Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays
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Thomas H. Huxley >> Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays
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Proposing now to criticise the critics, so far as to see what their
most general and comprehensive objections amount to, we must needs
begin with the American reviewers, and with their arguments adduced to
prove that a derivative hypothesis ought not to be true, or is not
possible, philosophical, or theistic.
It must not be forgotten that on former occasions very confident
judgments have been pronounced by very competent persons, which have
not been finally ratified. Of the two great minds of the seventeenth
century, Newton and Leibnitz, both profoundly religious as well as
philosophical, one produced the theory of gravitation, the other
objected to that theory that it was subversive of natural religion. The
nebular hypothesis--a natural consequence of the theory of gravitation
and of the subsequent progress of physical and astronomical
discovery--has been denounced as atheistical even down to our own day.
But it is now largely adopted by the most theistical natural
philosophers as a tenable and perhaps sufficient hypothesis, and where
not accepted is no longer objected to, so far as we know, on
philosophical or religious grounds.
The gist of the philosophical objections urged by the two Boston
reviewers against an hypothesis of the derivation of species--or at
least against Darwins particular hypothesis-- is, that it is
incompatible with the idea of any manifestation of design in the
universe, that it denies final causes. A serious objection this, and
one that demands very serious attention.
The proposition, that things and events in Nature were not designed to
be so, if logically carried out, is doubtless tantamount to atheism.
Yet most people believe that some were designed and others were not,
although they fall into a hopeless maze whenever they undertake to
define their position. So we should not like to stigmatize as
atheistically disposed a person who regards certain things and events
as being what they are through designed laws (whatever that expression
means), but as not themselves specially ordained, or who, in another
connection, believes in general, but not in particular Providence. We
could sadly puzzle him with questions; but in return he might equally
puzzle us. Then, to deny that anything was specially designed to be
what it is, is one proposition; while to deny that the Designer
supernaturally or immediately made it so, is another: though the
reviewers appear not to recognize the distinction.
Also, "scornfully to repudiate" or to "sneer at the idea of any
manifestation of design in the material universe,"[III-9] is one thing;
while to consider, and perhaps to exaggerate, the difficulties which
attend the practical application of the doctrine of final causes to
certain instances, is quite another thing: yet the Boston reviewers, we
regret to say, have not been duly regardful of the difference. Whatever
be thought of Darwins doctrine, we are surprised that he should be
charged with scorning or sneering at the opinions of others, upon such
a subject. Perhaps Darwins view is incompatible with final causes--we
will consider that question presently-- but as to the Examiners charge,
that he "sneers at the idea of any manifestation of design in the
material universe," though we are confident that no misrepresentation
was intended, we are equally confident that it is not at all warranted
by the two passages cited in support of it. Here are the passages:
"If green woodpeckers alone had existed, or we did not know that there
were many black and pied kinds, I dare say that we should have thought
that the green color was a beautiful adaptation to hide this
tree-frequenting bird from its enemies."
"If our reason leads us to admire with enthusiasm a multitude of
inimitable contrivances in Nature, this same reason tells us, though we
may easily err on both sides, that some contrivances are less perfect.
Can we consider the sting of the wasp or of the bee as perfect, which,
when used against many attacking animals, cannot be withdrawn, owing to
the backward serratures, and so inevitably causes the death of the
insect by tearing out its viscera?"
If the sneer here escapes ordinary vision in the detached extracts (one
of them wanting the end of the sentence), it is, if possible, more
imperceptible when read with the context. Moreover, this perusal
inclines us to think that the Examiner has misapprehended the
particular argument or object, as well as the spirit, of the author in
these passages. The whole reads more naturally as a caution against the
inconsiderate use of final causes in science, and an illustration of
some of the manifold errors and absurdities which their hasty
assumption is apt to involve--considerations probably equivalent to
those which induced Lord Bacon to liken final causes to "vestal
virgins." So, if any one, it is here Bacon that "sitteth in the seat of
the scornful." As to Darwin, in the section from which the extracts
were made, he is considering a subsidiary question, and trying to
obviate a particular difficulty, but, we suppose, is wholly unconscious
of denying "any manifestation of design in the material universe." He
concludes the first sentence:
--"and consequently that it was a character of importance, and might
have been acquired through natural selection; as it is, I have no doubt
that the color is due to some quite distinct cause, probably to sexual
selection."
After an illustration from the vegetable creation, Darwin adds:
"The naked skin on the head of a vulture is generally looked at as a
direct adaptation for wallowing in putridity; and so it may be, or it
may possibly be due to the direct action of putrid matter; but we
should be very cautious in drawing any such inference, when we see that
the skin on the head of the clean-feeding male turkey is likewise
naked. The sutures in the skulls of young mammals have been advanced as
a beautiful adaptation for aiding parturition, and no doubt they
facilitate or may be indispensable for this act; but as sutures occur
in the skulls of young birds and reptiles, which have only to escape
from a broken egg, we may infer that this structure has arisen from the
laws of growth, and has been taken advantage of in the parturition of
the higher animals."
All this, simply taken, is beyond cavil, unless the attempt to explain
scientifically how any designed result is accomplished savors of
impropriety.
In the other place, Darwin is contemplating the patent fact that
"perfection here below" is relative, not absolute--and illustrating
this by the circumstance that European animals, and especially plants,
are now proving to be better adapted for New Zealand than many of the
indigenous ones--that "the correction for the aberration of light is
said, on high authority, not to be quite perfect even in that most
perfect organ, the eye." And then follows the second extract of the
reviewer. But what is the position of the reviewer upon his own
interpretation of these passages? If he insists that green woodpeckers
were specifically created so in order that they might be less liable to
capture, must he not equally hold that the black and pied ones were
specifically made of these colors in order that they might be more
liable to be caught? And would an explanation of the mode in which
those woodpeckers came to be green, however complete, convince him that
the color was undesigned?
As to the other illustration, is the reviewer so complete an optimist
as to insist that the arrangement and the weapon are wholly perfect
(quoad the insect) the normal use of which often causes the animal
fatally to injure or to disembowel itself? Either way it seems to us
that the argument here, as well as the insect, performs hari-kari. The
Examiner adds:
"We should in like manner object to the word favorable, as implying
that some species are placed by the Creator under unfavorable
circumstances, at least under such as might be advantageously
modified."
But are not many individuals and some races of men placed by the
Creator "under unfavorable circumstances, at least under such as might
be advantageously modified?" Surely these reviewers must be living in
an ideal world, surrounded by "the faultless monsters which our world
neer saw," in some elysium where imperfection and distress were never
heard of! Such arguments resemble some which we often hear against the
Bible, holding that book responsible as if it originated certain facts
on the shady side of human nature or the apparently darker lines of
Providential dealing, though the facts are facts of common observation
and have to be confronted upon any theory.
The North American reviewer also has a world of his own--just such a
one as an idealizing philosopher would be apt to devise--that is, full
of sharp and absolute distinctions: such, for instance, as the
"absolute invariableness of instinct;" an absolute want of intelligence
in any brute animal; and a complete monopoly of instinct by the brute
animals, so that this "instinct is a great matter" for them only, since
it sharply and perfectly distinguishes this portion of organic Nature
from the vegetable kingdom on the one hand and from man on the other:
most convenient views for argumentative purposes, but we suppose not
borne out in fact.
In their scientific objections the two reviewers take somewhat
different lines; but their philosophical and theological arguments
strikingly coincide. They agree in emphatically asserting that Darwins
hypothesis of the origination of species through variation and natural
selection "repudiates the whole doctrine of final causes," and "all
indication of design or purpose in the organic world . . . is neither
more nor less than a formal denial of any agency beyond that of a blind
chance in the developing or perfecting of the organs or instincts of
created beings. . . . It is in vain that the apologists of this
hypothesis might say that it merely attributes a different mode and
time to the Divine agency--that all the qualities subsequently
appearing in their descendants must have been implanted, and have
remained latent in the original pair." Such a view, the Examiner
declares, "is nowhere stated in this book, and would be, we are sure,
disclaimed by the author."
We should like to be informed of the grounds of this sureness. The
marked rejection of spontaneous generation--the statement of a belief
that all animals have descended from four or five progenitors, and
plants from an equal or lesser number, or, perhaps, if constrained to
it by analogy, "from some one primordial form into which life was first
breathed"--coupled with the expression, "To my mind it accords better
with what we know of the laws impressed on matter by the Creator, that
the production and extinction of the past and present inhabitants of
the world should have been due to secondary causes," than "that each
species has been independently created"--these and similar expressions
lead us to suppose that the author probably does accept the kind of
view which the Examiner is sure he would disclaim. At least, we
charitably see nothing in his scientific theory to hinder his adoption
of Lord Bacons "Confession of Faith" in this regard-- "That,
notwithstanding God hath rested and ceased from creating, yet,
nevertheless, he doth accomplish and fulfill his divine will in all
things, great and small, singular and general, as fully and exactly by
providence as he could by miracle and new creation, though his working
be not immediate and direct, but by compass; not violating Nature,
which is his own law upon the creature."
However that may be, it is undeniable that Mr. Darwin has purposely
been silent upon the philosophical and theological applications of his
theory. This reticence, under the circumstances, argues design, and
raises inquiry as to the final cause or reason why. Here, as in higher
instances, confident as we are that there is a final cause, we must not
be overconfident that we can infer the particular or true one. Perhaps
the author is more familiar with natural-historical than with
philosophical inquiries, and, not having decided which particular
theory about efficient cause is best founded, he meanwhile argues the
scientific questions concerned--all that relates to secondary
causes--upon purely scientific grounds, as he must do in any case.
Perhaps, confident, as he evidently is, that his view will finally be
adopted, he may enjoy a sort of satisfaction in hearing it denounced as
sheer atheism by the inconsiderate, and afterward, when it takes its
place with the nebular hypothesis and the like, see this judgment
reversed, as we suppose it would be in such event.
Whatever Mr. Darwins philosophy may be, or whether he has any, is a
matter of no consequence at all, compared with the important questions,
whether a theory to account for the origination and diversification of
animal and vegetable forms through the operation of secondary causes
does or does not exclude design; and whether the establishment by
adequate evidence of Darwin s particular theory of diversification
through variation and natural selection would essentially alter the
present scientific and philosophical grounds for theistic views of
Nature. The unqualified affirmative judgment rendered by the two Boston
reviewers, evidently able and practised reasoners, "must give us
pause." We hesitate to advance our conclusions in opposition to theirs.
But, after full and serious consideration, we are constrained to say
that, in our opinion, the adoption of a derivative hypothesis, and of
Darwins particular hypothesis, if we understand it, would leave the
doctrines of final causes, utility, and special design, just where they
were before. We do not pretend that the subject is not environed with
difficulties. Every view is so environed; and every shifting of the
view is likely, if it removes some difficulties, to bring others into
prominence. But we cannot perceive that Darwins theory brings in any
new kind of scientific difficulty, that is, any with which
philosophical naturalists were not already familiar.
Since natural science deals only with secondary or natural causes, the
scientific terms of a theory of derivation of species--no less than of
a theory of dynamics--must needs be the same to the theist as to the
atheist. The difference appears only when the inquiry is carried up to
the question of primary cause--a question which belongs to philosophy.
Wherefore, Darwin s reticence about efficient cause does not disturb
us. He considers only the scientific questions. As already stated, we
think that a theistic view of Nature is implied in his book, and we
must charitably refrain from suggesting the contrary until the contrary
is logically deduced from his premises. If, however, he anywhere
maintains that the natural causes through which species are diversified
operate without an ordaining and directing intelligence, and that the
orderly arrangements and admirable adaptations we see all around us are
fortuitous or blind, undesigned results--that the eye, though it came
to see, was not designed for seeing, nor the hand for handling--then,
we suppose, he is justly chargeable with denying, and very needlessly
denying, all design in organic Nature; otherwise, we suppose not. Why,
if Darwins well-known passage about the eye[III-10] equivocal though
some of the language be--does not imply ordaining and directing
intelligence, then he refutes his own theory as effectually as any of
his opponents are likely to do. He asks:
"May we not believe that [under variation proceeding long enough,
generation multiplying the better variations times enough, and natural
selection securing the improvements] a living optical instrument might
be thus formed as superior to one of glass as the works of the Creator
are to those of man?"
This must mean one of two things: either that the living instrument was
made and perfected under (which is the same thing as by) an intelligent
First Cause, or that it was not. If it was, then theism is asserted;
and as to the mode of operation, how do we know, and why must we
believe, that, fitting precedent forms being in existence, a living
instrument (so different from a lifeless manufacture) would be
originated and perfected in any other way, or that this is not the
fitting way? If it means that it was not, if he so misuses words that
by the Creator he intends an unintelligent power, undirected force, or
necessity, then he has put his case so as to invite disbelief in it.
For then blind forces have produced not only manifest adaptions of
means to specific ends--which is absurd enough--but better adjusted and
more perfect instruments or machines than intellect (that is, human
intellect) can contrive and human skill execute--which no sane person
will believe.
On the other hand, if Darwin even admits--we will not say adopts--the
theistic view, he may save himself much needless trouble in the
endeavor to account for the absence of every sort of intermediate form.
Those in the line between one species and another supposed to be
derived from it he may be bound to provide; but as to "an infinite
number of other varieties not intermediate, gross, rude, and
purposeless, the unmeaning creations of an unconscious cause," born
only to perish, which a relentless reviewer has imposed upon his
theory--rightly enough upon the atheistic alternative--the theistic
view rids him at once of this "scum of creation." For, as species do
not now vary at all times and places and in all directions, nor produce
crude, vague, imperfect, and useless forms, there is no reason for
supposing that they ever did. Good-for-nothing monstrosities, failures
of purpose rather than purposeless, indeed, sometimes occur; but these
are just as anomalous and unlikely upon Darwins theory as upon any
other. For his particular theory is based, and even over-strictly
insists, upon the most universal of physiological laws, namely, that
successive generations shall differ only slightly, if at all, from
their parents; and this effectively excludes crude and impotent forms.
Wherefore, if we believe that the species were designed, and that
natural propagation was designed, how can we say that the actual
varieties of the species were not equally designed? Have we not similar
grounds for inferring design in the supposed varieties of species, that
we have in the case of the supposed species of a genus? When a
naturalist comes to regard as three closely related species what he
before took to be so many varieties of one species how has he thereby
strengthened our conviction that the three forms are designed to have
the differences which they actually exhibit? Wherefore so long as
gradatory, orderly, and adapted forms in Nature argue design, and at
least while the physical cause of variation is utterly unknown and
mysterious, we should advise Mr. Darwin to assume in the philosophy of
his hypothesis that variation has been led along certain beneficial
lines. Streams flowing over a sloping plain by gravitation (here the
counterpart of natural selection) may have worn their actual channels
as they flowed; yet their particular courses may have been assigned;
and where we see them forming definite and useful lines of irrigation,
after a manner unaccountable on the laws of gravitation and dynamics,
we should believe that the distribution was designed.
To insist, therefore, that the new hypothesis of the derivative origin
of the actual species is incompatible with final causes and design, is
to take a position which we must consider philosophically untenable. We
must also regard it as highly unwise and dangerous, in the present
state and present prospects of physical and physiological science. We
should expect the philosophical atheist or skeptic to take this ground;
also, until better informed, the unlearned and unphilosophical
believer; but we should think that the thoughtful theistic philosopher
would take the other side. Not to do so seems to concede that only
supernatural events can be shown to be designed, which no theist can
admit--seems also to misconceive the scope and meaning of all ordinary
arguments for design in Nature. This misconception is shared both by
the reviewers and the reviewed. At least, Mr. Darwin uses expressions
which imply that the natural forms which surround us, because they have
a history or natural sequence, could have been only generally, but not
particularly designed--a view at once superficial and contradictory;
whereas his true line should be, that his hypothesis concerns the order
and not the cause, the how and not the why of the phenomena, and so
leaves the question of design just where it was before.
To illustrate this from the theists point of view: Transfer the
question for a moment from the origination of species to the
origination of individuals, which occurs, as we say, naturally. Because
natural, that is, "stated, fixed, or settled," is it any the less
designed on that account? We acknowledge that God is our maker--not
merely the originator of the race, but our maker as individuals--and
none the less so because it pleased him to make us in the way of
ordinary generation. If any of us were born unlike our parents and
grandparents, in a slight degree, or in whatever degree, would the case
be altered in this regard?
The whole argument in natural theology proceeds upon the ground that
the inference for a final cause of the structure of the hand and of the
valves in the veins is just as valid now, in individuals produced
through natural generation, as it would have been in the case of the
first man, supernaturally created. Why not, then, just as good even on
the supposition of the descent of men from chimpanzees and gorillas,
since those animals possess these same contrivances? Or, to take a more
supposable case: If the argument from structure to design is convincing
when drawn from a particular animal, say a Newfoundland dog, and is not
weakened by the knowledge that this dog came from similar parents,
would it be at all weakened if, in tracing his genealogy, it were
ascertained that he was a remote descendant of the mastiff or some
other breed, or that both these and other breeds came (as is suspected)
from some wolf? If not, how is the argument for design in the structure
of our particular dog affected by the supposition that his wolfish
progenitor came from a post-tertiary wolf, perhaps less unlike an
existing one than the dog in question is to some other of the numerous
existing races of dogs, and that this post-tertiary came from an
equally or more different tertiary wolf? And if the argument from
structure to design is not invalidated by our present knowledge that
our
individual dog was developed from a single organic cell, how is it
invalidated by the supposition of an analogous natural descent, through
a long line of connected forms, from such a cell, or from some simple
animal, existing ages before there were any dogs?
Again, suppose we have two well-known and apparently most decidedly
different animals or plants, A and D, both presenting, in their
structure and in their adaptations to the conditions of existence, as
valid and clear evidence of design as any animal or plant ever
presented: suppose we have now discovered two intermediate species, B
and C, which make up a series with equable differences from A to D. Is
the proof of design or final cause in A and D, whatever it amounted to,
at all weakened by the discovery of the intermediate forms? Rather does
not the proof extend to the intermediate species, and go to show that
all four were equally designed? Suppose, now, the number of
intermediate forms to be much increased, and therefore the gradations
to be closer yet--as close as those between the various sorts of dogs,
or races of men, or of horned cattle: would the evidence of design, as
shown in the structure of any of the members of the series, be any
weaker than it was in the case of A and D? Whoever contends that it
would be, should likewise maintain that the origination of individuals
by generation is incompatible with design, or an impossibility in
Nature. We might all have confidently thought the latter, antecedently
to experience of the fact of reproduction. Let our experience teach us
wisdom.
These illustrations make it clear that the evidence of design from
structure and adaptation is furnished complete by the individual animal
or plant itself, and that our knowledge or our ignorance of the history
of its formation or mode of production adds nothing to it and takes
nothing away. We infer design from certain arrangements and results;
and we have no other way of ascertaining it. Testimony, unless
infallible, cannot prove it, and is out of the question here. Testimony
is not the appropriate proof of design: adaptation to purpose is. Some
arrangements in Nature appear to be contrivances, but may leave us in
doubt. Many others, of which the eye and the hand are notable examples,
compel belief with a force not appreciably short of demonstration.
Clearly to settle that such as these must have been designed goes far
toward proving that other organs and other seemingly less explicit
adaptations in Nature must also have been designed, and clinches our
belief, from manifold considerations, that all Nature is a preconcerted
arrangement, a manifested design. A strange contradiction would it be
to insist that the shape and markings of certain rude pieces of flint,
lately found in drift-deposits, prove design, but that nicer and
thousand-fold more complex adaptations to use in animals and vegetables
do not a fortiori argue design.
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