity a parte post, against the metaphysical argument. The atheist asks us : Since (as theists say) a finite soul is to be immortal, there will be a specimen of a temporal infinity formed of finite times infinitely repeated : Why may there not have been a similar infinite duration a parte ante? Because, says our Text-book : That which was, but is past, cannot be fairlv compared with a future which will never be past. Again : a thing destined never to end may have a beginning; but it is impossible to believe that a thing which actually has ended, never had a beginning. Because, the fact that the thing came to an end proves that its cause was outside of itself The last remark introduces us to a solid argument, and it is solid, because it brings us out of the shadowy region of infinity to the solid ground of causation. It is but another way of stating the grand, the unanswerable refutation of this atheistic theory : a series composed only of contingent parts must be, as a whole, contingent. But the contingent cannot be eternal, because it is not self-existent. This argument is explicated in the following points :
(i.) Take any line of generative organisms, for instance: (oak trees bearing acorns, and those acorns rearing oaks, e. g.) the being of each individual in the series demands an adequate cause. When we push the inquiry back one step, and ask the cause of the parent which (seemingly) caused it, we find precisely the same difficulty unanswered. Whatever distance wc run back along the line, we clearly see no approach is made towards finding the adequate cause of the series, or of the
OF LECTURES IN THEOLOGY. 21
earliest individual considered. Hence it is wholly unreasonable to suppose that the introduction of infinitude into the series helps to give us an adequate cause. We only impose on ourselves with an undefined idea. Paley's illustration here is as just as beautiful. Two straight parallel lines pursued, ever so far, make no approximation ; they will never meet, though infinitely extended.
(2.) An adequate cause existing at the time the phenomenon arises, must be assigifed for every effect. For a cause not present at the rise of the effect, is no cause. Now then ; when a given oak was sprouted, all the previous oaks and acorns of its line, save one or two, had perished. Was this acorn, even with its parent oak, the adequate cause of the whole structure of the young tree, including the ingenious contrivances thereof ? Surely not. But the previous dead oaks and acorns are no cause ; for they are not there. An absent cause is no cause. The original cause of this oak is not in the series at all.
(3.) Even if we permit ourselves to be dazzled with the notion that somehow the infinitude of the series can account for its self-productive power ; this maxim is obvious : that in a series of transmitted causes, the whole power of the cause must be successively in each member of the series. For each one could only transmit what power it received from its immediate predecessor; and if at any stage, any portion of the causative power were lost, all subsequent stages must be without it. But evidently no one generation of acorns ever had power or intelligence to create the subtle contrivances of vegetable life in their progeny ; and to suppose that all did, is but multiplying the absurdity.
(4) This question .should be treated according to the atheist's point of view, scientifically: Science always accepts testimony in preference to hypothesis. Now there is a testimony, that of the Mosaic Scripture, as supported by universal tradition, which says that all series of organisms began in the creative act of an intelligent first Cause. The atheist may object, that men, as creatures themselves, have no right of their own knowledge, to utter such traditionary testimony ; for they could not be present before the organisms existed to witness how they were brought into existence. The only pretext for such tradition would be that some prior superhuman Being, who did witness man's production, revealed to him how he was produced : but whether any such prior Being existed, is the very thing in debate, and so may not be taken for granted.
True ; but the existence of the testimony must be granted ; for it is a fact that it exists, and it must be accounted for. And the question is, whether the only good account is not, that the universe did have an intelligent Cause, and that this Cause taught primeval man whence he originated. Otherwise, not only is the universe left unaccounted for, but the universal tradition.
22 SYLLABUS AND NOTES
(5) Science exalts experience above hypothesis even more than testimony. Now, the whole state of the world bears the appearance of recency. The recent discovery of new continents, the great progress of new arts since the historic era began, and the partial population of the earth by man, all belie the eternity of the human race. But stronger still, geology proves the creation, in time, of race after race of animals, and the comparatively recent origin of man, by her fossil records. These show the absolute beginning of genera. And the attempt to account for them by the development theory (Chambers or Darwin) is utterly repudiated by even the better irreligious philosophers ; for if there is anything that Natural History has established, it is that organic life is -separated from inorganic forces, mechanical, chemical, electrical or other, by inexorable bounds ; and 'CcvsJi genera may begin or end, but never transmute themselves into other geiiera.
As I pointed out, there are but two hypotheses by which
„ , . the demonstration of an eternal, intelligent,
Pantheism. ^ r , r^ 1 1 j t-i
personal first Cause can be evaded. Ine one
has just been discussed; the other is the pantheistic. No separate first Cause of the universe need be assigned, it says, because the universe is God. The first Cause and the whole creation are supposed to be one substance, world-god, possessing all the attributes of both. As extremes often meet, pantheism leads to the same practical results with atheism. Aristotle, perhaps the most sagacious of pagan thinkers, was willing to postulate the eternity, a parte ante, of the series of organisms. But he, none the less, taught the existence of a God who, though in a sense an Aninta Mundi, was yet an intelligent and active infinite Cause. Hence :
The ancient form of pantheism, probably peripatetic in its source, admitted that matter, dead, senseless, _Jenpatetic Panthe- divisible, cannot be the proper seat of intelligence and choice, which are indivisible ; and that the universe is full of marks of intelligent design, so that an Anima Miindi, an intelligent Principle, must be admitted in the universe. Yes, I reply, it must, and that personal. Because it obviously has intelligence, choice, and will ; and how can personality be better defined ? Nor can it inhabit the universe as a soul its body, not being limited to it in time or space, nor bearing that relation to it. Not in time ; because, beins;- eternal, it existed a whole past eternity before it ; for we have proved the latter temporal. Not in space ; for we have seen this Intelligence eternal ages not holding its nbi in space by means of body ; and tiiere is not a single reason for supposing that it is now limited to the part of space which bodies occupy. It is not connected with matter by any tie of animality; because immensely the larger part of matter is inanimate.
OF LECTURES IN THEOLOGY. 23
Modern pantheism appears either in the hypothesis of Spinoza, the Jew, or in that of the later German ^^PantheismofSpmo- j^eahsts. Both see that even the material universe teems with intelligent contrivances : and more, that the nobler part, that known by consciousness, and so, ipost immediately known, is a world of thought and feeling in human breasts. Hence intelligence and will must be accounted for, as well as matter. Now, Spinoza's first position is : There can be no real substance, except it be self-existent, and so, eternal. That is : it is incredible that any true substance can pass from JiiJiil into esse. 2d. All the self-existent must be one ; this is unavoidable from the unity of its characteristic attribute. 3d. The one real substance must therefore be eternal, infinite, and necessarily existent. Hence, 4th. all other seeming beings are not real substance, but modes of existence of this sole being. . 5th. All possible attributes, however seemingly diverse, must be modes, nearer or remote, of this Being ; and it is necessary therefore to get rid of the prejudice, that modes of thought and will and modes of extension cannot be referred to the same substance. Hence this is the true account of the universe. All material bodies (so called) are but different modes of extension, in which the necessary substance projects himself; and all personal spirits (so called) are but modes of thought and will, in which the same being pulsates.
Now you see that the whole structure rests on two unproved and preposterous assumptions : that real substance cannot be except it be self-existent ; and that the self-existent can be but one. The human mind is incapable of demonstrating either.
Says the modern idealist : Let the mind take nothing for granted, except the demonstrated ; and it will MSernldTalist ^^^ find that it really knows nothing save its consciousnesses. Of what is it conscious ? Only of its own subjective states. Men fancy that these must be referred to a subject called mind, spirit, self; as the substance of which they are states. So they fancy that they find objective sources for their sensations, and objective limits to their volitions ; but if it fancies it knows either, it is only by a subjective consciousness. These, after all, are its only real possessions. Hence, it has no right to assert either substantive self or objective matter ; it only knows, in fact, a series of self-consciousnesses. Hence ; our thinking and willing constitute our being. Hence, too, the whole seeming objective world is only educed from a non-existence as it is thought by us. The total residuum then, is an impersonal power of thought, only existing as it exerts its self-consciousness in the varions beings of the universe, (if there is a universe) and in God. Its subjective consciousnesses constitute spiritual substance (so-called,) self, fellow-man, God ; and its objective, the seeming objective material bodies of the universe.
24 SYLLABUS AND NOTES
Against both these forms of pantheism, I present the folRefutation. i. In- lowing outhne of a refutation, (i.) If the tuition must be accept- mind may not trust the intuition which refers ed as valid. q\\ attributes and affections to their substances, and which gives real objective sources for sensations, it may not beheve in its intuitive self-consciousness, nor in that intuition of cause for every phenomenon, on which • Spinoza founds the belief in his One Substance. Falsus hi 7nio; fahus in omnibus. There is an end of all thinking. That the intuitions above asserted, are necessary and primary, I prove by this : that every man, including the idealist, unavoidably makes them. (2.) We are each one conscious of our personality. You cannot pronounce the words "self," Ego, selfpli?s°mV''pTrLTali;"" consciousness ; but that you have implied it. Hence, if we think according to our own subjective law, we cannot think another intelligence and will, without imputing to it a personality. Least of all, the supreme intelligence and will. To deny this is to claim to be more perfect than God. But worse yet ; if I am not a person, my nature is a lie, and thinking is at an end. If I am a person, and as the pantheist says, I am God, and God is I, then he is a person ; and the pantheistic system is still self-contradicted.
(3.) Modes of extension and modes of thought and will ,^ , . , cannot be attributes of one substance. MatLxtension and .,...,,
Thought cannot be re- ter IS divisible : neither consciousness, nor ferred to a common thought, nor feeling is ; therefore the subs ance. Stance which thinks is indivisible. Matter is
extended ; has form ; has relative bulk and weight. All these properties are impossible to be thought of any function of spirit, as relevant to them. Who can conceive of a thought triturated into many parts, as a stone into grains of sand ; of a resentment split into halves ; of a conception which is so many fractions of an inch longer or thicker than another ; of an emotion triangular or circular, of the top and bottom of a volition ?
(4.) If there is but one substance To FIou, the eternal, self,^ ^ . existent, necessary ; then it must be homoireIf Spmoza true. To 1 • i- • 1 1 --ri ■ • .1 . • .
I I'.v cannot vary. neous and indivisible, ihis is at least a just
argumcntuvi ad hominejn for Spinoza. Did he not infer the necessary unity of all real substance, from the force of its one characteristic attribute, self and necessary existence? Now, this immanent necessity, which is so imperative as to exclude plurality; must it not also exclude diversity; or at least contrariety? How then can this one, unchangeable substance exist at the same time in different and even contradictory states ; motion and rest ; heat and cold ; attraction and repulsion ? How can it, in its modes of thought and will, at the same time love in one man, and hate in another, the same object? How believe and disbelieve the same thing?
. OF LECTURES IN THEOLOGY.. 2$
(5) On this scheme, there can be no responsibihty, moral
No Evil nor Good. S°°^ °^, ^^^^' S^^^^' '^'""^'f' nghteous penalty, or moral government 01 the world. All states of feeling, and all volitions are those of To f/a^. Satan's wrong volitions are but God willing, and his transgressions, God acting. By what pretext can the Divine Will be held up as a moral standard? Anything which a creature wills, is God's will.
(6.) And this because, next, pantheism is a scheme of stark ,. ^ necessity. Necessity of this kind is inconsistent with responsibility. But again ; it contradicts our consciousness of free-agency. We know, by our consciousness, that in many things we act freely, we do what we do, because we choose ; we are conscious that our souls determine themselves. But if Pantheism were true, every volition, as well as every other event, would be ruled by an iron fate. So avowed stoicism, the pantheism of the Old World : so admits Spinoza. And consistently ; for Tu IJai^, impersonal, developing itself according to an immanent, eternal necessity, must inevitably pass through all those modifications of thought and extension, which this necessity dictates, and no others ; and the acts of God are as fated as ours.
(7.) I retort upon the pantheist that picture which he so
much delights to unfold in fanciful and glowGod would have all • „• TJi-l-.^ -U UJT-~
Sin and Woe. ^^S g"ise. Pantheism, says he, by deifymg
nature, clothes everything which is sweet or grand with the immediate glory of divinity, and ennobles us by placing us perpetually in literal contact with God. Do we look without on the beauties of the landscape ? Its loveliness is but one beam of the multiform smile upon His face. The glory of the sun is the flash of His eye. The heavings of the restless sea are but the throbs of the divine bosom, and the innumerable stars are but the sparkles of His eternal brightness. And when we look within us, we recognize in every emotion which ennobles or warms our breasts, the aspirations, the loves, the gratitudes which bless our being, the pulses of God's own heart beating through us. Nay, but, say I, are the manifestations of the universal Being, all lovely and good? If pantheism is true, must we not equally regard all that is abhorrent in nature, the rending thunder, and the rushing tornado, the desolating earthquake and volcanos, the frantic sea lashing helpless navies into wreck, as the throes of disorder or ruin in God ? And when we picture the scenes of sin and woe, which darken humanity, the remorse of the villain's privacy, the orgies of crime and cruelty hidden beneath the veil of night, the despairing deathbeds, the horrors of battle fields, the wails of nations growing pale before the pestilence, the din of burning and ravaged cities, and all the world of eternal despair itself, we see in the whole but the agony and crime of the divine Substance. Would it then be best called Devil or God ? Since suffering and sin are
26 ' SYLLABUS AND NOTES
SO prevalent in this world, we may call it Pan-diabolism, with more propriety than pantheism. Nor is it any relief to this abhorrent conclusion, to say that pain and evil are necessitated, and are only seeming evils. Consciousness declares them real.
1. State the Evolution Theory of man's origin, in its recent form; and show its Relation to the Argument for God's existence.
2. Show the Defects in the pretended Argument for this Descent of man by Evolution.
3. Does the Theory weaken the Teleological Argument for the Existence ot a. Personal God.
See "Origin of 'Species" and "Descent of Man," by Dr. Charles Darwin, " Lay Sermons," by Dr. Thos. Huxley, " Physical Basis of Life," by Dr. Stirling. Lectures (Posthumous) of Prof. Louis Agassiz, "What is Darwinism?" by Dr. Ch Hodge, "Reign of Law," by the Duke of Argyle.
TN the previous Lecture, I concluded the brief examination "^ of the atheistic theory, accounting for the Universe as an Relation of Evolu- eternal series, with these words : "Genera may tion to Teleological begin or end, but never transmute themselves Argument. ^^to Other geucvar We found the fatal
objections to* the scheme of a self-existent, infinite series un-caused from without, in these facts : That no immediate antecedent was adequate cause for its immediate successor : And that the previous links in the series could not because; because totally absent from the rise of the sequent effect. Thus the utter fallacy was detected, which seeks to impose on our minds by the vague infinitude of the series as a whole. We were taught that no series made up solely of effects, each contingent, can, as a whole, be self-existent. Thus perished that evasion of the atheist.
Obviously, if there is any expedient for resuscitating it, this must be found in the attempt to prove that the law, " Like produces Like," is not the whole explanation of the series. We have demonstrated that, by that law, it is impossible the series can be self-existent. Hence, the best hope of Atheism is, to attemi)t to prove that the Like does not produce merely the Like ; that the series contains within itself a power of differentiating its effects, at least slightly. Thus materialists and atheists have been led in our day, either by deliberate design, or by a species of logical instinct, to attempt the construction of an " evolution theory." The examination of this attempt, thus becomes necessary in order to complete the argument for God's existence, on this, the last conceivable point of attack.
OF LECTURES IN THEOLOGY. 2/
The evolution hypothesis is, indeed, no novelty. It is, after all its pretended modern experiments, but a revival of the "atomic theory" of the Greek atheist, Democritus, adopted by the Epicurean school. Its application to the descent of man from some lower animal, has often been attempted, as by Lord Monboddo, who almost exactly anticipated Dr. Chas. Darwin's conclusion. In the eyes of some modern Physicists, however, it has received new plausibility from the more intelligent -speculations of the Naturalist La ]\Iarck. and the " Vestiges of Creation " ascribed to Mr. Robert Chambers. But it appears in its fullest form, in the ingenious works of Dr. Chas. Darwin, "Origin of Species," and " Descent of Man." I therefore take this as the object of our inquiry.
This Naturalist thinks that he has found the law of reproduction, in animated nature, that " Like proandSurvJvti!' ""*''''' duces Like," modified by the two laws of "natural selection " and a survival of the fittest." By the former, nature herself, acting unintelligently, tends in all her reproductive processes, to select those copulations which are most adapted to each other By the latter, she ordains, equally without intelligence, that the fittest, or ablest progeny shall survive at the expense of the inferior. These supposed laws he illustrates by the race-varieties (certainly very striking) which have been produced in genera and species whose original unity is admitted by all, through the art of the bird-fancier and stockrearer, in breeding. The result of these laws, modifying the great law of reproduction, would be a slight differentiation of successors from predecessors, in any series in animated nature. This difference at one step might be almost infinitesimal. This coiiatus of Nature towards evolution, being totally blind, and moving at hap-hazard, might result in nothing through a myriad of experiments, or instances, and only evolve something in advance of the antecedents, in the ten thousandth case ; yet, if we postulate a time sufficiently vast, during which the law has been thus blindly working, the result may be the evolution of man, the highest animal, from the lowest form of proto-plastic life.
I. The tendency of this scheme, is atheistic. Some of its
_ , . , . . • advocates may disclaim the consequence, and bcheme Atheistic. , , . , . •' . . r ^ i i A
declare their recognition oi a (_rod and Creator, we hope, sincerely. But the undoubted tendency of the speculation,will be to lead its candid adherents, where Dr. Leopold Bijchner has placed himself, to blank materialism and atheism. For the scheme is an attempt to evolve what theists call the creation without a Creator ; and as we shall see, the bearing of the hypothesis is towards an utter obliteration of the teleological argument. 2nd. In assigning man a brute origin, it encourages common men to regard themselves as still brutes. Have brutes any religion? 3d. The scheme ignores all substantive distinction between spirit and matter, by evolving
28 SYLLABUS AND NOTES
the former out of the functions of mere animahty. But if there be no soul in man there is, practically, no religion for him.
2. The favorite law of "natural selection " involves in its very
name a sophistical idea. Selection is an atSelection implies ^-j-jj^y^g Qf free-agency, and implies intelligent
choice. But the " Nature " of the evolutionist is unintelligent. The cause, if it be a cause, supposed by him in his natural selection, acts blindly and by hap-hazard. Now, whenever we apply the idea of selection, or any other wdiich expresses free-agency, to such effects : we know that we are speaking inaccurately and by a mere trope. How much more sophistical is it to ascribe the force of a permanent and regular law, selecting effects, to that which is but chance ? This is but giving us metaphor, in place of induction. It is farther noted by Agassiz, that the principle of life, or cause in animated nature, notoriously and frequently produces the same results under diverse conditions of action ; and diverse results again, under the same conditions. These facts prove that it is not the species of variable cause painted by Darwin, and does not differentiate its effects by his supposed law of natural selection.
3. We have seen that the vastness of the time needed for. the evolution of man from the lowest animated form, by these laws of natural selection, working blindly and effecting at any one movement the most minute differentiations, is not only conceded, but claimed by evolutionists. Then, since the blind cause probably has made ten thousand nugatory experiments for evary one that was an advance, the fossil remains of all the experiments, of the myriads of genera of failures, as well as the few genera that were successes, should be found in more immense bulk. And especially fossil Natural History should present us with the full history of both sides of the blind process ; with the remains of the degraded genera, as well as the " fittest " and " survivin'g " genera. The fossil-history of the former ought to be ten thousand times the fullest ! But in the presence of such a history, how preposterous would a theory of evolution appear? For, the very essence of this theory is the idea of a continual advancement and improvement in nature.
The evolution theor}'- is inconsistent with the wide geographical diffusion of species, and especially ' of the higher species. If these are the results of the " survival of the fittest," under local conditions of existence and propagation, is it not unaccountable that these, and especially man, the highest species of all, should always have been found under the most diverse and general conditions, in contrasted climates? But if we pass to the lower species, such as the moluscs and crustaceans, the difficulty is as great, because they have no adequate means of locomotion to migrate from the spots where the local conditions of their development existed.
OF LECTURES IN THEOLOGY. 2g>
4. But next ; where improved race-varieties have actually . No Improvement by t)een developed, it may well be questioned Selection, save under a whether the selections of the progenitors have Rational Providence. g^gj- ^gg^ " natural," in the sense of the evolutionist. The marked instances of which Darwin makes so much use, are the result of the breeder's art : (as the Durham cattle) that is, of a rational providence. And when we surrender any individuals of the varieties to the dominion of 'nature,' the uniform tendency is to degradation. What more miserable specimens of cattle and swine are ever seen ;. what individuals less calculated for " survival " in the struggle for existence, than the neglected progeny of the marvellously developed English live-stock, when left to take their chanceswith the indigenous stock of ill-cultivated districts ? i\gain, many Naturalists tell us that when any incidental cause hasbeen applied to a given species, producing variations in some individuals and their progeny, the difference is larger at first,. and becomes more and more minute afterwards. The inference seems irresistible, that such variations must have fixed and narrow limits. Naturalists are familiar with the tendency of all varieties, artificially produced by the union of differing progenitors, to revert back to the type of one or other of their ancestors. Thus, all breeders of live-stock recognize the tendency of their improved breeds to "fly to pieces;" and they know that nothing but the most artful vigilance in selecting parents prevents this result. Without this watchful control, the peculiarities of on6 or the other original varieties would re-appear in the progeny, so exaggerated, as to break up the improved type, and give them instead, a heterogeneous crowd, the individuals varying violently from each other and from the desired type, and probably inferior to either of the original varieties compounded.
Again : is the " survival of the fittest " a " natural " fact ? I answer ; No. The natural tendency of the uranrsu?vivr°'^''' violences of the strongest is, on the whole, to increase the hardship of the conditions under which the whole species and each individual must gain subsistence. What better instance of this law needs to be sought, than in the human species ; where we always see the savage anarchy, produced by the violence of the stronger, reduce the whole tribe to poverty and destitution ? WHiy else is it, that savages are poorer and worse provided for than civilized men ? Couple this law with another: that the most pampered individuals in any species, are not the most prolific ; and we shall see that the natural tendency of animal life is, in the general, to the survival of the inferior. Thus the average wild Parnpa horse, or "mustang" pony, is far inferior to the Andalusian steed, from which he is descended. We thus find an emphatic confirmation of the conclusion which Hugh Miller drew from the " testimony
of the rocks," that the natural tendency of the fossil genera has been to degradation and not to development.
Well does Dr. Sterling remark here : " Natural conjecture is always equivocal, insecure and many-sided. It may be said that ancient warfare, for instance, giving victory always to the personally ablest and bravest, must have resulted in the improvement of the race. Or, that the weakest being left at home, the improvement was balanced by deterioration. Or, that the ablest were necessarily most exposed to danger. And
so according to ingenuity usque ad infijiitmn. Trustworthy
conclusions are not possible to this method."
5. I have not yet seen any reason for surrendering the rule,
hitherto held by Naturalists, that in the animal ^^Argument from Hy- ^.Qj-ld, hybrids, if true hybrids, are infertile.
The familiar instance is that of the mule. The genera asinus and eguus can propagate an offspring, but that mule offspring can propagate nothing. If there are any exceptions to this law, they are completely consistent with the rule that hybrids cannot perpetuate their hybrid kind. If they have any progeny, it is either absolutely infertile ; or it has itself reverted back to one pf the original types. It is strange that Dr. Huxley should himself appeal to this as a valid law ; when its validity is destructive of his own conclusions. In his "Lay Sermons," p. 295, when it suits his purpose to assert that natural variation has, in a given case, established a true species which is new, he appeals to the fact which is claimed: that this new species propagated its kind; which proved it a true and permanent species. Which is to say, that hybrids cannot propagate their kind ; for it is by this law it is known that they do not form permanent species. But now, if new varieties really arose from natural selection, to the extent claimed by evolutionists, must they not fall under the hybrid class too decisively, ever to propagate their type permanently ?
6. This process imagined by Dr. Darwin, if it existed, would
be purely an animal one. He makes it a result
Evolution cannot ac- of physical laws merely. Then, if there were a count tor iVlincL. *- "^
development by such a law, it should be the animal instincts and bodily organs, which are developed in the higher species. But it isnot so. Man is the highest, and when he is compared with other viavivialia, he is a feebler beast. The young infant has far less instinct and locomotion than the young fowl. The man has less instinct, less animal capacity, less strength, blunter senses, than the eagle, or the elephant, and less longevity than the goose. That which makes him a nobler creature is his superior intelligence with the adaptation thereto of his inferior animal instincts. He rules other animals and is "Lord of Creation " by his mind.
7. This, then, must also be explained by Dr. Darwin, as an
OF LECTURES IN THEOLOGY. 3 1
evolution from instinct and animal appetites ; just as he accounts for the evolution of the human hand, from the forepaw of an ape; so all the wonders of consciousness, intellect, taste, conscience, religious belief, are to be explained as the animal outgrowth of gregarious instincts, and habitudes cultivated through them. To any one who has the first correct idea of construing the facts of consciousness, this is simply monstrous. It of course denies the existence of any substance that thinks, distinct from animated matter. It ignores the distinction between the instinctive and the rational motive in human actions ; thus making free-agency, moral responsibility, and ethical science impossible. The impossibility of this genesis is peculiarly plain in this : that it must suppose all these psychological acts and habits gradually superinduced. There is' first, in some earlier generation of men, a protoplastic responsibility, free agency, reason, conscience, which are half, or one quarter animal instinct still, and the rest mental! Whereas, every man who ever interpreted his own acts of soul to himself, knows intuitively, that this is the characteristic of them all ; that they are contrasted with the merely animal acts, in all their stages and in all their degrees of weakness or strength. A feeble conscience is no nearer appetite, in its intrinsic quality, than the conscience of a Washington or a Lee.
In a word : Consciousness has her facts, as truly as physicks. These facts show that man belongs to a certain ge7iiis spiritually, more even than corporeally. And that genus is consciously separated by a great gulf, from all mere animal nature. It cannot be developed thence.
8. The utmost which can possibly be made of the evolution theory, is that it may be a hypothesis possibly atlesT"^ "°' ^'°'"'^ tr^e, even after all the arguments of its friends are granted to be valid. In fact, the scheme is far short of this. The careful reader of these works will find, amidst extensive knowledge of curious facts, and abundance of fanciful ingenuity, many yawning chasms between asserted facts and inductions; and many a substitution of the " must be " for the " may be." But when we waive this, we still find the theory unverified, and incapable of verification. One need desire no juster statement of the necessity of actual verification, in order to mature a hypothesis into a demonstration, than is given and happily illustrated by Dr. Huxley. " Lay Sermons," pp. 85, 6. Until either actual experiment or actual observation has verified the expectation of the hypothesis ; and verified it in 'such away as to make it clear to the mind, that the expected result followed the antecedent as a propter hoc and not a mere post hoc ; that hypothesis, however plausible, and seemingly satisfying, is not demonstrated. But has Dr. Darwin's theory been verified in any actual case ? Has any one seen the marsupial ape breed the man, in fact? The author of the scheme himself
3 2 SYLLABUS AND NOTES
knows that verification is, in the nature of the case, impossible. The dates at which he supposes the evolutions took place, precede the earhest rational experience of man, according to his own scheme, by vast ages. The differentiations which gradually wrought it were, according to him, too slight and gradual to be contained in the memory of one dispensation of man's history. The connecting links of the process are forever lost. Hence the utmost which these Naturalists could possibly make of their hypothesis, were all their assumptions granted, would be the concession that it contained a curious possibility.
These speculations are mischievous in that they present to minds already degraded, and in love with Dangerous to Morals. ^^^^-^ ^^^ degradation, a pretext for their materialism, godlessness and sensuality. The scheme can never prevail generally among mankind. The self-respect, the conscience, and the consciousness of men will usually present a sufficient protest and refutation. The world will not permaently' tolerate the libel and absurdity, that this wondrous creature, man, " so noble in reason, so infinite in faculties, in form and m.oving so express and admirable, in action so like an angel, in apprehension so like a God," is but the descendant, at long removes, of a mollusc or a tadpole !
The worthlessness of mere plausibilities concerning the Circumstantial evi- origm of the universe, is yet plainer when set dence refuted by pa- in contrast with that inspired testimony upon '■"l'^- the subject, to which Revealed Theology will
soon introduce us. Hypothetical evidence, even at its best estate, comes under the class of circumstantial evidence. Judicial science, stimulated to accuracy and fidelity by the prime interests of society in the rights and the life of its members, has correctly ascertained the relation between circumstantial proof and competent parole testimony. In order to rebut the word of such a witness, the circumstantntial evidence must be an exclusive demonstration : it must not only satisfy the reason that the criminal act might have been committed in the supposed way, by the supposed persons ; but that it was impossible, it could have been committed in any other way. In the absence of parole testimony, every enlightened judge would instruct his jury, that the defence isjentitled to try the hypothesis of the accuser by this test : If any other hypothesis can be invented, that is even purely imaginary, to which the facts granted in the circumstantial evidence can be reconciled by the defence, that is proof of invalidity in the accusing hypothesis. Let us suppose a crime committed without known eye-witnesses. The prosecutors examine every attendant circumstance minutely, and study them profoundly. They construct of them a supposition that the crime was committed in secret by A. They show that this supposition of his guilt satisfies every fact, so far as known. They reason with such ingenuity, that every
OF LECTURES IN THEOLOGY. ^^
mind tends to the conviction that A. must be verily guilty. But now there comes forward an honest man, who declares that he was eye-witness of the crime ; and, that, of his certain knowledge, it was done by B., and not by A. On inquiry, it appears that B. was, at that time, naturally capable of the act. Then, unless the prosecutors can attack the credibility of this witness, before his word their case utterly breaks down. The ingenuity, the plausibility of their argument, is now naught. They had shown that, so far as "known facts had gone, the act might have been done by A. But the witness proves that in fact it was done by B. The plausibility of the hypothesis and the ingenuity of the lawyers are no less : but they are utterly superseded by direct testimony of an eye-witness. I take this pains to illustrate to you this principle of evidence, because it is usually so utterly ignored by Naturalists, and so neglected even by Theologians. I assert that the analogy is perfect between the case supposed and the pretended evolution argument. Does Revelation bring in the testimony of the divine Eye-witness, because actual Agent, of the genesis of the universe ? Is Revelation sustained as a credible witness by its literary, its internal, its moral, its prophetical, its miraculous evidences ? Then even though the evolution hypothesis were scientifically probable, in the light of all known and physical facts and laws, it must yield before this competent witness. Does that theory claim that, naturally speaking, organisms might have been thus produced ? God, the Agent, tells us that, in point of fact, they were otherwise produced. As Omnipotence is an agency confessedly competent to any effect whatsoever, if the witness is credible, the debate is ended.
I shall conclude this Lecture by adverting to a consequence which many of Dr. Darwin's followers draw argunS £!.'°^°^'''^ ^^^"^ ^^'^ scheme ; which is really the most important feature connected with it. Dr. Huxley declares that the "Origin of Species" gives the death-blow to that great teleological argument for the existence of God, which has commanded the assent of all the comm.on-sense and all the true philosophy of the human race. He quotes Prof Kolliker, of Germany, as saying that though Darwin retains the teleological conception, it is shown by his own researches to be a mistaken one. Says the German savant, "Varieties arise irrespectively of the notion of purpose of utilty, Naccording to the general laws of nature ; and may be either useful or hurtful, or indifferent." It must be admitted these men interpret the bearings of the evolution theory aright ; [and that it does bear against the impregnable evidences of design in God's creation, is a clear proof of its falsehood]. According to this scheme physical causation is blind; but it hits a lucky adaptation here and there, without knowing or meaning it, by mere chance, and in virtue of such an infinity of hap-hazard trials 3*
34 SYLLABUS AND NOTES
that it is impossible to miss all the time. Such is the immediate, though blind, result of Nature's tendancy to ceaseless variations of structure. Now, when (rarely) she happens to hit a favorable variation, the better adaptation of that organism to the conditions of existence enables it to survive and to propagate its type more numerously, where others perish. Where now is the proof of intelligence and design in such a fortuitous adaptation? Mr. Herbert Spencer argues that it is mere "anthropomorphism," for us to undertake to interpret nature teleologically. When we adapt anything to an end, we, of course, design and contrive. But when we therefore assume that the Great Unknowable works by suchthoughts.we are as absurd as though the watch [in the well-known illustration of Dr. Paley] becoming somewhat endowed with consciousness, should conclude that the consciousness of its Unknown Cause must consist of a set of ticking and motions of springs and cogs, because such only are its own functions. Some of these writers dwell much upon the supposed error of our mixing the question of " final causes " with that of efficient causes, in our investigation of nature. They claim that Lord Bacon, in his De Aitgnientis, sustains this condemnation. This is erroneous. He does disapprove the mixing of the question of final cause with the search after the physical cause. He points out that the former belongs to Metaphysics, the latter to Physics. Let the question be, for instance : " Why do hairs grow around the eyebrows?" There are two meanings in this "Why." If it asks the final cause, the answer is: "For the protection of the precious and tender organ beneath the brow." If it asks the physical cause. Lord Bacon's answer is : that a follicular structure of that patch of skin "breedeth a pilous growth." He clearly asserts, in his Metaphysic, that inquiries after the final cause are proper ; and he was emphaticall}' a believer in the teleological argument, as was Newton, with every other great mind of those ages.
Let us clear the way for the exposure of the sophisms Is ourartTumentsus- Stated above, by looking at Spencer's obpicious because anthro- jection to the anthropomorphism of our Natpomorphic .- ^j.^^^ Theology. He would have us believe
that it is all vicious, because founded on the groundless postulate that our thought and contrivance are the model for the mind of God. He would illustrate this, as we saw, by supposing the watch, in Paley's illustration, "to have a consciousness," etc. This simile betrays his sophism at once. The supposition is impossible! If the watch could have a consciousness, it would not be a material machine, but a rational spirit : and then thore would be no absurdity whatever in its likening its own rational consciousness to that of its rational cause. When complaint is made that all our Natural Theology is "anthropomorphic," what is this but a complaint that our knowlOF LECTURES IN THEOLOGY. 35
edge is human ? If I am to have any knowledge, it must be my knowledge : that is, the knowledge of me, a man ; and so, knowledge, according to the forms of human intelligence. All knowledge must then be anthropomorphic, in order to be human knowledge. To complain of any branch of man's knowledge on this score, is to demand that he shall know nothing ! This, indeed, is verified by Mr. Herbert Spencer, who teaches, on the above ground, that God is only to be conceived of and honored as "The Unknowable ;" and w4io forbids us to ascribe any definite attribute, or offer any specific service to Him, lest we should insult Him by making Him altogether such an one as ourselves. I may remark, in passing, that this is equally preposterous in logic, and practically atheistic. The mind only knows substance from properties : if the essentia of an object of thought be absolutely unknown, its esse will certainly be more unknown. And how can one be more completely "without God in the world," than he who only knows of a divine Being, to whom he dares not ascribe any attribute, towards w'hom he dares not entertain any definite feeling, and to whom he dares not offer any service ?
But why should our knowledge of a higher spiritual being be suspected, as untrustworthy, because' it is anthropomorphic ? It can only be, because it is suspected that this knowledge is transformed, in becoming ours. But now, let it be supposed that the great First Cause created our spirits "in his likeness, after his image," and the ground of suspicion is removed. Then it follows that in thinking "anthropomorphically," we are thinking like God : because God formed us to think like himself. Our conceptions of the divine will then be only limited, not transformed, in passing into our kindred, but finite, minds : they remain valid, as far as they reach. But it may be said : This is the very question : whether a Creator did form our spirits after the likeness of His own? The theists must not assume it at the onset as proved. Very true ; and their opponents shall not be allowed to assume the opposite as proved — they shall not " beg the question " any more than we do. But when our inquiries in Natural Theology lead us to the conclusion that in this respect " we are God's offspring," then He is no longer the " Unknown God." And especially when Revealed Theology presents us the ^ Er/MV ro~j dto~j bpCroo in the "man Christ Jesus," the difficulty is completely solved.
To support the teleological argument farther against this
philosophy of blind chance, I remark, first:
^^Chance cannot evolve ^j^^^ j^ jg -^^ ^^ ^^^^3^ j^^^ unreasonable than
the old pagan theory, which referred all the skillful adjustments of creation to a "fortuitious concourse of atoms." This is indeed the same wTetched philosophy: re-vamped and re-furbished, which excited the sarcasm and scorn of Socrates, and was contemptuously discarded b}' the educated pagan mind. It is imposible to persuade the
36 SYLLABUS AND NOTES
common sense of mankind, that blind chance, whose sole attribute is chaotic disorder, is the source of the admirable order of this universal xootioz. Something does not come out of nothing. Our opponents would ask us; since blind chance may, amidst its infinite multitudes of experiments, happen upon any result whatsoever, why may it not sometimes happen upon some results wearing the aspect of orderly adaptation ? My answer is, that the question puts the case falsely. Sometimes ! No ! Always. The fact to be accounted for is ; that Nature's results always have an orderly adaptation. I press again this crushing question: How is it that in every one of Nature's results, in every organ of every organized creature which is extant, either in living or in fossil natural Histor}', if the structure is comprehended by us, we see some orderly adaptation? Where are Nature's failures? Where the vast remains of the infinity of her hap-hazard, orderless results? On the evolution theory, they should be a myriad times as numerous as those which possessed orderly adaptation. But in fact, none are found, save a few which are apparent exceptions, because, and only because, we have not yet knowledge enough to comprehend them. Through every grade of fossil life, if we are able at all to understand the creature whose remains we inspect^ we perceive an admirable adjustment to the conditions of its existence. This is as true of the least developed, as of the most perfect. The gemis may be now totally extinct: because the appropriate conditions of its existence have wholly passed away in the progress of changes upon the earth's surface ; but while those conditions existed, they were beautifully appropriate to the gemis. So, if there is any structure in arr\' existing creature, whose orderly adaptation to an end is not seen, it is only because we do not yet understand enough. Such is the conclusion of true science. Anatomists before Dr. Harvey saw the valvular membranes in the arteries and veins, opening opposite ways. That great man assumed, in the spirit of true science, that they must have their orderly adaptation; and this postulate led him to the grand discovery of the circulation of the blood. Such is the postulate of true, modest science still, as to every structure: it is the pole-star of sound induction. And once more: Contrivance to an end is not limited to organic life reproducing after its kind — the department where the evolutionist finds his pretext of "natural selection." The permanent inorganic masses also disclose theteleological argument,] ust as clearly as the organic. Sun, moon and stars do not propagate any day! Contrivance is as obvious in the planetary motions and the tides of ocean, as in the eye of the animal. "The undevout Astronomer is mad". Commodore Maury, in his immortal works, has shown us as beautiful a system of adaptations in the wastes of the atmosphere and its currents, as the Natural Historian finds in the realms of life.
OF LECTURES IN THEOLOGY. 37
Second: I remark that if the theory of the evolutionist were all conceded, the argument from desuS'tibflftytfvolvS f g^ed adaptation would not be abolished, but only removed one step backward. If we are mistaken in believing that God made every living creature that moveth after its kind : if the higher kinds were in fact all developed from the lowest; then the question recurs: Who planned and adjusted these wondrous powers of development? Who endowed the cell-organs of the first living protoplasm with all this fitness for evolution into the numerous and varied wonders of animal life and function, so diversified, yet all orderly adaptations ? There is a wonder of creative wisdom and power, at least equal to that of the Mosaic genesis. That this point is justly taken, appears thus: Those philosophers who concede (as I conceive, ver}^ unphilosophically and unnecessarily) the theory of " creation by law," do not deem that they have thereby weakened the teleological argument in the least. It appears again, in the language of evolutionists themselves: When they unfold what they suppose to be the results of this system, they utter the words "beautiful contrivance of nature," "wise adjustment" and such like, involuntarily. This is the testimony of their own reason, uttered in spite of a perverse and shallow theory.
In fine; when we examine any of these pretended results of fortuity, we always find that the chance-accident was only the occasion, and not the efficient cause, of that result. Says one of the evolutionists: a hurricane may transplant a tree so as to secure its growth. The wind may happen to drop a sapling, which the torrent had torn up, with its roots downward, (they forming the heavier end) into a chasm in the earth, which the same hurricane makes by uprooting a forest tree. But I ask: Who ordains the atmospheric laws which move hurricanes! Who regulated the law of gravity? Who endued the roots of that sapling, as its twigs are not endued, with the power of drawing nutriment from the moist earth? Did the blind hurricane do all this? Whenever they thus attempt to account for a result by natural selection, they tacitly avail themselves of a selected adaptation which is, in every case, a priori to the physical results. Who conferred that prior adaptation and power? "If they had not ploughed with our heifer, they had not found out our riddle."
You may be inclined to ask, why it is that I, who assuredly believe this speculation of recent evolutionists will prove as short-lived as it is shallow, introduce a discussion of it into this venerable and stable science of theology? My reply is: that "Darwinism" happens just now to be the current manifestation, which the fashion of the day gives to the permanent anti-theistic tendency in sinful man. As long as men do not like to retain God in their knowledge, the objection to the argument for His existence will re-appear in some form. And the forms will all
38 SYLLABUS AND NOTES
be found cognate. This recent evolution theory verges every year nearer to the pagan atomic theory. In discussing it under its existing aspect, I seek to give you guidance which you will find ad rem, in your dealing with the unbelieving minds of our own day. But I have also given you, in substance, principles which will be applicable to any phase of the anti-theistic argument.