Evolution: An Investigation and a Critique

We cannot refrain from reverting, in this connection, to the essential difference between the animal instincts and the intellect of man, and would quote, on this subject, the forceful statement of the case by Paul Haffner in his _"Materialismus"_ (Mainz, 1865). We translate: "If the hypothesis of materialism were acceptable, if we were to believe that a merely animal form of consciousness might develop into spiritual and intellectual perceptions, we ought to be able to observe such capacities of change and growth also in the animal world of to-day. Yet this is not the case. For thousands of years we have observed the domestic animals, and still we can see no trace of a dawn of intellect. We expend much training upon them; we make them our confidants and treat them with inexhaustible tenderness, and still we never see them rise out of their narrow sphere and out of the bonds of their primitive desires and instincts. We note external imitation of human activities, such as the ludicrous virtuosity of the apes, and that superficial adaptation which we call 'animal training' and which is nothing but a development of sense stimuli; the animal does not know what it is doing, it is duped by man who knows how to employ its instincts and make them serviceable to his purposes. We cannot fail to note that never, not even under the most favorable conditions, do the animals step out of their original sphere; that neither by their own efforts nor through the aid of man are they able to rise into ideas of a spiritual or suprasensual nature; that they remain forever what they were in the beginning. Hence it cannot be denied that also men would have remained what they once were according to the notions of materialists. Only if from the beginning the light of spiritual life was enkindled in them, could they become, what they are to-day." (_"Materialismus,"_ p. 59 f.)

It will be noted that when we hear the specialists in anatomy and biology, their expressions on the subject of man's ancestry are, as a rule, characterized by a strong dissent from the development theory, while the belief in a development of man from an ape-like ancestor, uttered with a note of c.o.c.ksureness, is found mainly among amateurs in these sciences. Moreover, even among the believers in a rise of our race from brute origins, many, and the most distinguished among them, a.s.sert that the faculties of the human mind are indeed to be accounted for only on the basis of a special creative act of G.o.d. They cling, however, to the notion that the body of man is evolved from the lower animals--a view which has been very ably met by Prof. Orr of Glasgow, one of the foremost Biblical scholars of our time. He writes:

"It is well known that certain distinguished evolutionists, while handing over man's body to be accounted for by the ordinary processes of evolution, yet hold that man's mind cannot be wholly accounted for in a similar manner. The rational mind of man, they urge--I agree with the view, but am not called upon here to discuss it--has qualities and powers which separate it, not only in degree, but in kind, from the animal mind, and put an unbridgeable gulf, on the spiritual side, between man and the highest of the creatures below him. In other words, there is, in man's case, a rise on the spiritual side--the const.i.tution of a new order or kingdom of existence--which requires for its explanation a distinct supernatural cause. Now the weakness of this theory, I have always felt, lies in its a.s.sumption that, while man's mind needs a supernatural cause to account for it, his body may be left to the ordinary processes of development. The difficulty of such a view is obvious. I have stated the point in this way. 'It is a corollary from the known laws of the connection of mind and body that every mind needs an organism fitted to it. If the mind of man is the product of a new cause, the brain, which is the instrument of that mind, must share in its peculiar origin. You cannot put a human mind into a Simian brain.'

In other words, if there is a sudden rise on the spiritual side, there must be a rise on the physical--the organic--side to correspond."

(_"Virgin Birth of Christ,"_ p. 199.)

Can anything be more cogent, more conclusive?

The strongest _direct_ proof against the "ascent of man," however, has so far only been touched upon. I refer to the evidences derived from the history of Religion. To this I now invite the reader's close attention.

If man was developed from a lower order of creatures, or from any member of the animal kingdom, religion must have been a late development. That this "tailless, catarrhine, anthropoid ape" should have had anything resembling a religion, is, of course, not to be thought of. To imagine that he had a knowledge of the one, true G.o.d, his nature and his attributes, would be preposterous. How then explain the origin and rise of religion? The evolutionists do not agree on this subject. Herbert Spencer maintains that _Animism_ was the most primitive form of faith.

Man reverenced spirits, the ghosts of the departed, then raised them to the eminence of divinities and finally developed the idea of _one_ absolute being, G.o.d. Others suggest, that primitive man first adored the terrible powers and awful phenomena of nature, was thus led to Polytheism (a religion of many G.o.ds) and finally evolved Monotheism (a belief in one G.o.d). But all agree in this, that Religion in its earliest form was of a very crude and elementary character, and only in the course of many thousands of years, attained to the conception of one Supreme Being. There was at first a faith in G.o.ds,--Polytheism, and much later a faith in G.o.d--Monotheism.

Now, let is [tr. note: sic] be observed that this is the only _possible_ view from the standpoint of Evolution. Remember that this doctrine is not only conceived as bearing on the development of the animal kingdom.

The principle is a.s.sumed to operate in the development of the earth, of man, of society, of government, of manufactures, of language, of literature, science, art, and religion. According to the theory, there must have been progress from a crude form of spirit-worship to a worship of G.o.ds, and thence to a worship of one G.o.d. But what are the facts? Has religion so developed? It has not.

_Not only has history failed to show a single form of belief which has advanced in the manner demonstrated, but every religion, no matter how pure and exalted, has gone through a process of degeneration, of devolution_.

The founders of the comparative study (or Science) of Religion, and the greatest authorities in its various departments, are practically unanimous in their opinion, that all pagan systems of mythology and religion contain remnants of a more exalted form of belief, of a higher, clearer knowledge of the Divinity, which gradually became dimmed and corrupted.

From Max Mueller's Lecture on the _Vedas_ (the ancient hymns of India) we quote the following: As a result "to which a comparative study of religion is sure to lead, we shall learn that religions in their most ancient form, or in the minds of their authors, are generally free from many of the blemishes that attach to them in later times."

Le Page Renouf expresses his entire agreement with the "matured judgment" of Emmanuel Rouge: "The first characteristic of the Egyptian religion is the Unity of G.o.d most energetically expressed: G.o.d, One, Sole and Only--no others with Him.... the Only Being .... The belief in the Unity of the Supreme G.o.d and in His attributes as Creator and Lawgiver of man, whom He has endowed with an immortal soul, .... _these are the primitive notions,_ enchased in the midst of mythological superfetations acc.u.mulated in the centuries." Franz Lenormant reached the same conclusion. Elsewhere, Renouf says: "It is incontestably true, that the sublimer portions of the Egyptian religions are not the comparatively late result of a process of development. The sublimer portions are demonstrably ancient; and the last stage of the Egyptian religion .... was by far the grossest and most corrupt." (_"Religion of Ancient Egypt,"_ p. 95.) This opinion is supported by the testimony of the Egyptian inscriptions. In the very oldest inscriptions reference is had to a Supreme G.o.d and Lord of all, to whom no shrines were raised, whose abode was unknown, who was not graven in stone, while the Egptian [tr. note: sic] of a later day adored the crocodile, the ichneumon, serpents, bulls, cats, and ibises.

The history of Hindu belief presents testimony of a still more startling nature. In the Vedas we find statements and prayers which are clear proof of an early Monotheism. Thus the IX book of the Rig Veda contains the following prayer. "Who is the G.o.d to whom we shall offer our sacrifice? The one-born Lord of all that is; he established the heaven and sky; he is the one king of the breathing and awakening world; he through whom the heaven was established; he who measured out the light in the air--he who alone is G.o.d above all G.o.ds." Here the belief in one Supreme Being is clearly set forth. And yet this faith in one G.o.d in the course of time degenerated into a worship of 33,000 divinities--until Gautama the Buddha evolved a system that denied the very existence of G.o.d.

Turning to Greece we have the testimony of Prof. Max Mueller to this effect: "When we ascend to the distant heights of Greek history the idea of G.o.d, as the Supreme Being, stands before us as a simple fact."

(_"Essays,"_ II, p. 146.) Carl Boettcher, in his great work on the Treeworship of the Greeks, maintains: "As far as the legends of the Greeks can be traced into prehistoric ages, the entire nation worshipped a single G.o.d, nameless, without statues, without a temple, invisible and omnipresent." This he regards as a tradition of "irrefutable inner truthfulness.... The beginning of Polytheism therefore represents the _second_ phase of Greek religion, which was preceded by a Monotheism."

Every student of Greek literature knows that this original belief at an early age gave place to a worship of the G.o.ds on Olympus, a worship which in turn gave way to openly avowed atheism. The Greeks were aware of this decay. Plato, in his Phaidros (274 B) quotes Socrates as saying: "I know of an old saying, that our ancestors knew what const.i.tuted the true worship of G.o.d; if we could but discover what it was, would we then have need of _human_ theories and opinions on the matter?" Certainly a startling statement from the lips of a pagan. Undoubtedly Welcker was right when he a.s.serted, as the ultimate result of his researches: "This (Greek) polytheism has settled before the eyes of men like a high and continuous mountain range, beyond which it is the privilege only of general historical study to recognize, as from a higher point of view, the natural primitive monotheism." Concerning the monotheistic ideas of later Greek thought, the same author says that they are to be regarded not as a result of an ascending line of evolution ("aufsteigende Linie der Entwickelung"), but as "a _return_ of the profound wisdom of old age to the feeling of primitive simplicity."

Of the Phoenicians the greatest student of their history and religion, F. K. Movers, says: "Nature worship gradually obscured the purer G.o.d-idea of a more ancient stage of belief, but has never entirely obliterated it." He refers to an evident "adulteration of a purer and more ancient G.o.d-idea."

Regarding the Zoroastrians of ancient Persia, M. Haug, the famous Zend scholar, a.s.serts that "Monotheism was the leading idea of Zoroaster's theology;" he called G.o.d Ahura-mazda, i. e., "the Living Creator."

Zoroaster did not teach a theological Dualism. He arrived "at the idea of the unity and indivisibility of the Supreme Being," and only as "in course of time this doctrine was changed and _corrupted_ ... the dualism of G.o.d and the devil arose." "Monotheism was _superseded_ by Dualism."

Both Dr. F. Hommel and Friedrich Delitzsch agree on the question of an early Arabian and Sumerian monotheism. Dr. Hommel demonstrates from the personal surnames contained in the inscriptions the existence of a "very exalted monotheism" in the most ancient times of the Arabian nation, about 2500 B. C., and among the Semitic tribes of northern Babylonia.

This "monotheistic religion" degenerated under the influence of Babylonian polytheism. The same opinion was held years ago by Julius Oppert, the a.s.syriologist, who was led to a belief in "a universal primitive monotheism as the basis of all religions."

Expressions similar to the above might be adduced from Rawlinson, Legge (_"Religions of China"_), Doellinger, Victor v. Strauss-Torney (the Egyptologist), Jacob Grimm, and others. In short, the majority of independent and unprejudiced students of heathen beliefs, from the days of A. W. v. Schlegel to our own, have reached the conclusion, that all religions in their later stages exhibit a much lower conception of the Divinity than in their earlier form. It is only the hopelessly prejudiced who can say, as does John Fiske, that "to regard cla.s.sic paganism as one of the degraded remnants of a primeval monotheism, is to sin against the canons of a sound inductive philosophy." Sinning against the consonant testimony of universal history is a venial offense, it would seem, when the integrity of this "sound inductive philosophy"--that is, of the Spencerian theory--is at stake. It needs but a glance at the well-known facts of religious history to show the working of this _Law of Decay_ as influencing the development of every system of ethnic belief which has a recorded history or a literature.

The workings of this law can be traced even in the case of the savage tribes of our own day. Of the African negroes, P. Bandin says that "their traditions and religious doctrines ... show clearly that they are a people in decadence.... They have an obscure and confused idea of the only G.o.d, .... who no longer receives worship." (_"Fetichism,"_ p. 7-10.) Winwood Reade testifies: "The negroes possess the remnants of a n.o.ble and sublime religion, though they have forgotten its precepts and debased its ceremonies." They still retain a recollection "of G.o.d, the Supreme, the Creator." Concerning the Zulus, Bastian records that they informed him that "their ancestors possessed the knowledge of .... that _source of being_ which is above, which gives life to men." (_"Vorgeschichtliche Schoepfungslieder."_) A missionary of the Lutheran General Synod, Rev. J.

C. Pedersen, wrote in _"Lutheran Observer,"_ August, 1910, concerning the African natives that they still have a considerable display of religion, but "ask him, who is the G.o.d in whom you trust? what do you mean by trusting? how can he help you? and he will answer, 'I don't know, but the old people used to say so, and taught us to say so.'" John Hanning Speke, in his _"Journal of the Discovery of the Sources of the Nile"_ records reminiscences among the degraded savages among whom he dwelt, of a supreme G.o.d who dwells in heaven, but who no longer received worship.

Mungo Park, in the diary of his _"Travels in the Interior of Africa,"_ says that the Mandingoes, a degenerate race of fetish worshippers, still possessed the knowledge of one G.o.d, but do not offer up prayers and supplications to him.

In the record of his famous circ.u.mnavigation of the globe, Captain Cook says that the cannibals of New Zealand still acknowledged a superior being, although their religion was a crude system of spiritualistic practices.

Concerning the Koreans Mrs. L. H. Underwood, medical missionary, says that a thousand unworthy deities now crowd the temples, although the great universal Ruler is still worshipped at times, and the "ancient purity of faith and worship has become sadly darkened."

The foremost student of modern missions, Johann Warneck, in _"The Living Christ and Dying Heathenism"_ (F. H. Revell Co.,) comes to the conclusion that the Christian religion and its monotheism are not only not a development from lower origins, but that the heathen religions, historically considered, are a degeneracy from a higher knowledge of G.o.d. In other words, the application of the doctrine of evolution to the field of comparative religion is a mistake. "Any form of Animism known to me has no lines leading to perfection, but only incontestable marks of degeneration," says the author. "In heathenism the gold of the divine thought becomes dross."

Says he, "I have been counselled to recognize that the idea of evolution at present ruling the scientific world must also rule in the investigation of religion. I am not unacquainted with the literature of the subject, I have described animistic heathenism as concretely as I could; I confined myself strictly to that. I began with the facts of experience; then I drew inferences from them. If these do not agree with the dominant hypothesis of evolution, that is due to the brutal facts, and not to the prepossessions of the observer.

"I do not deny that something can be said for the idea of evolution in the religions of mankind, but the study of Animism, with which I have long been familiar as an eyewitness, did not lead me to that idea.

Rather the conviction which I arrived at is, that animistic heathenism is not a transition stage to a higher religion. There are no facts to prove that animistic heathenism somewhere and somehow evolved upwards towards a purer knowledge of G.o.d. I have worked as a missionary for many years in contact with thousands of the adherents of animistic heathenism and I have been convinced that the force of that heathenism is hostile to G.o.d."

In the same work Dr. Warneck says that among the Battaks of Sumatra there are "remains of a pure idea of G.o.d." but there is also a host of spirits, born of fear, which thrust themselves between G.o.d and man. "The idea of G.o.d which is found in the religions of the Indian Archipelago, and probably also of Africa, cannot have been distilled from the motley jumble of G.o.ds and of nature, for it exists in direct opposition to the latter. The idea of G.o.d is preserved, but His worship is lost." In reviewing this book the late Dr. Schmauk said in 1910: "A dispa.s.sionate study of heathen religions confirms the view of Paul that heathenism is a fall from a better knowledge of G.o.d. The idols come between G.o.d and man."

W. St. Clair Tisdale, concludes an exhaustive study of _"Christianity and Other Faiths"_ with the statement: "It follows that Monotheism historically preceded Polytheism, and that the latter is a corruption of the former. It is impossible to explain the facts away. Taken together they show that, as the Bible a.s.serts, man at the very beginning of history knew the One True G.o.d. This implies a Revelation of some sort and traces of that Revelation are still found in many ancient faiths."

We conclude that the history of religion does not only fail to support the evolutionistic postulate of a slow upward development of religions from crude original beliefs, but quite the reverse. It is true that the popular handbooks of comparative religion quite generally teach a development of religious belief through animism, fetishism, and polytheism to monotheism. But the consonant testimony of specialists in the field of historical study and of those who have had first-hand acquaintance with the aborigines of heathen lands, is a strong dissent from this position. Here again we find confident a.s.sertion of an evolutionistic process mainly among those who lack the qualifications of original research. Even as it is not the specialist in biology that still maintains the Darwinian theory of Natural Selection, but the non-professional and the amateur, even so the specialist acquainted with the original sources, and the explorer, possessing first hand knowledge, a.s.serts a decline, through history, from purer to less spiritual faiths, while the bias of the evolutionist, who has no first hand knowledge of the sources constrains him to begin his scheme of religion with animism and fetish-worship. The theory which holds him in thrall demands such a construction. But the theory is contradicted by the facts, which point unmistakably to a degeneration of the race, to a Fall of Man.

CHAPTER TEN.

The Verdict of History.

John Fiske, who, in the seventies of the last century, popularized Darwinism in the United States, a.s.serts that the scope of evolution is much wider than the organic field. "There is no subject great or small"

he wrote in _"A Century of Science,"_ "that has not come to be affected by this doctrine." A development has been recognized in plants, mountains, oysters, subjunctive moods, and the confederacies of savage tribes (p. 35). Fiske is one of those defenders of the evolutionistic philosophy who irritate by reason of their c.o.c.ksureness. Hear him, in _"Darwinism and Other Essays_:" "One could count on one's fingers the number of eminent naturalists who still decline to adopt it"--the Darwinian hypothesis. That was in 1876. To-day we know that one cannot on one finger the eminent naturalists of the present century who still accept it--Haeckel. It is possible that Fiske's extension of the development theory, along lines laid down by Herbert Spencer, to all human history, even to "tribal confederacies," is likewise subject to a revision. Indeed, it would seem that even without special or detailed knowledge, the failure of human history to conform with this universal law would be apparent. Consider once more the basic concepts of Evolution. They are two in number, 1. Everything that is, has been evolved, having been involved (potentially, as a possibility) in that which preceded it. Potentially, the feather of the blue-bird was in the speck of original protoplasm, potentially the flights of Dante's and Goethe's genius were in the primordial cell. All that has occurred in history has _developed_ out of antecedents. Furthermore: 2. All that exists has developed _according to natural laws_. Scientists have given up the law which Darwin called "Natural Selection," and Spencer himself cashiered the law which he had called "Survival of the Fittest." But evolutionists continue to a.s.sert that somehow, by the action of certain laws, that which exists has naturally--there is no need of divine Providence, overruling the affairs of men,--has naturally been developed out of its antecedents. And so history is read by the evolutionist. He sees in all the inst.i.tutions of civilization, in every department of culture, in the rise and fall of nations, the progress and decay of literatures, a result of natural laws, working out the evolution of human society as it exists to-day.

What, then, is the verdict of history? Does it conform to this scheme?

Is there a demonstrable development, by inherent forces, of human society, from lower to higher ranges of culture? Civilization [tr note: sic] have risen, civilizations have perished: is there in this traceable the working of natural law?

Dr. Emil Reich, in the _"Contemporary Review,"_ 1889. p. 45 ff. pointed out the failure of the development theory as applied to human culture.

Hebrew religion as well as the Hebrew state were not derived from Babylonian, Egyptian, Arabic or Hitt.i.te culture; Greek art is not a derivative product of Egyptian, a.s.syrian, or Phoenician art; Greek religion and mythology are not derived from other pagan systems; Roman law has not been developed out of Greek, Aryan, or Egyptian law; the English const.i.tutional form of government has no antecedents in German or Norman-French history; German music is not a result of development out of Dutch, French, or Italian music. Dr. Reich sums up the matter: "Inst.i.tutions do not 'evolve,' nor are they 'derived,' they step into existence by fulguration"--sudden flashes--, "by a process that is technically identical with the theological idea of creation. The whole concept of evolution does not at all apply to history."

In this argument there is considerable force. For, indeed, what natural law can account for the rise of human inst.i.tutions, so infinitely diversified in their structure? Every age is divided into epochs, and at the center of each epoch there is some personage of force and genius.

But how did Cromwell, Lincoln, Bismarck arise? What force produced them?

Whence did they evolve? Yet without these three names, three great periods in the world's history would be meaningless.

By what combination of forces shall we say that the various geniuses have developed which, in a manner almost spectacular, rise before us as we study the literatures of the past? The youthful years of Shakespeare were spent under circ.u.mstances which might have produced in him one dull and unaspiring British country lout, like, as one egg to another, to a hundred thousand others who lived in his age. What made this one country boy the most astonishing genius in all the history of literature? Study the youth of Robert Burns, of Heinrich Heine, or Coleridge, and then tell me why the first two should become the greatest lyric poets of their time, and the third, one of England's deepest thinkers? Why did they not develop, one into a satisfied Scottish farmer, the other into a peddler of notions, and the third into a fat and comfortable English banker?

We quote from an article which appeared in _"Theological Quarterly"_ some twenty years ago:

"What process of evolution resulted in the lives and deeds of such men as Alexander the Great, Julius Ceasar, [tr. note: sic] Constantine the Great, Luther, Napoleon I, and Bismarck? All these great makers of history were what they were far less in consequence and by the continuation of the course of previous events or developments, than largely in spite of the past and in direct opposition to forces which had worked together in shaping the condition of things with which they had to deal. The Macedonian empire would never have sprung into being but for an Alexander, in whose mind the chief facts for its realization were united. The Rome which Julius Ceasar [tr. note: sic] left behind him was not that which he had found, only carried forward to a new stage of development, but the embodiment of ideas conceived in his mind, a quant.i.ty which under G.o.d the greatest Roman had _made_ out of a quant.i.ty which he had found. The distinctive features of the Constantinian empire as compared with that of Diocletian, or of the tetrarchy of which he was the head, were not evolved from earlier political principles, but stood out in bold contrast and even in direct opposition to the very fundamentals of antique statesmanship, and so new in politics that even Constantine permitted them to slip away from his grasp long before the sunset of his life had come. Luther was not a more fully developed Hus or Savonarola, and the Reformation was not the more advanced stage or completion of a movement inaugurated by the Humanists, but a work of G.o.d the actuating spirit of which was as diametrically contrary to the rationalistic spirit which animated Erasmus and, in a measure, Zwingli and his abettors, as it was to anti-christian Rome,--which was in 1517 essentially what it had been in 1302, when Boniface VIII issued his bull _Unam sanctum_ as a definition of the rights and powers of Popery.

Napoleon did not carry onward but broke away from the tumult of French politics when he laid the greater part of western Europe at his feet, and the battle of Austerlitz and the rule of the Hundred Days were no more evolved from the French Revolution as by intrinsic necessity than the burning of Moscow and the Russian snows which turned to naught the campaign of 1812." (A. L. Graebner.)

According to the theory we would expect that in the various departments of _art,_ perfection would be a late blossom, burgeoning forth only after ages of feeble experiment and attempt. But what are the facts? As we study the history of any art,--be it literature or any department of literature; be it architecture, sculpture, the domestic arts, or even the art of war,--we find the highest culmination either at points which specifically exclude the idea of a development or, indeed, perfection shines forth in the very beginning, all subsequent art being decay and apostasy from that primal perfection.

In epic poetry, the greatest work does not stand at the end of a long period of development, but the first and oldest is the greatest. Nothing has ever been produced to equal the Iliad and Odyssey, written 900 B. C.

We have epics that will always hold a prominent place in literature, Virgil's Aeneid, Milton's Paradise Lost, but neither these nor the many flights attempted into epic poetry before or since will be seriously considered as rivalling the rhapsodies of Homer.

The first novel ever written, Cervantes' Don Quijote, [tr. note: sic]

remains one of the greatest.

The oldest dramatists, Aeschylus, Euripides, Sophocles, have never been surpa.s.sed.

And so in every department of art, the earliest stage of development seems to be the very most perfect. Pyramid building was a pastime of the earliest Pharaos; [tr. note: sic] the later did not attempt to rival these structures with any of their own. No finer jewelry can be produced to-day than the gold ornaments found in the oldest tombs of Egypt. The finest examples of East Indian architecture are the oldest. Gothic art was not a slow development but came to utter perfection in its earliest examples,--as in the Cathedral of Amiens.

Evolution represents the history of our race as a constant climb, from brute or near-brute beginnings, to ever higher forms of civilization, until the heights which our race has reached in the present century were attained. In reality, the reverse process, a constant and invariable process of degeneration characterizes the history of nations and peoples.