The Other Side of Evolution

The Other Side of Evolution

By

Alexander Patterson

PREFACE.

Evolution is claimed by its advocates to be the greatest intellectual discovery of the past century, and, by some, the greatest thought that ever entered the mind of man. In the words of its greatest philosopher, Herbert Spencer, "It spans the universe and solves the widest range of its problems, which reach outward through boundless space, and back through illimitable time, resolving the deepest problems of life, mind, society, history and civilization." It has woven into one great philosophy the history of the material universe, the entire organic creation, man and all his faculties, the whole course of human history and the origin and progress of all religion.

It also undertakes to account for the Bible, for what is popularly called higher criticism represents the biblical branch of Evolution. It has reconstructed the Bible and remanded its miraculous narratives to the realm of myth. It has formulated a theology in which the most sacred doctrines of evangelical belief are discarded. In its central theory of the origin of man, it vitally affects the doctrines of the nature of man, of sin and penalty, man's need and the work of Christ. It even touches the person of Christ, for many of its advocates say that He too comes within its scope. In its radical and most consistent form, it utterly discards belief in God. Most of the great teachers of Evolution, such as Ernst Haeckel of Jena, are and have been atheists.

It is true that many evolutionists are theistic. But it is not enough to be theistic. The devil is "theistic," so was Thomas Paine. Christianity is far more than theism. It is the grossest sophistry to teach that because a belief has some truth in it we must therefore tolerate it. All false doctrine is sugarcoated with truth. That we are not overstating the dangerous nature of the theory will appear from the following opinions of competent scholars and observers.

Prof. George Frederick Wright, the eminent geologist, says of Evolution: "It is the fad of the present, which is making such havoc and confusion in the thought of the age, leading so many into intellectual positions, whose conclusions they dare not face and cannot flank, and from which they cannot retreat except through the valley of humiliation." (Bibliotheca Sacra, April, 1900.)

Prof. George Howison sounds this alarm: "It is a portent so threatening to the highest concerns of man, that we ought to look before we leap and look more than once. Under the sheen of the evolutionary account of man, the world of real persons, the world of individual responsibility, disappears; with it disappears the personality of God." (Limits of Evolution, pp. 5, 6.)

There is a vital connection between Facts, Doctrines, Experiences, Conduct and Prospects. These successively flow from each other. Christianity rests on facts, from these we derive doctrines and from doctrines come experiences, which give rise to conduct and that ends in suitable prospects. Facts form the basis of Christianity. When, therefore, Evolution attacks the Facts of the Bible, it attempts to undermine the very basis of all Christianity. President Francis L. Patton has said: "You may put your philosophy in one pocket and your religion in another and think that, as they are separate, they will not interfere, but that will not work. You have to bring your theory of the universe and your theory of religion together. This is the work of this age."

While all do not go the length of the radical evolutionists, yet such is the natural working of the human mind, that this will be its logical conclusion. If this theory is accepted, we must look for widespread lapse from all Christian faith and, as conduct follows belief in all intelligent creatures, we shall see also great moral declension.

To the ordinary man, the matter appears in this light: If we cannot believe a man's statements we will not take his advice. If we cannot believe the Bible's narratives why should we believe its religion? If it is not trustworthy as to facts of this world, why depend upon it as to the other world? If it cannot teach correctly the nature of insects and animals, why should it be able to tell us the nature of God? The common man reasons rightly. The Bible must stand or fall by its reliability all along the line of truth of every kind.

Evolution is being taught, or taken for granted to-day in high schools, academies, colleges, universities, and seminaries. It meets the Sunday School scholar at the first chapter of Genesis. A busy city pastor says he has been asked about it every day in the week. It is a living question and must be met. In every free library are the works of Spencer, Darwin, Tyndall, Huxley and others, and these are read continually.

It does seem as if the other side of such a question ought to be given and considered, if there be another side, and there certainly is.

The theory of Evolution is being accepted to-day upon ex-parte evidence. The books on Evolution are numbered by hundreds, those giving the other side are few. Many do not even read for themselves but rely upon the weight of noted names, or the supposed "consensus of scholarship."

It is even asserted that none but scholars have the right to discuss the subject. Dr. Lyman Abbott says in his "Evidences of Christianity" that "those who are not scientists must be content to await the final judgment of those who are experts on this subject, and meanwhile accept tentatively their conclusions." Not to notice this demand that we rest on an unfinished theory, might we not ask permission to accept, "tentatively" at least, the Bible as it is, while awaiting the conclusions of scientists as to what we shall think or believe about it; especially in view of the fact that all that has been done so far by Christianity on earth has been effected by the conservative belief in the Bible.

But non-scientific people are able to comprehend Evolution. The scientist to-day is able to state conclusions in language the non-scientific can readily understand, and the evolutionist himself tells us we can understand his facts and arguments. So we who are not scientists may proceed to investigate a subject in which we have so much at stake. The questions involved are too important to be left to the scientist alone. The scientist is mainly a witness as to the facts of nature. It is the duty of the whole body of the intelligent Christian community, lay and clerical, to generalize and draw conclusions. These form, as they have in the past, the court of last resort in such discussions. The best generalizer will be, not the scientist whose labors are necessarily confined to a single science, or even to a department of it, and who may be even more or less biased by his environment, but the best juryman will be the intelligent non-scientific mind. It is before the judgment seat of Christian Common Sense that this and all other theories must appear. It is the man in the pew who says to this pastor, Come, and he cometh, and to that professor, Go, and he goeth.

Nor is this examination premature. Evolution has been now for many years before the public and its writings fill libraries. We may assume that the evidence is now before us and, if not all in, at least enough is given us by which to judge its nature and probable outcome. This we may further assume in view of the fact that the advocates of the theory admit that an increasing number of facts are not giving increasing evidence but that their case is more beset with difficulties than in the day of Darwin, the father of the hypothesis, or rather, its step-father. So we may proceed with our examination.

The author of this book makes no claim to being a scientist. He is simply one of the great jury to whom this theory appeals. He has, therefore, here simply considered the evidence and given herein his conclusions. The facts and arguments of evolutionary writers will form the chief source of the examination. Nearly one hundred writers and works are cited. Out of its own mouth we will condemn it.

The citations in a book as small as this must be brief but care has been taken that they are fair as to the points they are given to show. It is not claimed that the citations from evolutionary writers exhibit their opinion on the whole subject but that they do show their fatal admissions and their general uncertainty on the whole subject.

It will be shown that Evolution is not accepted by all scientists and scholars; that it is rejected by some of the greatest of these; that it is admittedly an unproven theory; that it has never been verified and cannot be; that not a single case of evolution has ever been presented, and that there is no known cause by which it could take place. Its arguments will be considered one by one and their fallacy shown. It will be shown to be, by its own principles, unscientific and unphilosophical, and simply a revamping of the old doctrine of Chance clothed in scientific terms. Finally, it will be shown that it is violently opposed to the narrative and doctrines of the Bible and destructive of all Christian faith; that it originated in heathenism and ends in atheism.

Much of the material in this book has been presented by the author in lectures upon the Bible during Bible institutes and conferences, and he has been frequently requested to put it in printed form. He hopes that where the arguments do not convince, they will at least bring the reader to what Mr. Gladstone called "that most wholesome state, a suspended judgment."

Among others, the following writers are cited: Agassiz, Abbott, Argyle, Askernazy, Balfour, Brewster, Ballard, Bruner, Barrande, Bunge, Brown, Bowers, Bixby, Bonn, Clodd, Conn, Cope, Clarke, Cooke, DeRouge, Dana, Dawson, Dubois, Etheridge, Fovel, Fiske, Gladstone, Galton, Gregory, Hilprecht, Huxley, Howison, Haeckel, Haecke, Harrison, Herschel, Hartman, Harnack, Heer, Humphrey, Hoffman, Hamann, Ingersoll, Jones, Kelvin, Koelliker, Liebig, Lecky, LeConte, Lang, Meyer, Max Mueller, Monier, Murchison, Naegeli, Paulsen, Pfaff, Petrie, Pattison, R. Patterson, Pfliederer, Patton, Parker, Ruskin, Romanes, Reymond, Renouf, Schliemann, Sayce, Starr, Schultz, Sully, Spencer, Schmidt, Sedgwick, Stuckenberg, Snell, See, Townsend, Thomas, Tyndall, Thomson, Virchow, Von Baer, Wallace, Winchell, Warfield, Wright, Whitney, Wagner, Woodrow Wilson, White, Wiseman, Zahm, Zoeckler.

I especially acknowledge indebtedness to Prof. George Frederick Wright, of Oberlin College, in revising this book and for his valuable suggestions and corrections, and especially his favorable introduction. To his works confirming many of my conclusions I refer the reader, as follows: The Logic of Christian Evidence, The Scientific Aspects of Christian Evidences, The Ice Age in North America, Man in the Great Ice Age.

Alexander Patterson.

PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION.

In issuing a third edition of this book it is proper to state what changes, if any, have occurred in the discussion.

While the belief in Evolution is wide-spread, no known cause or causes have yet been discovered by which the supposed changes in species occurred, for "Evolution" is not a force or energy of any kind, but only the name of a theory by which the present order of nature is supposed to have come. The method Darwin proposed was by Natural Selection arising from the prodigality of production, the small variations that occur in living things, the struggle for existence and the survival of the fittest, aided by environment and other causes all of which by slow degrees during infinite ages have produced the progressive order of species.

This has been decided to be insufficient and has been abandoned by evolutionary writers. It is now agreed that the changes must have occurred in variations originating in the embryo or in the germ, or in the very substance of which that is composed. But all this is far beyond human ken as all writers admit, as follows: "We are ignorant of the factors which are at work to produce evolution. We do not even know whether the life processes are conducted in accordance with the principles of chemistry and physics, or are in obedience to some more subtle vital principle." (Metcalf, Organic Evolution.) President David Starr Jordan and Prof. Vernon Lyman Kellogg, both of Stanford University, say: "These changes or variations, if they do occur, cannot be explained." (Evolution and Animal Life, p. 112.)

This is universally admitted by scientific writers and the search is now for some proof for Evolution along these lines. But as President Jordan makes the still greater confession that "science does not comprehend a single elemental fact of nature," and such writers as the late Lord Kelvin, president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, agree thereto, the required proof seems far off.

So the discussion is in even a less tangible state than in Darwin's time, for that had a theory supposed to be sufficient, but now there is no known cause which can be demonstrated or offers the slightest explanation, as admitted above by these leading writers.

The facts which are advanced to support the theory are dealt with in this volume and their fallacy shown, that all may be explained without reverting to such an unproven theory as Evolution.

Alexander Patterson.

Chicago, April 15, 1912.

 

INTRODUCTION

BY PROF. GEORGE FREDERICK WRIGHT OF OBERLIN COLLEGE.

The doctrine of Evolution as it is now becoming current in popular literature is one-tenth bad Science and nine-tenths bad Philosophy. Darwin was not strictly an Evolutionist, and rarely used the word. He endeavored simply to show that Species were enlarged varieties. The title of his epoch making book was, "The Origin of Species by Natural Selection." On the larger questions of the origin of genera and the more comprehensive orders of plants and animals, he spoke with great caution and only referred to such theories as things "dimly seen in the distance."

Herbert Spencer, however, came in with his sweeping philosophical theory of the Evolution of all things through natural processes, and took Darwin's work in a limited field as a demonstration of his philosophy. It is this philosophy which many popular writers and teachers, and some thoughtless Scientific men have taken up and made the center of their systems. But the most of our men of Science are modest in their expressions upon such philosophical themes. Herbert Spencer does not rank among the great men of Science of the day. Lord Kelvin's recent remarks upon the subject are most truthful and significant. (See below pp. 18, 24.)

Mr. Patterson does well to emphasize the fact that orderly succession does not necessarily imply evolution from resident forces. The orderly arrangements of a business house proceed from the activity of a number of free wills, each of which might do differently, but act in a definite manner, through voluntary adherence to a single purpose. God is all wise and good as well as all powerful. His plan of Creation will therefore be consistent whatever be the means through which he accomplishes it.

Mr. Patterson, also, does well to dwell upon the "uncertainties of Science." Inductive Science looks but a short distance either into space or time, and has no word concerning either the beginning of things or the end of things. Upon these points the Inspired Word is still our best and our only authority. While not saying that all the points in this little volume are well taken, I can say that I disagree with fewer things in it than with those in almost any other on the subject, and that it is fitted to serve as a very needful tonic in these days of the confusion of bad Philosophy and fragmentary Science.

George Frederick Wright.

Oberlin, Ohio, Aug. 10, 1903.

FOREWORD.

Before entering upon the discussion we need to enquire as to the meaning of the word "Evolution" as applied to the theory. We must also ask a definition of the theory as given by its best-known writers; and also enquire as to the spheres it claims to cover. To clearly state a question is often half the task of solving it.

MEANING OF EVOLUTION.

We must distinguish between the ordinary conversational sense of the word Evolution and the technical use of the term as designating a theory by that name. We speak of the evolution of the seed into the plant and the further evolution of the flower and the fruit, meaning by our words merely the natural progressive action of the life within the plant. This principle the evolutionist applies to the whole universe which he says came in a similar way.

Again we use the word Evolution to describe any succession of things which show progress. Such an instance is given us in the change in appliances for the use of steam from the time when its power was first observed in the lifting lid of the tea-kettle to the time when it drives the latest ocean liner. This is, however, simply the succession of a series of things in advancing order, but without vital connection. Their real relation is outside of themselves in the minds of the inventors who, in turn, may be many and widely separated. Succession is not Evolution nor does it prove or imply such a process. That demands an intimate and genetic connection between the things as they appear, the higher growing out of the substance of the lower in physical things and the intellectual likewise.

The theory of Evolution asserts that from a nebulous mass of primeval substance, whose origin it never attempts to account for, there came by natural processes, as a flower from a bud, and fruit from the flower, all that we see and know in the heavens above and the earth beneath.

Tyndall's statement of the scope of the theory is as follows: "Strip it naked and you stand face to face with the notion, that not only the ignoble forms of life, the animalcular and animal life, not only the more noble forms of the horse and lion, not only the exquisite mechanism of the human body, but the human mind with its emotions, intellect, will and all their phenomena, were latent in that fiery cloud." (Christianity and Positivism, p. 30.)

Dr. Lyman Abbott further defines its application to man thus: "Evolution is the doctrine that this life of man, this moral, this ethical, this spiritual nature has been developed by natural processes." (Theology of an Evolutionist.)

Herbert Spencer's celebrated definition is as follows: "Evolution is a progress from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous, from general to special, from the simple to the complex elements of life." But we deny the right to apply this definition exclusively to the theory of Evolution. Creation also proceeds on the same order, so also does manufacture or any other intelligent operation.

The clearest account of the theory is that given by Prof. Le Conte, as follows: "All things came (1) by continuous progressive changes, (2) according to certain laws, (3) by means of resident forces." (Evolution and Religious Thought.) It is the latter clause in which the real meaning of the theory lies. These "resident forces" include exterior influences such as food, climate, etc.

The theories of Evolution are as many as the respective writers. Each one has his own theory as to the scope and cause and operation of it all.

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Tag der Veröffentlichung: 03.01.2014
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