There have been various applications of the general principle of
Development, by means of which an attempt has been made to explain the
origin of all things by Natural Laws, so as to exclude the necessity of
any Divine interposition, either for the creation of the world, or for
the introduction and establishment of Christianity itself. It has been
applied, first, to explain the origin of worlds and planetary systems,
by showing that, certain specified conditions being presupposed, there
are fixed mechanical laws which might sufficiently account for the
production of the earth and of the other planets and satellites of our
Solar System, without any special interposition of Divine power at the
commencement of the existing order of things. It has been applied,
secondly, to explain the origin of the various tribes or races of
vegetable and animal life, and especially the production of the human
race, by showing that the existing types may have sprung, by a process
of gradual development, from inferior races previously existing, and
that these again may have been produced by the action of chemical agents
in certain favorable conditions. It has been applied, thirdly, to
explain all the most important phenomena of Human History, and to
illustrate the law which is supposed to determine and regulate the
progressive course of civilization, so as to account, on natural
principles, for the origin and prevalence of the various forms of
Religion, and even for the introduction, in its appointed season, of
Christianity itself, without having recourse to anything so utterly
unphilosophical as the idea of a Divine Revelation, or the supposition
of supernatural agency. And it has been applied, fourthly, to explain
the order, and to vindicate the use, of those additions both to the
doctrines and rites of primitive Christianity, which Protestants have
denounced as corruptions, but which Popish and Tractarian writers
defend as developments, of the system that was originally deposited,
like a prolific germ or seed, in the bosom of the Catholic Church.
It is the more necessary to examine the various forms of this theory,
because unquestionably it can appeal to not a few natural analogies,
which may serve, on a superficial view, to give it the aspect of
verisimilitude. For many of the most signal works of God have been
manifestly framed on the principle of gradual growth, and matured by a
process of progressive development. We see in the natural world a small
seed deposited in the earth, which, under the agency of certain suitable
influences, germinates and springs up, producing first a tender shoot,
then a stem, and branches, and leaves, and blossoms, and fruit; and
every herb or tree, "having seed in itself," makes provision for the
repetition of the same process, and the perpetuation and indefinite
increase of its kind. The same law is observed in the animal kingdom,
where a continuous race is produced from a single pair. And even in the
supernatural scheme of Revelation itself, the truth was gradually
unfolded in a series of successive dispensations; the First Promise
being the germ, which expanded as the Church advanced, until it reached
its full development in the Scriptures of the New Testament. These and
similar instances may suffice to show that, both in the natural and
supernatural Providence of God, He has been pleased to act on the
principle of gradual and progressive, as contradistinguished from that
of instant and perfect production; and they may seem, at first sight,
to afford some natural analogies in favor of the radical idea on which
the various modern Theories of Development are based. In such
circumstances it would be an unwise and dangerous course either to
overlook the palpable facts which Nature and Revelation equally attest,
or to deny that they may afford signal manifestations of the manifold
wisdom of God. Nor is it necessary for any enlightened advocate of
Theism to betake himself to these expedients; he may freely admit the
existence of such cases of gradual development, he may even appeal to
them as illustrative of the order of Nature, and the design which that
order displays; and the only question which he is at all concerned to
discuss amounts in substance to this: Whether the method of production
which is pursued in the ordinary course of Nature can account for the
original commencement of the present system of things?
But the state of the question, and the right application of the
argument, may be best illustrated by considering each of the four
forms of the theory separately and in succession.
THEORY OF COSMICAL DEVELOPMENT, OR OF THE PRODUCTION OF WORLDS AND
PLANETARY SYSTEMS BY NATURAL LAW.—"THE VESTIGES."
The doctrine of a Nebular Cosmogony was first suggested by some
observations of the elder Herschell on those cloud-like appearances
which may be discerned in various parts of the heavens by the aid of the
telescope, or even, in some cases, by the naked eye. It assumed a more
definite form in the hands of La Place, although even by him it was
offered, not as an ascertained discovery of science, but simply as a
hypothetical explanation of the way in which the production of the
planets and their satellites might possibly be accounted for by the
operation of the known laws of Nature.
The explanation of the whole theory may be best understood by dividing
it into two parts: the first being that which attempts to account for
the formation of planets and satellites, on the assumption of the
existence of a central sun, and of certain other specified
conditions; the second being that which undertakes to account for the
formation of the sun itself, on the assumption of the existence of a
diffused nebulous matter in space, or, as it has been aptly called, "a
universal Fire-Mist."[28]
When the theory is limited to the explanation of the origin of the
planets and their satellites, the original condition of our solar system
is assumed to have been widely different from what it now is; the sun is
supposed to have existed for a time alone, to have revolved upon his
axis, and to have been surrounded with an atmosphere expanded by intense
heat, and extending far beyond the limits of our system as it now
exists. This solar atmosphere revolved, like the sun itself, around its
axis; but its heat, constantly radiated into sidereal space, gradually
diminished, and the atmosphere being contracted in proportion as it
cooled, the rapidity of its rotation was accelerated, until it reached
the point at which the central attraction was overcome by the
centrifugal force, and then a zone of vapor would be detached or thrown
off, which might either retain its form as a nebulous ring, like the
ring of Saturn, or first breaking into fragments, from some want of
continuity in its structure, and afterwards coalescing into one mass,
might be condensed into a planet as the vapor continued to cool. These
rings or planets, thus detached from the central atmospheric mass, would
continue to revolve, in virtue of the force originally impressed upon
them, and their motion would be nearly circular, in the same plane and
in the same direction with that of the sun. The first planet, so
formed, must have been that at the extreme limit of our solar system;
the second the next in point of remoteness from the centre, and so on;
each resulting from the operation of the same natural laws, and emerging
into distinct existence at that precise point in the gradual cooling and
contraction of the atmosphere at which the centrifugal became stronger
than the centripetal force. But each planet might also be subjected to
the same process of cooling and contracting, and might therefore throw
off, under the operation of the same mechanical laws, zones of vapor
more or less dense, which might consolidate into moons or satellites,
and which should also revolve, like the planets, round their primary.
Thus, Uranus has six satellites, and Saturn seven; while the latter has
also thrown off two zones so perfectly uniform in their internal
structure that they remain unbroken, and constitute a double ring around
the planet.
In this first form of the theory, which assumes the existence of the
sun and its atmosphere, and the rotation of both round an axis, La Place
sought to give a scientific form to the speculations of Sir William
Herschell on the condensation of Nebulæ, by proving simply the
dynamical possibility of the formation of a planetary system by such
means, according to the known laws of matter and motion; but he did not
affirm the scientific certainty of his conjecture, and far less the
actual production of the solar system in this way. He has been followed
by M. Comte, who has attempted to furnish, if not a complete
demonstration, at least a plausible mathematical verification, of the
hypothesis.[29] Utterly excluding all supernatural agency in the work of
creation, he equally excludes from the problem which he attempts to
solve, the origin of the sun and its atmosphere; and confining himself
to the task of accounting, in the way not of demonstrative certainty,
but merely of plausible hypothesis, for the formation of the planets and
satellites of our solar system, he conceives the theory of La Place to
be susceptible of such a numerical verification as is sufficient to give
it a high degree of verisimilitude. Assuming that the periodic time of
each planet must be equal to that of the portion of the solar atmosphere
of which it was formed at the era when it was thrown off, and combining
the theorems of Huygens on the measure of centrifugal forces with
Newton's law of gravitation, he establishes a simple equation between
the time of the rotation of each zone or section of the solar
atmosphere, and the distance of the corresponding planets. On applying
this equation to the various bodies of our system, he found that the
periodic time of the moon agrees, at least within the tenth of a day,
with the duration of the earth's revolution, when her atmosphere is
supposed to have extended to the moon; and that the periodic times of
the planets maintain a similar correspondence with what must have been
the duration of the solar revolution when they were severally thrown off
from its atmosphere. It is
the less necessary, however, to enter on a detailed exposition of his
argument, because he admits that it can afford at the utmost only a
probable proof of an hypothesis; and further, because it is expressly
limited to the production of the planets and their satellites, while not
only is the existence of the solar atmosphere presupposed, but also its
existence in a certain state, and with several determinate
conditions; while no account whatever is given of the origin either of
the sun or its atmosphere, and none of the laws or conditions on which
the whole process of development is confessedly dependent.
But the author of "The Vestiges" takes a much wider range, and attempts
a more arduous task. He seeks to account for the origin both of suns and
of solar systems by the agency of natural laws. Not content with the
more limited form of the theory, which M. Comte holds to be the only
legitimate or practical object of scientific treatment, he holds that
the origin of the sun itself, and the forms, the positions, the
relations, and the motions, of all the heavenly bodies, may be
accounted for by supposing a previous state of matter, fluid or
gasiform, subject only to the law of gravitation. The Nebular Cosmogony,
which is well characterized by himself as his "version of the romance
of Nature," is based on the assumption that "the nebulous matter of
space, previously to the formation of stellar and planetary bodies, must
have been a universal Fire-Mist,"[30] in other words, a diffused
luminous vapor, intensely hot, which might be gradually condensed into a
fluid, and then into a solid state, by losing less or more of its heat.
The existence of such a luminous matter being assumed, and it being
further supposed that it was not entirely uniform or homogeneous, but
that it existed in various states of condensation, and that it had
"certain nuclei established in it which might become centres of
aggregation for the neighboring diffused matter,"—the author attempts
to show that on such centres a rotatory motion would be established
wherever, as was the most likely case, there was any obliquity in the
lines of direction in which the opposing currents met each other; that
this motion would increase as the agglomeration proceeded; that at
certain intervals the centrifugal force, acting on the remoter part of
the rotating mass, would overcome the agglomerating force; and that a
series of rings would thus be left apart, each possessing the motion
proper to itself at the crisis of separation. These, again, would only
continue in their annular form, if they were entirely uniform in their
internal structure. There being many chances against this, they would
probably break up in the first instance, and be thereafter "agglomerated
into one or several masses, which would become representatives of the
primary mass, and perhaps give rise to a progeny of inferior masses." In
support of this theory, reference is made to the existence, at the
present moment, of certain cloud-like nebulæ, or masses of diffused
luminous matter, exhibiting a variety of appearances, as if they were in
various degrees of condensation, and which are described as "solar
systems in the process of being formed" out of a previous condition of
matter. And the observations of M. Plateau, of Ghent, are adduced as
affording an experimental verification of some parts of the theory, and,
especially, as serving to explain the spherical form of the planets, the
flattening at the poles, and the swelling out at the equator.
It does not belong to our proper province, nor is it necessary for our
present purpose, to discuss the merits of this theory, considered as a
question of science. This has been already done, with various degrees of
ability, but with unwonted unanimity, by some of the ablest men of the
age,—by Whewell, Sedgwick and Mason, in England, by Sir David Brewster
and Mr. Miller, in Scotland, and by Professor Dod and President
Hitchcock, in America.[31] But, viewing it simply in its relation to the
Theistic argument, we conceive that the adverse presumption which it may
possibly generate in some minds against the evidence of Natural
Theology, will be effectually neutralized by establishing the following
positions:
That it is a mere hypothesis, and one which, from the very nature of
the case, is incapable of being proved by such evidence as is necessary
to establish a matter of fact.
That the progress of scientific discovery, so far from tending to
verify and confirm, has served rather to disprove and invalidate the
fundamental assumption on which it rests.
That even were it admitted, either as a possible, or probable, or
certain explanation of the origin of the present planetary systems, it
would not necessarily destroy the evidence of Theology, nor establish on
its ruins the cause of Atheism.
Each of these positions may be conclusively established, and the three
combined constitute a complete answer to the theory of Development, in
so far as it has been applied in the support or defence of Atheism.
1. That it is a mere hypothesis or conjecture, designed, not to
establish the historical fact, but to explain merely the dynamical
possibility of the production of the planetary bodies by the operation
of known natural laws, must be admitted, I think, even by its most
enthusiastic admirers. It might have seemed, indeed, to have something
like a basis of fact to rest upon, had the conception of the elder
Herschell been verified, when he announced the existence of a nebulous
fluid, capable of being distinguished, by certain well-defined marks,
from unresolved clusters of stars; but even then it presupposed so many
postulates, which could in no way be established by experimental or
historical evidence, that it could scarcely be regarded in any other
light than as an ingenious speculation or a splendid conjecture. For,
let it be considered, first of all, that the theory proceeds on the
assumption of the existence and wide diffusion of a nebulous fluid of
whose reality there is no actual proof; secondly, that it necessarily
requires, also, the supposed existence of certain favorable conditions;
and, thirdly, the operation of certain invariable laws; and it will be
manifest at once that it is purely hypothetical throughout, and that it
includes a variety of topics which never have been, and never can be
made the subjects of experimental verification. For it postulates, in
the words of an acute writer, "the establishment of nuclei in the body
of the elemental mass, as well as the action of heat on its substance,
and then seeks to explain the concentration of the nebulous particles
into these nuclei by the force of gravitation, the rotation of the
bodies so produced by the confluence of the nebulous fluid, the
separation of a portion of the outer surface of these revolving masses
in the form of rings, the disruption of these rings, and the subsequent
recomposition of their fragments into separate spheres, answering to the
planets and satellites of our system."[32] But even were the existence
of a nebulous fluid admitted, we have no access to know what was its
internal structure; we cannot determine whether it was uniform and
homogeneous throughout, or whether it contained nuclei which might
become centres of aggregation; we have no means of estimating the
intensity of the heat which belonged to it, or of calculating the
process by which it was dispersed, so as to occasion the condensation of
successive portions of the mass. No eye ever saw the separation of any
part of it in the form of a ring, or the disruption of that ring, or the
subsequent recomposition of its fragments into a solid sphere. And even
had all this been matter, not of mere conjecture, but of actual
observation, it would still have left much to be explained which can
only be accounted for by ascribing it to a designing Intelligent Cause.
2. The progress of scientific discovery, so far from tending to verify,
has served rather to invalidate the fundamental assumption on which the
whole theory depends. That assumption was the existence of a Nebulous
Fluid or Fire-Mist, capable of being distinguished, by certain
characteristic marks, from unresolved nebulæ or clusters of stars. The
existence of any such fluid has become more and more doubtful, in
proportion as astronomers have been enabled, with the aid of larger and
better constructed telescopes, to resolve several nebulæ which had
previously defied the power of less perfect instruments. We do not
affirm that every cluster has been already resolved, nor is it necessary
for the purposes of our argument to suppose that, at any future time,
this stupendous achievement is likely to be effected; for it is a very
obvious consideration, that just in proportion as our telescopic powers
are enlarged so as to enable us to resolve many of the nearer nebulæ,
they must also bring within the range of our extended vision others
more remote and hitherto unperceived, which may continue to exhibit the
same cloud-like appearance as the former, until, by a new improvement of
the telescope, we may succeed in separating them into distinct stars;
and even then the march of discovery is not ended,—we may reasonably
expect that with every fresh increase of telescopic vision, new clusters
will be brought into view, and new clouds appear in the utmost verge of
the horizon. But, unquestionably, the progress which has already been
made in this direction affords a strong presumption in favor of the
idea, that the apparent nebulosity of those masses which still appear,
even to our best telescopes, as cloud-like vapors, is to be ascribed
rather to the imperfection of our instruments than to any difference
between them and such as have been already resolved. Sir John Herschell,
a high authority in such a case, tells us that "we have every reason to
believe, at least in the generality of cases, that a nebula is nothing
more than a cluster of stars."[33] Sir David Brewster is equally
explicit: "It was certainly a rash generalization to maintain that
nebulæ differed essentially from clusters of stars, because existing
telescopes could not resolve them. The very first application of Lord
Rosse's telescopes to the heavens overturned the hypothesis; and with
such unequivocal facts as that instrument has brought to light, we
regard it as a most unwarrantable assumption to suppose that there are
in the heavenly spaces any masses of matter different from solid bodies,
composing planetary systems."[34] And Professor Nichol, while he
gracefully acknowledges that he has "somewhat altered the views which he
formerly gave to the public, as the highest then known and generally
entertained, regarding the structure of the heavens," states, as the
result of more mature reflection, that "the supposed distribution of a
self-luminous fluid, in separate patches, through the heavens, has,
beyond all doubt, been proved fallacious by that most remarkable of
telescopic achievements,—the resolution of the great nebula in Orion
into a superb cluster of stars; and that this discovery necessitates
important changes in previous speculations on Cosmogony."[35]
In short, Lord Rosse's observations at Parsonstown have conclusively
proved that what appeared to be a nebula was in reality a cluster of
stars; and while they still leave many nebulæ unresolved, they afford a
strong warrant for believing that discoveries in the same direction
might be indefinitely extended in proportion to the increase of
telescopic power.
3. But even were the Nebular Hypothesis admitted, and were the Theory of
Development by Natural Laws conceived to afford a satisfactory
explanation of the origin of the planetary systems, it would not follow,
as a necessary consequence, that the peculiar evidence of Theism—that
on which it mainly depends, and to which it makes its most confident
appeal—would be thereby destroyed, or even diminished. The only
legitimate result of such a doctrine would seem to be, that we must
distinguish aright between a work of Mediate, and a work of
Immediate Creation. In the Bible each of these is distinctly
recognized. We have a specimen of the one in the creation of the first
man by the direct agency of Divine power; we have a specimen of the
other in the creation, less direct but equally real, of all his natural
posterity, through the medium of ordinary generation. Men do not cease
to be the creatures of God because they are born of their parents, in
virtue of that creative word, "Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish
the earth;" and hence children are admonished "to remember their
Creator in the days of their youth."[36] The work of creation is
equally real and equally Divine, whether it be effected mediately or
immediately, with or without the intervention of means, by the direct
and instantaneous exertion of Almighty power, or by the gradual and
successive operation of second causes acting according to established
laws. In the ordinary course of Providence, the method of mediate
production, gradual growth, and progressive development, may be observed
in innumerable instances; but it can never be justly held to exclude, or
even to obscure, the evidence of a presiding Intelligence and a
supernatural Power. On the contrary, it may serve rather to enhance that
evidence; since the very arrangements and provisions which have been
made with a view to the reproduction of every thing after its kind, may
bear on them the legible impress of a designing Mind and an ordaining
Will. Thus, year by year continually, the whole inhabitants of the world
are supported by the fruits of harvest, which are produced and matured
under the action of natural laws; yet every intelligent Theist ascribes
the result ultimately to the goodness, wisdom, and power of God, and
sees in the very processes by which it is brought to pass some of the
most signal proofs of these Divine perfections.
Now, as this method is followed in the work of Providence, which may be,
and often has been, described as a continuous creation, and yet has no
tendency to destroy, or even to diminish, the evidence of a presiding
Intelligence in Nature, so no good reason can be assigned why it might
not also have been adopted in the production of planets and astral
systems, if so it had seemed good to Supreme Wisdom. If this method was
adopted for the propagation of plants and animals, no reason can be
given why it might not also have been adopted for the production of
planets and moons; nor would it in the latter case, any more than in the
former, impair the evidence of God's creative wisdom and power. For,
suppose it be possible that, by a marvellous process of self-evolution,
the material elements of Nature might assume new forms, so as to
originate a succession of new worlds and new planetary systems, without
the immediate or direct interposition of a Supernatural Will;
suppose that the earth and the other bodies now belonging to our own
system, were generated out of a prior condition of matter, existing in a
gasiform state and diffused through space as a Fire-Mist, subject to the
ordinary action of heat and gravitation; suppose, in short, that there
were LAWS FOR THE GENERATION OF WORLDS in the larger cycles of time,
just as there ARE LAWS FOR THE GENERATION OF ANIMALS in the short ages
of terrestrial life;—would a provision for such a succession of
marvellous developments necessarily destroy, or even impair, the
evidence for the being and perfections of God? Does the generation of
the animated tribes diminish the evidence of design in the actual
constitution of the world? And why should a similar provision, if any
such were found to exist, for the generation of stars and systems, be
regarded in any other light than as an exhibition, on a still larger
scale, of "the manifold wisdom of God?"
Let it ever be remembered that the Theistic argument depends, not on
the mode of production, but on the character of the resulting
product. The world may have been produced mediately or immediately,
with or without the operation of natural laws; but if it exhibit such an
arrangement of parts, such an adaptation of means to ends, or such a
combination of collocations and adjustments, as enables us at once to
discern the distinctive marks of intelligent design, the evidence cannot
be diminished, it may even be possibly enhanced, by the method of
production. Provision is made, doubtless, for the growth and development
of the eye, the ear, and the hand, in the human fœtus, and the
process by which they are gradually formed is regulated by natural laws.
But the resulting products are so exquisitely constructed, so admirably
adapted to the elements of nature, and so evidently designed for the
uses of life, that they irresistibly suggest the idea of wise and
benevolent contrivances; and this idea is as strong and clear as it
could have been had they been produced instantaneously by the direct
act of creative power. And so of the planets and astral systems: they
may have been generated, that is, produced, in a way of natural
development; yet the resulting products are such as to evince the
supreme wisdom and beneficence which presided over their formation. But
even this is not all. Let us suppose, further, that Philosophy may yet
reach its extreme, and, as we humbly conceive, unattainable limit; let
us suppose that it may succeed in decomposing all the chemical elements
now known, by resolving them into ONE primary basis; let us even suppose
that it may succeed in reducing all the subordinate laws of Nature into
ONE supreme and universal law; still the development of such a system as
we see around us out of such materials, and by such means, would not be
necessarily exclusive of the idea of God, but might afford evidence of a
Supreme Mind, creating, combining, and controlling all things for the
manifestation of His adorable perfections.
We have thus seen that the Theory of Cosmical Development is a mere
hypothesis, incapable of experimental or historical proof; that the
recent progress of scientific discovery has tended to disprove the
fundamental assumption on which it rests; and that, even were it
admitted as a possible, or, still more, as a plausible explanation of
the origin of planets and astral systems, it would not serve to destroy,
and scarcely, if at all, to diminish the evidence of Theism.
The last of these positions, if well established, might seem to
supersede the necessity of discussing the hypothesis at all in
connection with our present theme. But such a discussion of it as has
been offered may be useful to those—and they are not a few—who,
superficially acquainted with Science in its more popular form, are
exposed to the danger of being seduced by the authority of a few
distinguished names which have unfortunately become identified with the
cause of Atheism. For, while the author of "The Vestiges" repudiates the
atheistic conclusions which some have deduced from his hypothesis, M.
Comte boldly avows his creed in the following revolting terms: "To minds
unacquainted with the study of the heavenly bodies, Astronomy has still
the reputation of being a science eminently religious, as if the famous
verse, 'Cœli enarrant gloriam Dei' ('The heavens declare the glory of
God'), had preserved all its force." And, he adds, in a note, "At
present, to minds that have been early familiarized with the true
astronomical philosophy, the heavens declare no other glory than that
of Hipparchus, Kepler, Newton, and all those who have contributed to the
establishment of their laws!" The reader of these laws may become
illustrious, but the Maker of them must be utterly ignored!
THEORY OF PHYSIOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT; OR THE PRODUCTION OF VEGETABLE
AND ANIMAL RACES BY NATURAL LAW.—"TELLIAMED."—PHYSIO-PHILOSOPHY.
The Theory of Development has been applied not only to explain the
origin of worlds and of astral systems in the sky, but also to account
for the origin of the various tribes of vegetable and animal life which
exist on the earth itself. There is nothing, indeed, in any of the
kingdoms of Nature that may not be included in it, since the formation
of all material bodies, organic or inorganic, is supposed to be
sufficiently accounted for by the sole action of Chemical or Mechanical
laws. The wide range of this theory is strikingly illustrated by the
words of one whose powers of observation have added some interesting
discoveries to Natural History, but whose speculations on the origin of
Nature resemble the distempered ravings of lunacy, rather than the
mature results of philosophic thought "Physio-philosophy has to show,"
says Dr. Oken, "how, and in accordance indeed with what laws, the
Material took its origin, and, therefore, how something took its
existence from nothing. It has to portray the first periods of the
world's development from nothing; how the elements and heavenly bodies
originated; in what method, by self-evolution into higher and manifold
forms, they separated into minerals, became finally organic, and, in
man, attained self-consciousness.... Physio-philosophy is, therefore,
the generative history of the world; or, in general terms, the history
of Creation, a name under which it was taught by the most ancient
philosophers, namely, as Cosmogony. From its embracing the Universe, it
is plainly the Genesis of Moses!"[37]
It will be observed that this strange speculation goes far beyond the
comparatively modest conjecture of La Place. It postulates nothing,
and undertakes to account for everything. In flagrant opposition to
the old atheistic maxim, "Ex nihilo, nihil," it boldly affirms, "Ex
nihilo, omnia." It speaks, indeed, of "laws in accordance with which the
world took its origin;" but these laws must be as abstract as those of
Mathematics, since they existed before matter itself; nay, more
abstract, or, rather, more inconceivable still, since they existed, it
would seem, even before Mind! Dr. Oken attempts to explain the
production of the world from nothing by comparing it to the evolution of
Arithmetical and Mathematical Science, out of the fundamental conception
of zero! But, waiving this, we shall direct our attention to the only
points in this theory which, in the existing state of speculative
thought, can be held to have any practical interest in connection with
our great theme.
That theory attempts to account for the production both of the Flora and
the Fauna of the natural world by the process of Development rather
than by the miracle of Creation. It proceeds on the assumption, akin
to that of Epicurus, that atoms or monads alone existed in the first
instance; and that from these were derived, under the action of natural
law and by a process of gradual development, all existing substances and
beings, whether organic or inorganic, mineral, vegetable, or animal. "No
organism has been created," says Dr. Oken, "of larger size than an
infusorial point. No organism is, nor ever has one been created, which
is not microscopic. Whatever is larger has not been created, but
developed. Man has not been created, but developed." On this fundamental
assumption the whole theory is based. But we must carefully distinguish
between the Atomic Theory and the application which is here made of it.
The recent discoveries of Chemistry, by which all material compounds
have been decomposed into their constituent elements, amounting to
little more than fifty substances, which are either the primary or the
proximate bases of all existing bodies, and the marvellous
transformations which these elementary principles undergo, in respect
alike of form, of density, of solidity, and of magnitude, under the
action of natural laws,—may serve to make it credible that there is no
a priori impossibility in the assumption on which the Atomic Theory
depends. Had it been the will of God to call into being the various
vegetable and animal races in the way of gradual evolution out of these
primary monads, no enlightened Theist will presume to say that it was
either impossible, or inconsistent with His wisdom to do so. It must be
observed, however, that the natural analogies which have sometimes been
appealed to in support of this hypothesis, labor under a grievous defect
when they are applied to account for the origin of the existing races,
and that they are extended far beyond their legitimate limits when they
are supposed to prove that these races might begin to be without any
direct interposition of creative power. For, while the oak may spring
from an acorn, and the largest animal from a microscopic monad, yet
within the whole range of our experience both in the vegetable and
animal kingdoms, the seed is produced by the organism, and necessarily
presupposes it; whence it follows, either that there must have been an
eternal succession of organisms producing seed, and thereby perpetuating
the race, or if this be inconceivable, still more if it can be disproved
by geological or historical evidence, then that the analogy of our
present experience leads us up, not to "an infusorial point" or
"microscopic monad," but to a primary living organism as the
commencement of each existing tribe. In the words of Dr. Barclay, "It
will not be easy, on any principles exclusive of the vital, to answer
these questions, What was the origin of the first egg, or what was the
origin of the first bird? For where is the egg that comes not from a
bird, and where is the bird that comes not from an egg? To the mere
materialists, who exclude every species of vitality but that from
organism, this problem is nearly as embarrassing as the origin of the
Universe itself."[38]
If these views be correct, all the natural analogies would lead us to
acquiesce, as Dr. Barclay did, in the Mosaic narrative as the most
philosophical account of the commencement of the present order of
things. It traces up every race to a primary organism, endowed with
reproductive powers; for it tells us, in regard to the Flora, that God
said, "Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and
the fruit-tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in
itself, upon the earth; and it was so." And it tells us, with regard to
the Fauna, that God said, "Let the waters bring forth abundantly the
moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in
the open firmament of heaven. And God created great whales, and every
living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly,
after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind. And God
blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters
in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth."
Here the distinction between different genera and species, and the
provision that was made for the perpetuation of different races, are
prominently presented; while the production, in the first instance, not
of an "infusorial point" or "microscopic monad," but of a living
organism capable of multiplying its kind, is expressly declared; and
every race is traced up to that primary organism, in perfect consistency
with the only law, whether of vegetable or animal reproduction, which is
known to be in operation at the present day. And this law of
reproduction, so far from being exclusive of a primary act of Creation,
seems to presuppose and require it; for there must be a living organism
before there can be vital transmission. But the theory of Physiological
Development proceeds on a totally different supposition,—a supposition
for the truth of which we have not only no historical evidence, but not
even the slightest analogical presumption, since we have no instance
of development anywhere except from a germ or seed, produced by an
organism preëxisting in a state of maturity.
But the exigencies of that theory demand a wide departure from all the
familiar lessons of experience; and hence recourse has been had to a
series of the wildest and most extravagant conjectures, such as may well
justify the opinion of those who have held that the creed of certain
philosophers makes a much larger demand on human credulity than that of
almost any section of the Christian Church. For, according to that
theory, the origin of the Flora is first accounted for by the action of
some element—probably electricity—on a certain mucus, which is
supposed to be generated at those points where the ocean comes into
contact with the earth and air; that is, on the shore of the sea at low
water mark. Maillet had broached the idea of the marine origin of all
our present "herbs, plants, roots, and grains,"[39] at a period when the
Universal Ocean, of which Leibnitz said so much, was still the creed of
some speculative minds; but it has been more recently revived, and
exhibited in greater detail, though not with stronger evidence, by some
writers of our own age. Thus Dr. Oken tells us that "all life is from
the sea;" that "when the sea organism, by self-elevation, succeeds in
attaining into form, there issues forth from it a higher organism;" and
that "the first organic forms, whether plants or animals, emerged from
the shallow parts of the sea." And so the author of "The Vestiges"
attempts to show that new races, both of plants and animals, marine and
terrestrial, may be accounted for, without any act of immediate
creation, by a change or transmutation of species resulting from the
agency of natural causes. "There is," as he tells us, "another set of
phenomena presented in the course of our history; the coming into
existence, namely, of a long suite of living things, vegetable and
animal, terminating in the families which we still see occupying the
surface. The question arises,—In what manner has this set of phenomena
originated? Can we touch at, and rest for a moment on, the possibility
of plants and animals having likewise been produced in the way of
Natural Law, thus assigning but one class of causes for everything
revealed to our sensual observation? Or are we at once to reject this
idea, and remain content either to suppose that creative power here
acted in a different way, or to believe, unexaminingly, that the inquiry
is one beyond our powers?"[40] In reply to these questions, he proceeds
to show that "there is a balance of probability from actual evidence in
favor of an organic creation by law," and that "in tracing the actual
history of organic beings upon the earth," as revealed by Geology, we
find that "these came not at once, as they might have been expected to
do if produced by some special act, or even some special interposition
of will, on the part of the Deity; they came in a long-continued
succession, in the order, as we shall afterwards see more convincingly,
of progressive organization, grade following grade, till, from an humble
starting-point in both kingdoms, the highest forms were realized." Such
is his general principle; and, without entering into the details, we may
sum up his general argument by saying, in the words of another,[41]
that, according to his theory, "dulse and hen-ware became, through a
very wonderful metamorphosis, cabbage and spinach; that kelp-weed and
tangle bourgeoned into oaks and willows; and that slack, rope-weed, and
green-raw, shot up into mangel-wurzel, rye-grass, and clover." So much
for the Flora; and now for the Fauna, and the transition from the one
to the other. His views are thus exhibited by Sir David Brewster: "The
electric spark, escaping from the wild elements around it, struck life
into an elementary and reproductive germ, and sea-plants, the food of
animals, first decked the rude pavement of the ocean. The lichen and the
moss reared their tiny fronds on the first rocks that emerged from the
deep; land-plants, evolving the various forms of fruit and flower, next
arose,—the Upas and the bread-fruit tree, the gnarled oak and the lofty
cedar. Animal life appeared when the granary of nature was ready with
its supplies. A globule, having a new globule forming within itself,
which is the fundamental form of organic being, may be produced in
albumen by electricity; and as such globules may be identical with
living and reproductive cells, we have the earliest germ of organic
life, the first cause of all the species of animated nature which people
the earth, the ocean, and the air. Born of electricity and albumen, the
simple monad is the first living atom; the microscopic animalcules, the
snail, the worm, the reptile, the fish, the bird, and the quadruped, all
spring from its invisible loins. The human similitude at last appears in
the character of the monkey; the monkey rises into the baboon, the
baboon is exalted to the ourang-outang, and the chimpanzee, with a more
human toe and shorter arms, gives birth to man."[42]
The remarks which were offered, in the previous section, on Cosmical
Development, are equally applicable, mutatis mutandis, to this other
form of the doctrine of Creation by Natural Law. It might be shown, with
reference to the supposed generation of plants and animals, just as it
was then shown with reference to the generation of planets and astral
systems, first, that the theory rests upon a mere hypothesis, which is
utterly unsupported by experimental evidence; secondly, that the
progress of science has hitherto afforded no ground to believe that the
transmutation of species is provided for under the established
constitution of nature; and, thirdly, that even were the theory
admitted, it would not destroy the evidence of Theism, any more than the
propagation of plants and animals under the existing system, which, so
far from excluding or impairing, serves rather to enhance and illustrate
the proof of creative wisdom and power. In support of this last
position, we might adduce the testimony of the author of "The Vestiges"
himself; for, referring to the idea that "to presume a creation of
living beings by the intervention of law" is equivalent to "superseding
the whole doctrine of the Divine authorship of organic nature," he takes
occasion to say, "Were this true, it would form a most important
objection to the Law theory; but I think it is not only not true, but
the reverse of the truth. As formerly stated, the whole idea of law
relates only to the mode in which the Deity is pleased to manifest His
power in the natural world. It leaves the absolute fact of His
authorship of and supremacy over Nature precisely where it was." He
adds, in the words of Dr. Buckland, "Such an aboriginal constitution, so
far from superseding an Intelligent Agent, would only exalt our
conceptions of the consummate skill and power that could comprehend such
an infinity of future uses under future systems, in the original
groundwork of His Creation."[43]
But, without enlarging on those general considerations which were
formerly stated, and which admit of an easy and obvious application to
this second form of the theory, we shall offer a few remarks bearing
directly on its distinctive peculiarities, and directed to the exposure
of its radical defects.
The theory rests on two very precarious foundations: the assumption of
spontaneous generation, on the one hand, and the assumption of a
transmutation of species on the other. Each of these assumptions is
necessarily involved in any attempt to account for the origin of the
vegetable and animal races by natural law, without direct Divine
interposition. For if, after the first organism was brought into being,
the production of every subsequent type may be accounted for simply by a
transmutation of species, yet the production of the original organism
itself, or the first commencement of life in any form, must necessarily
be ascribed either to a creative act or to spontaneous generation. A new
product is supposed to have come into being, differing from any that
ever existed before it, in the possession of vital and reproductive
powers; and this product can only be ascribed, if Creation be denied, to
the spontaneous action of some element, such as Electricity, on mucus or
albumen. In this sense the doctrine of spontaneous generation seems to
be necessarily involved in the first step of the process of Development,
and is, indeed, indispensable, if any account is to be given of the
origin of vegetable and animal life; but in the subsequent steps of the
same process it is superseded by a supposed transmutation of species,
whereby a lower form of life is said to rise into a higher, and an
inferior passes into a more perfect organism.
But we have no experience either of spontaneous generation on the one
hand, or of a transmutation of species on the other. Observation has not
discovered, nor has history recorded, an authentic example of either. In
regard to the first, the author of "The Vestiges" anticipates this
objection, and attempts to answer it. The objection is, that "a
transition from the inorganic to the organic, such as we must suppose to
have taken place in the early geological ages, is no ordinary cognizable
fact of the present time upon earth; structure, form, life, are never
seen to be imparted to the insensate elements; the production of the
humblest plant or animalcule, otherwise than as a repetition of some
parental form, is not one of the possibilities of science."[44] Such is
the objection; and how does he attempt to answer it? He endeavors to
show, first, that the work of creation having been for the most part
accomplished thousands of years ago, we have no reason to expect that
the origination of life and species should be conspicuously
exemplified in the present day; secondly, that the comparative
infrequency, or even the entire absence, of such phenomena now would
be no valid reason for believing that they have never been exhibited
heretofore, if, on other grounds, the doctrine of 'natural creation' or
'life-creating laws' can be rendered probable; and, thirdly, that even
in our own times there ARE facts which seem to indicate the reality, or
at least the possibility, of "the primitive imparting of life and form
to inorganic elements."[45]
Now, to this elaborate argument in favor of spontaneous generation, or
the production of life by natural law, we answer, in the first place,
that the mere fact of its being adduced in connection with the Theory of
Development affords a conclusive proof that it is indispensable to the
maintenance of that theory, that the hypothesis would be incomplete
without it, and that no account can be given of creation by the mere
doctrine of a transmutation of species. It is the more necessary to
make this remark, because not a few who embrace the latter doctrine
affect to disown the former, and seek to keep it out of view. But the
one is as necessary as the other to a complete theory of Natural
Development. The author of "The Vestiges" felt this, and virtually
acknowledges it when he undertakes the task of vindicating the
credibility of spontaneous generation. But we answer, in the second
place, that the method in which he performs his self-imposed task is
singularly curious, and not a little instructive. He had, it must be
owned, a difficult game to play. The general theory of "The Vestiges"
is founded on the fact that, in the ordinary course of Nature, the races
of plants and animals are perpetuated by propagation, according to
established Natural Laws,—a fact which might seem to afford a strong
analogical argument in favor of the supposition that the same order of
Nature is maintained also in the few apparently exceptional cases in
which, from our defective knowledge, we are unable to trace the
connection between the parent and the product. And yet the author
evinces no little anxiety to make out a case in favor of "a
non-generative origin of life even at the present day;" and he appeals
to a class of facts, confessedly obscure, which have not been, as he
thinks, satisfactorily accounted for by the law which usually regulates
the production of organic beings. He refers us to the speculations of
Dr. Allen Thomson on the primitive production of Infusoria,[46] to the
facts which modern science, aided by the microscope, has discovered
respecting the Entozoa, or the creatures which live within the bodies of
others, and, above all, to the experiments of Mr. Crosse and Mr. Weekes,
which seemed to result in the production of a small species of insect
(Acarus Crossii) from the action of a voltaic battery on a saturated
solution of the silicate of potash, or the nitrate of copper, or the
ferrocyanate of potassium. The reason of his anxiety to avail himself of
these cases is evident. The exigencies of his theory demanded a method
of accounting for the primary origin of life different from any that can
be found in the common process of propagation. He saw clearly enough
that his main argument, founded, as it was, on the law of hereditary
transmission, could not account for the production of the first
organism; and that, if he would avoid either the doctrine of Immediate
Creation, which is so offensive to him, or the idea of Eternal
Generation, which is utterly excluded by the clearest lessons of Fossil
Geology, he must have recourse to the hypothesis of Spontaneous
Generation. Hence he attempts to account for the commencement of new
species both of plants and animals, in the course of the world's
history, by a transmutation of species; while, for the origin of the
first species, he has recourse to the same law of Development, but
acting in widely different circumstances, and giving rise to what he
calls "aboriginal generation," whereby the inorganic passes into the
organic, and life, form, and structure, are imparted to hitherto inert
materials by the action of Electricity on mucus or albumen. To
accomplish this twofold purpose, he felt it necessary to insist, in the
first instance, on the ordinary law of generation as the established
order of mediate creation; while he found it equally necessary, in the
second place, to insist on those apparently exceptional cases in which
the connection between the germ and the product has hitherto eluded
philosophical research,—and this for the purpose of showing that the
original production of plants and animals was not similar to the
ordinary method of their propagation in any other respect than this,
that in both cases the result is brought about by Natural Laws, without
the direct interposition of any supernatural cause.
Now, in so far as his argument is founded on the principle of
analogy,—and it is on this principle that it proceeds throughout,—we
submit that it is radically vicious, and utterly inconclusive. For the
vast majority of cases in which the commencement of life and
organization falls under our notice being confessedly those, not of
primary production, but of mediate reproduction, it is reasonable to
believe that the same law governs all cases alike, whether we have been
able or not to trace the origin of life to the principle of propagation,
the few apparent exceptions being sufficiently accounted for by our
imperfect knowledge of the causes and conditions on which they depend.
Besides, the argument from analogy in favor of a primary production of
life by natural causes, in so far as it is founded on the present law
of hereditary transmission, is radically defective, since the two cases
are widely different; the one presupposing a primary organism of the
same kind, from which others are evolved by a law of natural
succession, the other exhibiting life as a new product, resulting not
from any prior organism, but from the action of causes of a totally
different kind, which are not known to be capable of giving birth
either to vegetable or animal organisms under the actual constitution of
Nature.
But suppose, even, that the Acarus Crossii were admitted to be a real
product of Galvanic action on the silicate of potash, and an undeniable
instance of "a non-generative origin of life," how would the
illustrative example accord with the author's general theory? It might
afford a specimen of aboriginal production; but how would it fit in with
his favorite doctrine of a gradual and progressive advancement from
the lower to the higher forms of organization? The Acarus, at first
supposed to be a new and hitherto unknown creature, is now acknowledged
to be one of a very familiar species,—a species which may have
deposited its ova, and propagated its kind, since the commencement of
the present order of things, and whose eggs might very well resist the
action even of nitrate of copper, since the creature itself could live
in that poisonous mixture. Moreover, it belongs, in point of
organization, to one of the highest orders of organisms; not to the
radiata, not to the mollusca, but to the highest type of the
articulata, the nearest to the vertebrata. Had it been a monad,—a
mere living cell,—which Galvanism evolved from the solution, and had
this primary product developed itself afterwards in various forms,
according to the ascending scale of a progressively improving
organization, it might have accorded admirably with the twofold doctrine
of spontaneous generation and transmutation of species; but,
unfortunately, the first process is so perfect, in the present instance,
as to leave little room for the second, and we are almost tempted to
hope that perhaps the clumsy and troublesome expedient of a
transmutation of species may yet be superseded by the discovery of some
method,—we know not what,—whereby not only the articulata, but the
vertebrata, and even Man himself, may be immediately produced by some
new combination of Nature's elemental laws![47]
We have given prominence, in the first instance, to the doctrine of
"spontaneous" or "aboriginal" production, because it constitutes an
indispensable part of the Theory of Development, and because we believe
that, were this clearly understood, that theory would soon sink into
general discredit or total oblivion, like the kindred speculations of
Anaximander and Anaxagoras, of the old Ionic School. The experiments of
Ehrenberg, instituted with the view of testing the doctrine of
spontaneous generation, may be said to have decided the whole question.
They did not succeed, indeed, in explaining every apparently exceptional
case, for some of the facts are still obscure, and will probably
continue to be so, notwithstanding every extension of microscopic power,
just as, in the analogous case of the Nebulæ, the increase of telescopic
power has enabled us to resolve not a few of them into clusters of
stars, while it has served to bring others yet unresolved within the
range of our vision. But they were sufficient, at least, to show that,
as far as our clear knowledge extends, the one uniform law, "Omne vivum
ex ovo," universally prevails, and that the whole analogy of Nature, in
so far as its constitution has been ascertained, is adverse to the
doctrine of spontaneous generation. Ehrenberg detected the minute germs
of vegetable mould, and the ova of some of the smallest animalcules; and
when it is considered that these germs and ova are so tenacious of
vitality that certain prolific seeds have come down to us from the age
of the Pharaohs in the wrappings of the Egyptian mummies,—that they are
widely diffused in the air and the waters, insomuch that no sooner does
a coral reef appear above the level of the sea than it is forthwith
covered with herbage by means of seeds wafted by the winds or deposited
by the waves,—and that it is almost impossible to exclude them by any
artificial expedient, since they are capable of resisting the action of
boiling water and even of alcohol itself,—it cannot, we think, be
denied that the few cases which still remain obscure or unexplained may
be, at least, probably accounted for in accordance with the same
natural law which is found to be invariably established in every
department to which our clear knowledge extends.
In regard, again, to the supposed "transmutation of species," we are
equally warranted in affirming that it is destitute of all experimental
evidence, and unsupported even by any natural analogy. As the doctrine
of spontaneous generation stands opposed to the maxim that organic life
can be produced only by organic life, so the doctrine of a
transmutation of species stands opposed to the equally certain maxim
that like produces like, both in the vegetable and animal kingdoms.
Cuvier has demonstrated, with reference to the birds and reptiles
preserved in Egypt, an entire fixity and uniformity of species, in
every, even the least, particular, for at least three thousand
years.[48] In the actual course of Nature we see no tendency to change;
nay, a barrier seems to have been erected in the constitution of Nature
itself to prevent the possible confusion of races by promiscuous
intercourse, through that provision which renders the mule incapable of
reproduction. No plant has ever been found in a state of transition from
a lower to a higher form; no instance has ever been produced of one of
the algæ being transmuted into the lowest form of terrestrial
vegetation; nor of a small gelatinous body developing itself into a
fish, a bird, or a beast; nor of an ourang-outang rising into a man.[49]
It is true, indeed, that "there is a capacity in all species to
accommodate themselves, to a certain extent, to a change of external
circumstances, this extent varying greatly according to the species.
There may thus arise changes of appearance or structure, and some of
these changes are transmissible to the offspring; but the mutations thus
superinduced are governed by constant laws and confined within certain
limits. Indefinite divergence from the original type is not possible,
and the extreme limit of possible variation may usually be reached in a
short period of time; in short, species have a real existence in Nature,
and a transformation from one to another does not exist."[50]
The whole science of Natural History is based on the existence of
distinct species, capable of being discriminated from each other by
certain characteristic marks; and the whole art of the agriculturist and
the stockbreeder proceeds on the assumption of a law, invariable in its
operation, whereby "like produces like in the vegetable and animal
worlds." The instances to which the author of "The Vestiges" refers in
support of his theory are utterly frivolous when opposed to the copious
inductions to which they are opposed; and they may all be explained
consistently with the law of variation within definite limits, as
stated by Dr. Whewell, or by our ignorance of all the conditions
involved in each particular case. Nor is his argument founded on the
limited range of our observation, even with its singular illustration
derived from Mr. Babbage's calculating engine, fitted to diminish, in
the slightest degree, our confidence in the general results of these
inductions; for, not to mention that it amounts to nothing more than an
appeal from what we do know to what we do not know, from knowledge to
ignorance, from the certainties of science to the mere possibilities of
conjecture, it has been well shown by Mr. Miller, that our range of
observation is not so limited as the author of "The Vestiges" would have
us to believe, since "extent of space is, in a matter of this kind,
equivalent to duration of time. For, although no man has lived five
hundred years, so as to observe the gradual development of the oak from
the acorn in its various stages of progress, yet every man who can
survey five hundred yards of an English forest, can see the oak in every
stage of its growth, and need have no doubt as to the law of its
progressive development. And so, had there really been such a
transmutation of species as is contended for, we might expect to find,
somewhere on the vastly extended sea coasts of our islands and
continents, some specimens of plants or animals in a state of transition
from the lower to the higher forms."
We are told, indeed, in answer to this argument, that Mr. Babbage's
engine produces numbers according to a certain law up to a particular
point, and then, most unexpectedly, perhaps even unaccountably, the law
of the series is changed, and the next term exhibits a striking
departure from the order previously followed; and so, it is argued, it
may be in nature. Each organism may propagate after its kind for immense
periods, so as to give the impression of this being an invariable law;
but at a certain stage the order may change, and the next term in the
series may differ from all that went before it. The argument—if it can
be called an argument—amounts to this: Mr. Babbage's machine produces a
series of numbers, and of numbers only, but according to different
laws of succession; ergo, Nature may produce in the same way, and with
similar variations, different races of plants and animals. The
argument would have been perfect if the engine had produced something
else than numbers; if, as Professor Dod supposes, "while watching Mr.
Babbage's machine, presenting to us successive numbers by the revolution
of its plates, we should suddenly see one of those plates resolving
itself into types, and these types arranging themselves in the order of
a page of 'Paradise Lost,' or even of 'The Vestiges of Creation;'—in
such a case, there might have been something in the argument; but even
then, the withering question remains, Is there any man in his senses who
would not immediately conclude that some new cause was now at work?"
In short, in so far as the facts of the case are concerned, there is
not only no known instance either of "spontaneous generation" or of
"transmutation of species," but there is not even any natural analogy
that can give the theory the slightest aspect of verisimilitude. The
author of "The Vestiges" thinks that a presumption in its favor may be
derived from "the analogy of the inorganic world,"—in other words, from
the supposed conversion of nebulæ into planets and astral systems by the
operation of natural causes; but this analogy has been conclusively set
aside by disproving the hypothesis on which it depends. He further
thinks that a favorable presumption may be derived from "the analogy of
the organic world,"—in other words, from the process of propagation by
which the races of plants and animals are perpetuated; but the
presumption thence derived, so far from being favorable, is directly
opposed to his theory, since all the facts which come under our
cognizance in every department of Nature serve only to establish the two
great maxims of Natural History,—that organic life can spring only
from organic life, and that like produces like, both in the vegetable
and animal world.
If we have succeeded in disposing of the facts of the case, we shall
have little difficulty in exposing the fallacy of the principles which
are involved in the author's speculations on this subject. It is of
fundamental importance, in this inquiry, to form a clear and correct
conception of the precise point at issue, and of the two alternatives
between which we are called to make our choice. It has been well said
that "the great antagonist points in the array of the opposite lines are
simply the Law of Development versus the Miracle of Creation."[51] And
the author of "The Vestiges" virtually acknowledges this to be the real
state of the question, when he says that "if we can see no natural
origin for species, a miraculous one must be admitted."[52] Now, the
grand alternative being Creation by Miracle or Creation by Law, that is,
Creation by a Natural or by a Supernatural cause, we affirm that it is
utterly presumptuous and unphilosophical to represent the one as less
worthy of God, or more derogatory to His infinite perfections, than the
other. Yet the author does not hesitate to say that the natural ought
to be preferred to the miraculous method of accounting for the origin
both of planets and of their inhabitants, for this among other reasons,
that the latter would be derogatory to the wisdom and power of the Most
High. His words are remarkable: "The Eternal Sovereign arranges a solar
or an astral system by dispositions imparted primordially to matter; He
causes, by the same majestic means, vast oceans to form and continents
to rise, and all the grand meteoric agencies to proceed in ceaseless
alternation, so as to fit the earth for a residence of organic beings.
But when, in the course of these operations, fuci and corals are to be
for the first time placed in those oceans, a particular interference of
the Divine power is required; and this special attention is needed
whenever a new family of organisms is to be introduced,—a new fiat for
fishes, another for reptiles, a third for birds; nay, taking up the
present views of Geologists as to species, such an event as the
commencement of a certain cephalopod, one with a few new nodulosites and
corrugations upon its shell, would, on this theory, require the
particular care of that same Almighty who willed at once the whole means
by which infinity was replenished with its worlds?" ... "Is it
conceivable, as a fitting mode of exercise for Creative Intelligence,
that it should be constantly paying a special attention to the creation
of species, as they may be required in each situation throughout those
worlds at particular times? Is such an idea accordant with our general
conception of the dignity, not to speak of the power, of the Great
Author?" ... "It would be distressing to be compelled to picture the
power of God as put forth in any other manner than in those slow,
mysterious, universal laws which have so plainly an eternity to work
in."[53]
Such is the author's presumptuous decision on a matter which is far "too
high for him." We offer the following remarks upon it:
First of all, let it be observed that, unless on the principle of
absolute Atheism, which he professes to repudiate, he cannot but
acknowledge that once, at least, the power of God must have been put
forth in another manner than "in those slow, mysterious, universal
laws" of which he speaks; and that, even if he could succeed in
disproving "repeated interferences of creative power," he could in
nowise dispense with a primitive act of direct, immediate, supernatural
creation, since he does not profess to believe in the eternal existence
of matter and its laws. We find, indeed, that even in the subsequent
acts of a continuous, but mediate creation, he is compelled to
acknowledge a supernatural power as acting, in each individual case,
according to established natural laws; for he says expressly, "There
cannot be an inherent intelligence in these laws; the intelligence
appears external to the laws, something of which the laws are but as
the expression of the will and power. If this be admitted, the laws
cannot be regarded as primary or independent causes of the phenomena of
the physical world. We come, in short, to a being beyond Nature,—its
Author, its God." ... "When we speak of Natural Law, we only speak of
the mode in which the Divine power is exercised; it is but another
phrase for the action of the ever-present and sustaining God."[54] It
is admitted, then, first, that there must have been a primary act of
creation, in the highest and strictest sense, by a direct and immediate
interposition of Divine power, at the commencement of created existence;
and, secondly, that, even in the continuous work of creation, which is
supposed to have been subsequently carried on after the method of
development by established natural laws, Divine agency is still equally
real, although it is differently manifested, and is indispensably
necessary to account for the resulting products. Now, can it be
reasonably asserted that the direct and immediate creation of such a
being as Man would be more derogatory to the wisdom and power of God
than the primordial production of "a universal Fire-Mist," or even of
"electricity and albumen?" or, will it be pretended that immediate
creation of molluscs as molluscs, of fishes as fishes, of reptiles as
reptiles, would be less worthy of the great Author of Nature than the
establishment of a system which must in due time give them birth, and
that, too, not without the concurrence and coöperation of the Divine
will; for "natural law is but another phrase for the action of the
ever-present and sustaining God?"
But, while we hold that there is no good ground for an affirmative
answer to these questions, we would carefully guard against rushing to
the opposite extreme, and affirming, either that the production of new
races by the method of natural law was, on a priori grounds,
impossible, or that God might not have adopted that method, had He so
pleased, in perfect consistency with the manifestation of His wisdom and
power. We see that He has done so, under the actual constitution of
Nature, so far as the production of individuals is concerned; we see
not why a similar provision might not have been made for the production
of genera and species. In either way His power and His wisdom might
have been displayed. But, when we are told that the one is derogatory to
the Divine Majesty, and the other alone consistent with the loftiest
views of His perfections, we denounce the whole speculation as one that
is alike presumptuous and unphilosophical, on the simple but conclusive
ground that we are in no degree competent judges of the best method
either of creating or of governing the world. Had we been asked to say
whether it was likely that, under the rule of infinite wisdom and
almighty power, certain insects, reptiles, and fishes, that are
unattractive to the eye, and loathsome to the fastidious taste of many,
could find a place at all among the works of God, we might have thought
it improbable that they should be created; but they exist
notwithstanding, and the fact of their existence is enough to silence
all our presumptive reasonings. And surely it is not less—it is much
more—presumptuous to affirm that, existing as they do, they could not
have been brought into being, without disparagement to Divine wisdom,
otherwise than by the action of established laws, or by a process of
natural development; as if it were unworthy of God to produce that for
whose production He confessedly did make provision.
But, further, we see here very strikingly exemplified the tendency of
such speculations to exclude God from all real, active, and direct
connection with His works. The dominion of Natural Law, which, as we
shall afterwards see, is held by M. Comte and Mr. Combe to exclude the
doctrine of a special Providence and the efficacy of prayer, is here
extended, by the author of "The Vestiges," so as to be exclusive also of
any direct Divine interposition in the work of Creation itself, other
than what may have been implied in the aboriginal production of matter
and its laws, or in the subsequent concurrence of His will with the
action of these laws in the established order of Nature.
We have said that the Theory of Development, as expounded in "The
Vestiges," is not necessarily atheistic, partly because the author
professedly disclaims Atheism, and partly also because, in strict logic,
it might still be possible, even on the basis of that theory, considered
simply in itself and apart from the speculations with which it has been
associated, to construct, from the actual phenomena of Nature, a valid
proof for the being and attributes of God. And yet we have thought it
necessary to advert to it as one of the recent speculations of science,
because, whatever may be its professed aim, its practical tendency
is unquestionably hostile to the influence of religious truth. It will
be found, in the great majority of cases, and especially in the case of
ardent youthful minds, that this theory, when it is embraced as an
article of their philosophic creed, is, to all practical purposes,
tantamount to Atheism. For not to insist on the consideration, so
forcibly stated by others,[55] that the natural argument for the
Immortality of Man, or for the doctrine of a Future Life, as implying
distinct individuality and continued self-consciousness, must be
materially weakened, if not entirely neutralized, by a theory of
development which traces the human lineage up through the monkeys and
fishes to albumen impregnated by electricity, or, further still, to a
diffused Nebula or universal Fire-Mist,—we think that the Sensational
and Materialistic speculations with which the work abounds have a
tendency to weaken the evidence for a living, personal, spiritual God,
as the Creator and Moral Governor of the world, and to diminish that
reverence, confidence, and love, which these aspects of His character
alone can inspire. The system of Epicurus, although it contained a
formal recognition of a First Cause, has always been held to be
practically atheistic, simply because it removed God from the active
superintendence of the affairs of the world, and excluded the doctrine
of a special providence and of a moral government. It was held, in the
words of Cicero, "Epicurum verbis reliquisse Deos,—re sustulisse."[56]
And so, in "The Vestiges," Natural Law is substituted for Supernatural
Interposition, not only in the common course of Providence, but in the
stupendous work of Creation itself.
THEORY OF SOCIAL OR HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT.—AUGUSTE COMTE.
It might have been thought that the principle of Development had
exhausted its powers, and achieved its highest triumphs, when it had
been applied successively to account, first, for the creation of planets
and astral systems, and, secondly, for the production of vegetable and
animal life; and that little could remain for it to do after it had
succeeded in tracing the genealogy of Man back, in a direct line through
many generations, to the nebulous matter or luminous Fire-Mist which was
diffused at the beginning of time throughout the Universe. But, on a
more careful study of its last and highest product,—Man, with his
intellectual and moral nature, his religious beliefs, his social
history, and his immortal hopes,—it seemed as if there were still some
phenomena which remained to be accounted for, some facts of palpable
reality and great magnitude which had not yet been adequately explained.
The mental faculties and their operations, the moral laws that are
universally recognized and appealed to, the social institutions which
have been established, the religious beliefs and feelings which have
generally prevailed, and the rites of worship which have been observed
in all ages and climes, were so widely different from the phenomena of
mere vegetable or animal life, that they seemed to demand a distinct
account of their origin; and it might not be apparent, at first sight,
how they could be reduced under the same all-pervading law by which the
planets were formed, so as to exclude all idea of Divine supernatural
interposition. This Herculean task was fearlessly undertaken, however,
by M. Auguste Comte, and it has been elaborated with singular ability in
his ponderous work, the "Cours de Philosophie Positive."
M. Comte's Course of Positive Philosophy began to be delivered at Paris
in the winter of 1829-30, and was completed in its published form in
1842-43. It comprehends a general outline of all the branches of
Inductive Science, and of the relations which they bear to each other;
and they are expounded in a style singularly copious, clear, and
forcible. He has acquired, in consequence, a high reputation as a
philosophical thinker, and has already found, in our own country, some
able allies, and not a few enthusiastic admirers. The "System of Logic,"
by John Stuart Mill, and "The Biographical History of Philosophy," by
G. H. Lewes, are avowedly indebted to his speculations for some of their
most characteristic contents; while the outline of his theory has been
presented to the more popular class of readers in England through the
columns of "The Leader," and in Scotland through those of "The Glasgow
Mechanics' Journal."
It is not my intention, nor is it necessary for my present purpose, to
offer any remarks on the strictly scientific portion of his voluminous
work. I shall confine myself exclusively to those speculations which
bear, more or less directly, on the great cause of Natural and Revealed
Religion, selecting them from all the various parts of his work, and
exhibiting them, in one comprehensive view, as a compact theory of
absolute and avowed Atheism.
The fundamental idea of his system is a supposed "law of the development
of human thought," which regulates and determines the whole progress of
the species in the acquisition of knowledge. This law is announced with
the air of a man who has made a great discovery, and who is entitled, in
consequence, to be regarded both as an original thinker, and as a
benefactor to the world. "I believe," he says, "that I have discovered a
grand fundamental law,"—"the fundamental law of the development of the
human mind;" ... "the grand law which I have indicated in the first part
of my system of Positive Politics, ... where I have divulged, for the
first time, the discovery of this law."[57] Now, what, it may be asked,
is this marvellous discovery, which bids so fair both to immortalize its
author and to enlighten the world? It is stated briefly in the first,
and illustrated at greater length in the fourth and following volumes
of his work. The general outline of his theory is thus sketched: "That
law consists in this,—that each one of our leading conceptions, every
branch of our knowledge, passes successively through three different
theoretic states: the state theological or fictitious, the state
metaphysical or abstract, and the state scientific or positive. In other
words, the human mind, by its nature, employs successively, in each of
its researches, three methods of philosophizing, whose character is
essentially different, and even radically opposed: first, the
Theological method; then, the Metaphysical; and, last of all, the
Positive. Hence three systems of Philosophies, which mutually exclude
each other. The first is the necessary starting-point of the human
mind; the third is its fixed, ultimate state; the second is purely
provisional, and destined merely to serve as an intermediate stage."[58]
These are the three great stages through which the collective mind of
Humanity must necessarily pass in its progressive advancement towards a
perfect knowledge of truth; but of these three, the first, or the
Theological Epoch, is again subdivided, and exhibited as commencing with
Fetishism, then advancing to Polytheism, and finally consummated in
Monotheism.
Fetishism is supposed to have been the first form of the Theological
Philosophy; and it is described as consisting in the ascription of a
life and intelligence essentially analogous to our own to every existing
object, of whatever kind, whether organic or inorganic, natural or
artificial. It is traced
to a primitive tendency, supposed to exist equally in man and in the
lower animals, to conceive of all external objects as animated, and to
ascribe to them the same, or similar, powers and feelings with those
which belong to the living tribes themselves.[59] "Let an infant, for
example, or a savage, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, a dog or
a monkey, behold a watch for the first time, there will doubtless be no
immediate profound difference, unless in respect to the manner of
representing it, between the spontaneous conception which will represent
to the one and the other that admirable product of human industry as a
sort of veritable animal, having its own peculiar tastes and
inclinations; whence results, consequentially, in this respect, a
Fetishism fundamentally common to both, the former only having the
exclusive privilege of being able ultimately to get out of it." This
instinctive and spontaneous belief—the natural, and, indeed, the
necessary result of a tendency inherent in living beings—is conceived
to have been an indispensable and a most useful provision for the
primeval state of man, and to have exerted a highly salutary influence
on the progressive development of human thought. It is contrasted with
the subsequent but more advanced stage of Polytheism;[60] and the latter
is held to denote a spontaneous belief in supernatural beings, distinct
from and even independent of matter, since it is passively subject to
their will; while the former considers matter itself as animated, and
has no idea of any higher or more spiritual form of being. It is further
supposed that idolatry, properly so called, belongs to Fetishism only,
and not at all to Polytheism, for this singular, but not very conclusive
reason, among others, that if Polytheism be justly chargeable with
idolatry because it recognizes many wills superior to Nature and having
power over it, Catholicism would be equally liable to the same charge in
respect of the homage which it renders to saints and angels![61]
But Fetishism is only the initial step in the process of our
intellectual development; and it passes into Polytheism, not suddenly
and per salium, but slowly and gradually, through the intermediate
stage of "Astrolatrie," or the worship of the heavenly bodies. The
mind is imperceptibly divested of the idea that everything around it is
animated, and, by a process of real, but as yet imperfect
generalization, it rises from Fetishism to Polytheism; in which latter
system of belief an order of powers superior to Nature is recognized,
while as yet there is no conception of a supreme and all-perfect Mind.
The Polytheistic system, which prevailed so universally in the ancient
world, and which still prevails among Heathen nations, is supposed to
have been, not a declension from a purer and better state, not a
corruption either of natural or revealed religion, but a step in
advance of the primary faith of mankind, a result of growing
intelligence, a vast and most beneficial change in the right direction.
It was the first great product of the metaphysical spirit, the result of
an early but imperfect generalization; it constituted the principal era
of the theological history of mankind; it was admirably adapted, and,
indeed, indispensably necessary, to the exigencies of society at the
time when it prevailed; it was more intensely religious than Monotheism
itself, since it brought man habitually into contact with a multitude of
gods, whose symbols were always present and visible to the eye, while it
exerted a wholesome influence on Science, on Poetry, on Industry, on
Morals, and, indeed, on the whole process of man's mental and social
development.[62]
But Polytheism, although indispensable and salutary as a provisional
belief, was not destined to be permanent; it was to be superseded in due
time, at least in the case of the élite of humanity, by the higher and
still more abstract system of Monotheism, which is regarded as the
natural and inevitable product of human intelligence, independently of
all supernatural teaching, at a certain stage of its development. But
here, as in the former instance, the change is not effected suddenly;
the human mind advances gradually from Polytheism to Monotheism, through
the intermediate stage of the idea of Immutability or Destiny,—an idea
suggested partly by the study of the invariable order of Nature, and
partly by the irresistible domination of one great temporal power, such
as the iron empire of Rome.[63] Historically, indeed, Monotheism is said
to have spread in Europe through the Jews, who derived it from Egypt;
but it is added that, had there been no Jews, others would have given
birth to a system so necessary for the development of human thought. The
prevalence of Monotheism, for a limited time, was useful, and even
necessary, as the natural result of the great law of human progress,
and the indispensable precursor of a new and brighter era; but it was
temporary and provisional merely,—a stage in the onward march of
development, not the ultimate landing-place of human thought. It is
conceived to be radically incompatible with the recognition of
invariable natural laws, and even with the exercise of the industrial
arts.[64] It is, however, the last and highest form of the Theological
Philosophy; and, having reached this stage, the human mind necessarily
advances beyond it, until it arrives at a point where all theology
disappears, and where it is entirely and forever emancipated from all
the beliefs, the hopes, and the fears which have any reference to an
invisible spiritual world.
The ultimate goal of speculative thought is "the Positive Philosophy,"
which treats only of the Facts of Nature, and of their coördination
under general laws, to the utter exclusion of all supernatural powers,
and of all knowledge of causes, whether efficient or final. But this
goal cannot be reached, it seems, by a sudden or abrupt transition from
the Theological to the Atheistic creed. There must be an intermediate
stage,—the era, in short, of Metaphysics,—during which the process of
Criticism will operate as a solvent on all previous beliefs, and by
producing Skepticism, in the first instance, in regard to all other
systems, will tend at length to concentrate the attention of mankind
exclusively on the truths of Inductive Science. The Metaphysical
Philosophy is held to be the necessary, but temporary stage of
transition from the theological to the positive method in science. It is
destined to supersede the one, and to introduce the other. It is
conceived to be equally at variance with both; and the era of its
ascendency is described as a critical, destructive, revolutionary age,
useful only as it delivers mankind from the shackles of former beliefs,
and prepares them for the adoption of a new and purely natural system
of thought. During this era of decomposition there will commence the
reconstruction of human opinion on new and more solid foundations; and
the transition from Monotheism to Positive Science will be the greatest
achievement of the race, greater far than the advancement from Fetishism
to Polytheism, or even from Polytheism to Monotheism itself. The
culminating point of human progress is absolute and universal
Atheism.[65]
Surely such a prospect may well arrest the most thoughtless, and prompt
them to inquire, with some measure of moral earnestness, What is this
Positive Philosophy, this ultimate landing-place of human thought, this
final goal of human progress? Is it nothing else than the Inductive
Science of Bacon, but under a new and less attractive name? or is it a
philosophy radically different from it, and entitled, therefore, to be
regarded as an original method? The author tells us that he might have
called it "Natural Science," or "the Philosophy of Nature," since it
treats of Facts and their Laws; but that he had been induced to prefer
the distinctive title of positive, as one better fitted to mark the
contrast between it and the negative character of those metaphysical
and theological systems which it is destined to supersede. And yet it
will be found that, in so far as it differs at all from the Inductive
Science of Bacon, it is purely negative, since its chief
characteristic is the negation of all Theology, and the entire exclusion
from the domain of human knowledge, of Causes, whether efficient or
final. It adds nothing to the sum of human thought which might not be
reached by Bacon's method; it only subtracts whatever has reference to
the Divine and Supernatural, and especially everything connected with
the theory of Causation. It makes no new contribution to the general
stock, unless, indeed, it be the hitherto unknown law of development
which is supposed to regulate and determine the progress of humanity
from primeval Fetishism to ultimate Atheism; and it takes away Theology,
with all its ennobling beliefs and blessed hopes, not by grappling with
and solving, but by merely discarding the problem both of the origin and
end of the world.
That this is a correct account of the new theory is evident from his own
words: "The fundamental character of the Positive Philosophy is, to
regard all phenomena as subjected to invariable natural laws, the
precise discovery of which, and their reduction to the least possible
number, is the end of all our efforts; while we regard the investigation
of what are called causes, whether first or final, as absolutely
inaccessible and void of sense for us." ... "We have no pretension to
expound the producing causes of the phenomena, for in that we can never
do more than push back the difficulty; we seek only to analyze with
exactitude the circumstances of their production, and to connect them
with one another by the normal relations of succession and
similitude."—"In the positive state of science, the human mind,
acknowledging the impossibility of obtaining absolute knowledge,
abandons the search after the origin and destination of the universe,
and the knowledge of the secret causes of phenomena."[66]
It is thus plainly announced that the Positive Philosophy is the science
of facts and their laws, exclusive of all reference to causes, efficient
or final; and it is even admitted that Theology could not be excluded,
were it deemed legitimate or possible for the human mind to investigate
the causes of phenomena.
Viewing the theory in this light, we submit the following remarks as a
sufficient antidote to this daring but impotent attempt to exclude
Theology from the domain of human knowledge.
1. It is worthy of notice how completely the Infidel party have shifted
their ground and changed their tactics since the era of the first French
Revolution; and how utterly inconsistent are the arguments of M. Comte
and the Positive School with those of Voltaire and the Encyclopedists.
Formerly, Religion was wont to be ascribed to priestcraft; it was
supposed to have been invented by fraud, supported by falsehood, and
professed in hypocrisy; and the Church, but especially the hierarchy of
Rome, was the object of incessant ridicule or malignant abuse. But now,
Religion is discovered to be the natural, necessary, and salutary result
of the legitimate action of the human faculties in the earlier stages of
their development, the initial impellent of social progress, the
indispensable condition of advancing civilization; and, on the broad,
general principle that sincerity of conviction is essential to
wide-spread success, the theory which ascribes its origin to the fraud
or the policy, whether of kings, or priests, or fanatics, is scouted as
a mere delirium of Voltaire, or as one of those revolutionary prejudices
of his disastrous era which were alike irrational and injurious. And the
Church, so far from being ridiculed or maligned, is lauded above measure
as the highest extant product of human wisdom; Catholicism is even
preferred to Christianity itself, as a manifest improvement on the more
primitive form of faith and worship; it is declared to be the
indispensable basis of the future reorganization of society, which, when
it shall have been freed from all theological influence, its only point
of weakness, will still survive, with its separate speculative class,
its imposing public forms, and its splendid hierarchy,—an Atheistic
society, but still Catholic and One.[67] The change, in this respect,
between the opinions which prevailed, respectively, at the era of the
first and that of the second Revolution, is at once striking and
instructive. It shows how variable and vacillating is the wretched creed
of Infidelity, and how the firm maintenance of truth will eventually
compel the homage, even where it may not succeed in carrying the
convictions, of speculative minds. That Religion in all its successive
forms, from the rudest Fetishism up to the sublimest Christian
Monotheism, has been the natural and genuine product of human
intelligence, working ever onward and upward to a still higher stage of
development,—that its existence was inevitable, and its influence, on
the whole, highly beneficial,—and that, even when it shall have passed
away, society will still be largely indebted to it for the impulse, yet
unspent, which it has imparted to the cause of civilization and
progress,—all this is admitted and even maintained by M. Comte, in
direct and often derisive opposition to the theorists who once ascribed
its origin to fraud, and its prevalence to priestcraft; nay, he elevates
it to the rank of a primordial and indispensable element of human
progress, a necessary and legitimate result of the great law of human
development. We know of no parallel instance of a change of opinion so
great and sudden, unless it be the marvellous transition of certain
modern Rationalists who were wont to ridicule the doctrine of the
Trinity as absurd and incomprehensible, but who have now arrived at the
conclusion that it is the fundamental law of human thought![68]
Still, with all this outward homage to Religion, considered as a mere
matter of history, the theory of M. Comte is essentially and even
avowedly Atheistic. It is mainly designed to account for the origin of
all Religion, whether Natural or Revealed, without having recourse to
the supposition either of the existence of God, or of his interposition
at any time in the affairs of men. He seems to have proposed to himself
a twofold object: first, to account for the prevalence of the various
forms of natural religion and superstition, without recognizing any
valid evidence for the existence of supernatural powers; and,
secondly, to account for the origin of Judaism and Christianity, or,
as he calls it, of Monotheism, without recognizing the reality of any
Divine Revelation. And he attempts to accomplish both objects by means
of the same law—a law of development which, in primitive times,
produced Fetishism—which then produced Polytheism; then Monotheism;
then the Metaphysical transition era, during which all Theology is
undergoing a process of disintegration and decay; and, last of all (the
noblest, because the latest, birth of time), the Positive Philosophy,
under whose predicted ascendancy all Theology must die and be buried in
everlasting oblivion. His theory is not merely Anti-Protestant, although
it is bitterly so;[69] nor merely Anti-Christian, as opposed to all
Revelation; but it is Anti-Theological, as opposed to all Religion. It
proposes to eliminate Theology from the scheme of our knowledge, by
showing that it is utterly inaccessible to our faculties, and neither
necessary to society nor useful to morals.[70] It anticipates the time,
as being near at hand, when it shall have no existence, save on the
historic page.
2. This Atheistic theory rests entirely on a supposed discovery of M.
Comte,—the discovery of a law of human development, which serves at
once to account for the origin and prevalence of Theological beliefs in
the past, and to insure their utter disappearance in the future; a law
which, like the magician's wand, can raise the apparition, and then lay
it again! Now, of this law we affirm and undertake to prove that it is
utterly groundless; that it has no solid basis of evidence on which it
can be established; that it is contradicted by the history of the
world, and opposed to our own experience at the present day.
It can scarcely be imagined that a man accustomed, as M. Comte has been,
to the severe pursuits of Science, could give publicity to a law of this
kind, and claim the credit of a great original discovery, without having
some plausible reasons to plead for it; and he does assign certain
reasons for his belief, which are, it may be safely affirmed, as
frivolous and inconclusive as any that have ever been offered in support
of the most baseless revery. They may be reduced to THREE; the first,
derived from our cerebral organization; the second, from the history
of a certain portion of our species; the third, from the analogy of
our individual experience.[71]
He founds, in the first instance, on our cerebral organization. He is
an ardent admirer of Drs. Gall and Spurzheim, and has no scruple in
avowing himself a decided Materialist. It is unnecessary here to enter
on a discussion of Materialism, or even of Phrenology,—that will be
done hereafter; in the mean time it is enough merely to indicate the
fact that the theory proceeds on that ground, and then to inquire how
the fundamental law of Development is deduced from it. How does the
theory of Materialism, or even of Phrenology, were it assumed on the one
side and admitted on the other, contribute to the establishment or
verification of that law? Suppose it to be conceded that every mental
faculty or propensity has a distinct cerebral organ, or, more generally,
that the brain may be divided into three parts, representing,
respectively, the animal propensities, the more elevated sentiments, and
the intellectual faculties; could it be rationally inferred from this
concession that human nature must necessarily develop itself after a
certain order or method, and especially in the precise way that is
indicated in M. Comte's law? Would it prove that Man must needs pass,
in the process of his mental and social development, through three
distinct and successive stages,—the preparatory Theological state, the
transitory Metaphysical state, and the final Positive state? Would it
prove that Religion must first exist as Fetishism, then as Polytheism,
then as Monotheism, and thereafter disappear from the earth altogether
on the advent of M. Comte? He seems to think that there is a real
connection between the cerebral theory and his great fundamental law;
but it is not easy for a common reader to discern or to explain it.
Considering the cranium, according to what he conceives to be the true
anatomical theory, as simply a prolongation of the vertebral
column,—the primitive centre of the whole nervous system,—he argues
that the functions, intellectual and emotional, which are proper to the
upper and anterior parts of it, are less energetic than the animal
propensities, whose organs lie in the lower and posterior region, just
in proportion as they are further removed from the spine; and that, for
this reason, the latter must first come into action, then the
intermediate organs of sentiment, and, last of all, the intellectual
powers. And this doctrine he applies to the verification both of his
otherwise admirable classification of the Sciences, and of his far more
doubtful law of human development. We conceive that if it were
applicable at all to the problem of human progress, it might possibly be
applied to indicate the probable development of an individual mind, in
the successive stages of infancy, youth, and manhood; but that it does
not admit of the same application to the history of the race,
otherwise than by the aid of a very fanciful analogy. We have no faith
in the a priori methods of constructing the chart of human history,
and tracing the necessary course of social progress, which have recently
become so popular in Germany and France. We cannot, with M. Comte,
undertake to solve the problem,—Given three lobes of the brain,
representing the propensities, affections, and intellectual powers, but
differing from each other in size and situation, what will be the future
history of the race,—religious, æsthetic, industrial, metaphysical,
social? We cannot, with M. Cousin, undertake to solve the
problem,—Given three terms, the finite, the infinite, and the relation
between the two, what will be the development of human thought, first,
in the experience of individuals, and, secondly, in the history of
society?[72] All such problems are too high for us. The history of the
human race must be ascertained from the authentic records and extant
monuments of the past, not constructed by theories, or divined by a
priori speculations.
But M. Comte does appeal, in the second instance, to history in
confirmation of his views. He is far from affirming, however, that the
progress of the race, under the operation of his great law of
development, has been either uniform or invariable; on the contrary, he
admits, with regard to India, China, and other nations, comprising
probably the majority of mankind, whose state, intellectually and
socially, has been stationary for ages, that they afford little or no
evidence in support of his theory; and for this, among other reasons, he
confines himself to the history of what he calls the élite, or
advanced guard of humanity, and in this way makes it a very "abstract"
history indeed![73] Beginning with Greece, as the representative of
ancient civilization, and surveying the history of the Roman empire, and
of its successors in Western Europe, he endeavors to show that the
actual progress of humanity has been, on the whole, in conformity with
his general law. He gives no historical evidence, however, of the
prevalence of Fetishism in primitive times; that is an inference
merely, depending partly on his theory of cerebral organization, and
partly on the assumption that in the savage state, which is
gratuitously supposed to have been the primitive condition of man,
there must have been a tendency to regard every object, natural or
artificial, as endowed with life and intelligence. Polytheism, again, he
conceives to have been a step in advance, an improvement on the
preëxisting state of things, instead of being, as it really was, a
declension from a purer and better faith, an aberration from the light
of Nature, not less than from the lessons of Revelation. He conceives
Monotheism, whether as taught, to the Jews by Moses, or to the world at
large by Christ and his apostles, to have been the natural product of
man's unaided intelligence; and he assumes this, without making a single
reference to the supernatural events by which its publication, in either
instance, is said to have been accompanied, or to the sacred books in
which they are recorded; nay, he does not even name the Founder of the
Christian faith, otherwise than by describing him as "the founder, real
or imaginary, of this great religious system."[74]
In treating, again, of the Critical or destructive system of
Metaphysics, and of the Positive or reconstructive system of the New
Philosophy, he adduces no evidence to show that the same element is
negatived by the one and restored by the other; on the contrary, were
his statement true in all respects, it would only serve to prove that
the Theological element, which is slowly dissipated by Metaphysics, is
formally and finally abjured by Positivism. He assumes and asserts, on
very insufficient grounds, that there is a real, radical, and necessary
contrariety between the facts and laws of Science and the first
principles of Theology, whether natural or revealed; and he anticipates,
therefore, that in proportion as Science advances, Theology must recede,
and ultimately quit the field. He ought to have known that there are
minds in every part of Europe as thoroughly scientific as his own, and
as deeply imbued with the spirit of modern Inductive Philosophy, who,
so far from seeing any discordance between the results of scientific
inquiry and the fundamental truths of Theology, are in the habit of
appealing to the former in proof or illustration of the latter; and who,
the further they advance in the study of the works of Nature, are only
the more confirmed in their belief of a Creative Intelligence and a
Governing Power. It may be that, in his own immediate circle at Paris,
there is a tendency towards Atheism; but, assuredly, no such tendency
exists in the highest and most scientific minds of modern Europe. The
faith of Bacon, Newton, and Boyle, of Descartes, Leibnitz, and Pascal,
in regard to the first principles of Theology, is still the prevailing
creed of the Sedgwicks, the Whewells, the Herschells, and the Brewsters
of the present day.
The only plausible part of his Historical Survey, and that which, in our
apprehension, is the most likely to make some transient impression on
the popular mind, is his elaborate attempt to show, with regard to each
branch of Science, in detail, that it was enveloped during its infancy
in a cloud of superstition; and that just in proportion as the light
shone more clearly, or was more distinctly discerned, the cloud was
gradually dissipated and dispersed, until, one after another, they were
all emancipated from their supposed connection with supernatural causes,
and reduced under fixed natural laws. Confounding Theology with
Superstition, or failing, at least, to discriminate duly between the
two, M. Comte draws a vivid picture of the successive inroads which
Science has made on the consecrated domain of Religion, and represents
the one as receding just in proportion as the other advances. For as the
darkness disappears before the rising sun, whose earliest rays gild only
the loftier mountain peaks, but whose growing brightness spreads over
the lowly valleys and penetrates the deepest recesses of nature, so
Theology gradually retires before the advance of Science, which first
conquers and brings under the rule of natural law the simplest and
least complicated branches, such as Mechanics and Astronomy; then
attacks the more complex, such as Chemistry and Physiology; and, last of
all, advances to the assault of the most difficult, such as Ethics and
Sociology; until, having emancipated each of them successively from
their previous connection with supernatural beliefs, it effects the
entire elimination of Theology, first from the philosophic, and
afterwards from the popular creed of mankind. M. Comte conceives that
the religious spirit has been steadily decreasing throughout the whole
course of human development, from the time when it was universal, in the
form of Fetishism, till it reached its most abstract, but least
influential form in Monotheism; and that now the period of its decline
and fall has arrived, when it is subjected to the powerful solvent of a
Metaphysical and Skeptical Philosophy, and when its ultimate extinction
is certain under the action of Positive Science.
We deem this by far the most dangerous, because it is the most plausible
part of his speculations; so plausible that, even where his reasonings
in support of it may fail to carry the full conviction of the
understanding, they may yet leave behind them a certain impression
unfavorable to faith in Divine things, since they appeal to many
palpable facts in the history of Science, too well attested to be
doubted, and too important to be overlooked. The theory itself—whatever
may be thought of the peculiar form which it has assumed in the hands of
M. Comte—cannot be regarded, in its main and essential features, as one
of his original discoveries; for the general idea on which it rests had
been announced with equal brevity and precision by the celebrated La
Place: "Let us survey the history of the progress of the human mind and
of its errors; we shall there see final causes constantly pushed back
to the boundaries of its knowledge. These causes, which Newton pushed
back to the limits of the solar system, were, even in his time, placed
in the atmosphere to explain meteoric appearances. They are nothing
else, therefore, in the eyes of a philosopher, than the expression of
our ignorance of the true causes." Supposing this to be a correct
account of the fact, the inference which M. Comte deduces from it might
seem to follow very much as a matter of course,—the inference, viz.,
that in proportion as Science advances and succeeds in subjecting one
department of Nature after another to fixed and invariable laws,
Theology, or the doctrine of Final Causes, must necessarily recede
before it, and, at length, disappear altogether, when human knowledge
has reached its highest ultimate perfection. But is it a correct account
of the fact? Is it true that the doctrine of Final Causes is less
generally admitted, or more dubiously maintained, in regard to those
sciences which have already reached their maturity, than in regard to
those other sciences which are still comparatively in their infancy? Or
is it true that it has lost instead of gaining ground by the progress of
scientific discovery, so as to occupy a narrower space and to hold a
more precarious footing, now, than it did in the earlier ages of
ignorance and superstition? Did Final Causes disappear from the view of
Newton when he discovered the law which regulates the movements of the
heavenly bodies? Did Galen or did Paley discard them when they surveyed
the human frame in the light of scientific anatomy? or Harvey, when,
impelled and guided by this doctrine as his governing principle, he
discovered the circulation of the blood? In what departments of Nature,
and in what branches of Science, does the Theistic philosopher or the
Christian divine find the clearest and strongest proofs of order,
adaptation, and adjustment? Is it not in those very departments of
Nature whose laws have been most fully ascertained? in those very
branches of Science which have been most thoroughly matured? Did we
believe Comte and La Place, we should expect to find that the doctrine
of Final Causes and the science of Theology could now find no footing in
the domain of Astronomy, of Physics, or of Chemistry, since in these
departments the phenomena have been reduced, by many successive
discoveries, to rigorous general laws; and that they could only survive
for a brief time by taking refuge in the yet unconquered territory of
Meteorology, Biology, and Social Science. But is it so? Examine the
Series of Bridgewater Treatises, or any other recent philosophical
exposition of the Evidence of Natural Theology, and it will be apparent,
on the most cursory review, that in point of fact the arguments and
illustrations are derived almost entirely from the more advanced
sciences; and that, so far from receding or threatening to disappear,
Final Causes have only become more prominent and more striking in
proportion as inquiring men have succeeded in removing the vail from any
department of Nature.
It were easy, indeed, to cull from the records of the past many facts
which might seem to give a plausible aspect to the theory of M. Comte.
We might be told of the early history of Astronomy, when the astrologer
gazed upon the heavens with a superstitious eye, and spoke of the mystic
influence of the planets, and constructed the horoscope for the
calculation of nativities and the prediction of future events. We might
be told of the early history of Anatomy, when, from the entrails of
birds and animals, the haruspex prognosticated the fate of empires and
the fortunes of battle. We might be told of the early history of
Chemistry, when alchemists sought in their concoctions a panacea for all
human evils, and in their crucibles an alkalest or universal menstruum.
We might be told of the early history of Zoölogy, when the augur watched
the flight, the singing, the feeding of birds, and applied them to the
purposes of divination. We might be told of Aëromancy as the earliest
form of Meteorology, and of Geomancy as the earliest form of
Geology.[75] And we might be told of the popular superstitions which
lingered, till a very recent period, among the peasantry of our own
country, and which are now gradually disappearing in proportion as the
light of Religion and Science is diffused.[76] These facts, which appear
on the surface of human history, do unquestionably prove that there has
been a process of gradual advancement, by which each of the sciences
has been, in succession, purged of its earlier errors, and placed on a
more solid and enduring basis. But they prove nothing more than this:
they do not prove that these sciences must ultimately supersede
Theology, or that they have a necessary tendency towards Atheism. On the
contrary, we hold that they afford a valid presumption from analogy on
the other side. For suppose, even, that Religion, following the same law
of development which determines the progress of every other branch of
human knowledge, had become incorporated, in its earlier stages, with
many fond and foolish superstitions, the analogy of the other sciences
would lead us to conclude that, just as the reveries of Astrology had
passed away and given place to a solid system of Astronomy,—and as the
vain speculations of Alchemy had been superseded by the useful
discoveries of Chemistry,—and as the arts of Augury and Divination had
finally issued in the inductive science of true Natural History,—so
Theology might also purge itself from the fond conceits which had been
for a time incorporated with it, and still survive, after all
superstition had passed away, as a sound and fruitful branch of the tree
of knowledge.
This is not the precise light, however, in which M. Comte regards
Theology, He does not speak of it as a distinct and independent
science, but rather as a method of Philosophy, which has been applied
to the explanation of all the departments of Nature; and, viewed in
this light, he objects to it on the ground that Positive Science
peremptorily demands the elimination of all causes, efficient and final,
and, consequently, the exclusion of all reference to God, or to any
supernatural power, in connection with the laws either of the material
or moral world. This is the fundamental basis of his theory. It is
assumed that the recognition of natural laws is incompatible with the
belief in supernatural powers, and that these laws must be invariable
and independent of any superior will. Hence the supposed antagonism
between Theology and Physical Science, which is strongly affirmed by M.
Comte[77]; as if the laws of Nature could not exist unless they were
independent of the Divine will, or as if the arts of industry could not
be pursued, on the supposition of a Providence, without sacrilegious
presumption. The laws for which he contends must have had no author to
establish, and can have no superior will to control them; they had no
beginning, and can have no end; they cannot be reversed, suspended, or
interfered with; they are necessary, immutable, and eternal, not
subordinate to God, but independent of Him; they are, in short, nothing
less than Destiny or Fate, the same that Cudworth describes as the
Democritic, Physiological, or Atheistic Fate, which consists in "the
material necessity of all things without a God."[78] Now, we have no
jealousy of natural laws. We believe in their existence; we believe,
also, in their regular operation in the ordinary course of Nature; but
we deny that they must needs be independent of a supreme will, and
affirm that, being subordinate to that will, they are not necessarily
invariable. They are expressly recognized and cordially maintained by
divines, not less than by men of science; but in such a sense as to be
perfectly compatible both with the doctrine of a primitive creation, and
also with the possibility of a subsequent miraculous interposition. The
Westminster Divines explicitly declare that "God, the First Cause, by
His providence, ordereth all things to fall out according to the nature
of second causes, either necessarily, freely, or contingently;" and
that "in His ordinary providence, He maketh use of means, but is free to
act without, above, and against them at His pleasure."[79] But M. Comte
will have no laws, however regular, unless they be also invariable, and
independent of any superior will. And, doubtless, if this were the sense
in which Science has established the doctrine of natural laws, it would
be at direct variance with Theology, both Natural and Revealed; and the
antagonism between the two might afford some ground for the belief that,
sooner or later, Theology must quit the field. But it is not the
existence of these natural laws, nor even their regular operation in the
common course of Providence, that is hostile to our religious
beliefs,—it is only the supposition that they are unoriginated,
independent, and invariable; and to assume this without proof, as if it
were a self-evident or axiomatic truth, or to apply it in a process of
historical deduction respecting either the past development or the
future prospects of the race, is such a shameless begging of the whole
question,—that we know of no parallel to it except in the kindred
speculations of Strauss, who assumes the same radical principle, and
gravely tells us that whatever is supernatural must needs be
unhistorical.[80]
There is absolutely no evidence, properly historical, that there is any
necessary tendency in the recognition of established natural laws to
supersede Theology, or to introduce an era of universal Atheism. Some
such tendency might exist were these laws conceived of as necessary,
independent, and invariable. But this hypothesis, equally
unphilosophical and irreligious, is not and never has been maintained
by the great body of Inductive inquirers, who see no contradiction
either between the established order of Nature and the supposition of
its Divine origin, or between the operation of natural laws and the
recognition of a supreme, superintending Providence. Nor should it be
forgotten, in this connection, that the evidence in favor of Theism
depends not so much on the mere laws as on the dispositions and
adjustments that are observable in Nature.[81] There is, therefore, no
historical proof to establish the supposed law of human development, and
no rational ground to expect that the progress of Inductive Science will
ever supplant or supersede Theology. It is true that Theology, although
a distinct and independent science, is so comprehensive in its range
that it gathers its proofs and illustrations from every department of
Nature, and that, were it excluded from any one of these, it might, for
the same reason, be excluded from all the rest; but it is not true that
there is any real or necessary antagonism between the laws of Nature and
the prerogatives of God. On the contrary, let our knowledge advance
until all the phenomena both of the Material and Moral worlds shall be
reduced under so many general laws, even then Superstition might
disappear, but Theology would remain, and would only receive fresh
accessions of evidence and strength, in proportion as the wise order of
Nature is more fully unfolded, and its most hidden mysteries disclosed.
We scarcely know whether it is needful to advert at all to the argument
in favor of his theory which M. Comte founds on the analogy of
individual experience. It is a transparent fallacy. He tells us that
the race is, like an individual man, Religious in infancy, Metaphysical
in youth, and Positive—that is, Scientific, without being Religious—in
mature manhood.[82] Now, this analogical argument, to have any
legitimate weight, must proceed on the assumption of two facts. The
first is, that the law of individual development commences, in the case,
at least, of all who belong to the élite of humanity, with Theology,
and terminates in Atheism; and the second is, that the individual is, in
this respect, the type or pattern of his race, and that the experience
of the one is only an outline in miniature of the history of the other.
It would be difficult, we think, to establish the truth of either of
these positions by evidence that could be satisfactory to any reflecting
mind. We cannot doubt, indeed, for experience amply attests, that the
religious sensibilities of childhood have often been sadly impaired in
the progress from youth to manhood, and that, after the tumultuous
excitements, whether of speculation or of passion, not a few have sought
a refuge from their fears in the cold negations of Atheism. But is this
the law of development and progress? Is it a law that is uniform and
invariable in its operation? Are there no instances of an opposite kind?
Are there no instances of men whose early religious culture had been
neglected, and who passed through youth without one serious thought of
God and their relation to Him, but who, as they advanced in years, began
to reflect and inquire, and ultimately attained to a firm religious
faith? If such diversities of individual experience are known to exist,
then clearly the result is not determined by any necessary or invariable
law of intellectual development; but must be ascribed to other causes,
chiefly of a moral and practical kind, which exert a powerful influence,
for good or evil, on every human mind. Montaigne speaks of an error
maintained by Plato, "that children and old people were most susceptible
of Religion, as if it sprung and derived its credit from our
weakness."[83] And we find M. Comte himself complaining, somewhat
bitterly, that his quondam friend, the celebrated St. Simon, had
exhibited, as he advanced in years (cette tendance banale vers une
vague religiosité), a tendency towards something like Religion.[84]
Cases of this kind are utterly fatal to his supposed law of individual
development, and they must be equally fatal to his theory of the
progress of the human race.
Hitherto we have considered merely the reasons which M. Comte urges in
support of his theory, and have endeavored to show that they are utterly
incapable of establishing it as a valid scientific doctrine. It may be
useful, however, to advert, in conclusion, to some considerations which
afford decisive objections against it, arising from the testimony of
authentic history and the plainest principles of reason.
In so far as the testimony of history and tradition is concerned,
nothing can be more certain than that the progress of the race has
followed a very different course from that which M. Comte has traced out
for it by his grand fundamental law. The theory of a primitive state of
ignorance and barbarism, in which a rude Theology existed, in the form
of Fetishism, is opposed not more to the authority of Scripture, the
earliest record of our race, than to the unanimous voice of antiquity,
which attests the general belief of mankind in a primeval state of light
and innocence. There is a sad but striking contrast between the views
which are generally held by the Christian Theist, and those which are
avowed by M. Comte on this subject. The Christian Theist admits the
doctrine of a primeval Revelation and a pristine state of purity and
peace; M. Comte maintains the doctrine of a primitive barbarism and a
natural aboriginal Superstition. The Christian Theist believes in a fall
subsequent to the creation of man, and ascribes the ignorance and error,
the superstition and idolatry which ensued, to the perversion and abuse
of his intellectual and moral powers; M. Comte affirms that man did not
fall, that he did actually rise by a process of slow but
progressive self-elevation, and that, in advancing from Fetishism to
Polytheism, and from Polytheism to Monotheism, and from Monotheism to
Atheism, he has all along been determined by the law of his normal
development. In the view of the Christian Theist, Revelation was the sun
which shed its cheering rays on the first fathers of mankind, and which,
after having been obscured, for a time, by the clouds and darkness of
Superstition, shines out again, clear and strong, under the dispensation
of the Gospel; in the view of M. Comte, Science is the only sun that is
destined to enlighten the world,—a sun which has not yet fully risen,
but which has sent before, as the harbingers of its speedy advent, a few
scattered rays to gild the lofty mountain peaks, while all beneath is
still buried in Cimmerian darkness. The Christian Theist anticipates the
time when the true light which now shineth shall cover the whole earth;
M. Comte predicts its utter and final extinction, when Positive Science
shall have risen into the ascendant. His theory is contradicted by the
history of the past; let us hope that the events of the future will
equally belie his prediction. For Christianity is the only hope of the
world. The prospects of man would be dark indeed on the supposition of
its being abolished. "There might remain among a few of the more
enlightened some occasional glimpses of religious truth, as we find to
have been the case in the Pagan world; but the degradation of the great
mass of the people to that ignorance, and idolatry, and superstition,
out of which the Gospel had emancipated them, would be certain and
complete. This retrograde movement might be retarded by the advantages
which we have derived from that system, whose influence we should
continue to feel long after we had ceased to acknowledge the divinity of
its source. But these advantages would by degrees lose their efficacy,
even as mere matters of speculation, and give place to the workings of
fancy, and credulity, and corruption. A radiance might still glow on
the high places of the earth after the sun of Revelation had gone down;
and the brighter and the longer it had shone, the more gradual would be
the decay of that light and warmth which it had left behind it. But
every where there would be the sad tokens of a departed glory and of a
coming night. Twilight might be protracted through the course of many
generations, and still our unhappy race might be able to read, though
dimly, many of the wonders of the eternal Godhead, and to wind a dubious
way through the perils of the wilderness. But it would be twilight
still; shade would thicken after shade; every succeeding age would come
wrapped in a deeper and a deeper gloom; till, at last, that flood of
glory which the Gospel is now pouring upon the world would be lost and
buried in impenetrable darkness."[85]
M. Comte's theory is liable to another objection, the force of which he
seems, in some measure, although inadequately, to have felt and
acknowledged. The three states or stages, which he describes as
necessarily successive, are, in point of fact, simultaneous. They do
not mark so many different eras in the course of human progress,—they
denote the natural products of man's intelligence, the constituent
elements of his knowledge in all states of society. The Theological,
the Metaphysical, and the Scientific elements have always coëxisted.
Diverse as they may be in other respects, they resemble each other in
this,—they are all the natural and spontaneous products of man's
intelligent activity. That they were, to a certain extent,
simultaneous at first, and that they are simultaneous still, is
actually admitted by M. Comte, while he conceives, nevertheless, that
they are radically incompatible with each other;[86] and their
coexistence hitherto is felt by him to be a serious objection to his
fundamental law, which represents them not only as necessarily
successive, but also as mutually exclusive. The fact is admitted, and
that fact is fatal to his whole theory. For if the three methods have
coexisted hitherto, why may they not equally coexist hereafter? And what
ground is left for the reckless prediction that Theology is doomed, and
must fall before the onward march of Positive Science? If man was able
from the beginning to observe, to compare, to abstract, and to
generalize, and if the fundamental laws of human thought have been ever
the same, it follows that there must have been a tendency, coeval with
the origin of the race, towards Theological, Metaphysical, and Inductive
Speculation, and that the same tendency must continue as long as his
powers remain unchanged. It can only, therefore, be a preponderance,
more or less complete, of one of the three methods over the other two,
that we should be warranted in expecting, even under the operation of
M. Comte's favorite law; and yet he boldly proclaims the utter
exclusion of Metaphysics, and the entire and everlasting elimination of
Theology, as branches of human knowledge!
M. Comte's theory is still more vulnerable at another point. The
fundamental assumption on which it is based is utterly groundless. It
amounts to this, that all knowledge of causes, whether efficient or
final, is interdicted to man, and incapable of being reached by any
exertion of his faculties.[87] He tells us that Theology is impossible,
for this reason, that, in the view of the Positive Philosophy, all
knowledge of causes is absolutely excluded; nay, he admits that Theology
is inevitable if we inquire into causes at all. We know of no simpler or
more effectual method of dealing with his specious sophistry on this
subject, than by showing that, if his general principle be conclusive
against the knowledge of God, it is equally conclusive against the
knowledge of any other being or cause; just as Sir James Mackintosh
dealt with the skeptical philosophy of Hume, when, with admirable
practical sagacity, he said: "As those dictates of experience which
regulate conduct must be the objects of belief, all objections which
attack them, in common with the principles of reasoning, must be utterly
ineffectual. Whatever attacks every principle of belief, can destroy
none. As long as the foundations of knowledge are allowed to remain on
the same level with the maxims of life, the whole system of human
conviction must continue undisturbed.... Skepticism has practical
consequences of a very mischievous nature. This is because its
universality is not steadily kept in view and constantly borne in
mind. If it were, the above short and plain remark would be an effectual
antidote to the poison. But, in practice, it is an armory from which
weapons are taken to be employed against some opinions, while it is
hidden from notice that the same weapons would equally cut down every
other conviction. It is thus that Mr. Hume's theory of causation is
used as an answer to arguments for the existence of the Deity, without
warning the reader that it would equally lead him to expect—that the
sun will not rise to-morrow."[88]
The exclusion of all knowledge of causes is so indispensable to M.
Comte's theory that he admits "the inevitable tendency of our
intelligence towards a philosophy radically Theological, as often as we
seek to penetrate, on whatever pretext, into the intimate nature of the
phenomena."[89] The exclusion of such knowledge would, of course, be
fatal to Theology, since, without taking some account of causes,
efficient and final, we cannot rise to God as the author of the
universe. But did it never occur to M. Comte that the self-same
principle may possibly be destructive of his present, or, at least, of
his posthumous fame, as the author of the Positive Philosophy? For, if
we can know nothing of efficient causes, in what sense, or on what
ground, shall any one presume to ascribe the authorship of this system
to M. Comte? True, it may be said,—Here is an effect which exhibits
manifest signs of intelligence, order, and scientific skill; its parts
are regularly adjusted and all directed to a common end; and, reasoning
after the teleological method, we must infer that it proceeded from a
very clever, but somewhat eccentric mind; but, unfortunately, final
causes are as expressly interdicted as efficient ones; and, on the
principles of his own theory, the "Course of Positive Philosophy" can
never be warrantably ascribed to the authorship of M. Comte.
A still more serious objection to M. Comte's theory respecting the law
of human development arises from the false view which it exhibits of
the nature and history of Truth, considered as the object of human
knowledge. It is a favorite opinion with him, that man can have no
absolute knowledge; that truth is not fixed, but fluctuating; that
what was believed in one age, and believed necessarily, according to
the fundamental laws of thought, is as necessarily disbelieved in the
next; and that there is no standard of truth at any time better or surer
than the public opinion, or general consent, of the most advanced
classes of society.[90] This theory of Truth, as necessarily mobile and
fluctuating, has a tendency, we think, to engender universal skepticism,
even when it is stated, with various important modifications, by such
writers as Lamennais and Morell; but, in the hands of M. Comte, it
becomes more dangerous still, since it represents the human race as
having been from the beginning, through a long series of ages, subject
to a law of development which not only permitted, but actually
compelled them to believe a lie; and thus casts a dark shade of
suspicion both on the constitution of man and on the government of God.
Such a theory would seem also to preclude all rational calculations
respecting the future progress and prospects of the race. For what
ground can exist for any prognostication in regard to the ulterior
advancement or ultimate destiny of man, if it be true that, in his past
history, Fetishism has passed into Polytheism, and Polytheism into
Monotheism, without any extraneous instruction, and by the mere action
of those inherent laws to which humanity is subject? And, still more, if
it be further true that even now the human mind is in a state of
transition, passing through the crisis of Metaphysical doubt towards the
goal of Positive Atheism, who shall assure us that this will be its last
and final metamorphosis? It does appear to us to be one of the most
singular and perplexing anomalies of his elaborate system, that he can
dogmatize so confidently on the terminus ad quem of human progress,
when from the terminus a quo there has been, according to his own
account, a series of variations so wonderful, and a succession of states
so diverse and opposite, as those which he describes. And yet he
pronounces oracularly that Positive Science is the ultimate
landing-place of human thought, and that universal Atheism is the final
barrier which must needs close and terminate the long series of
developments.
We have spoken sternly of his system; we have no wish to speak harshly
of the man. Had we any disposition to do so, there is more than enough
in the personal explanation, prefixed to the closing volume of his work,
effectually to disarm us. We have too much sympathy with the trials of a
vigorous but eccentric mind, struggling in untoward circumstances, and
against an adverse tide, to maintain a position of honorable
independence, to say a word that could wound the feelings or injure the
prospects of a man of science. But it is not unkind to add that his life
might have been a more prosperous one had he devoted himself to the
pursuits of Science, without assailing the truths of Religion; and that
his fame would have been at once more extensive and more enduring had it
been left to repose on his Classification or Hierarchy of the Sciences,
without being associated with the more doubtful merits of his
fundamental law of Man's Development.
THEORY OF ECCLESIASTICAL DEVELOPMENT.—J. H. NEWMAN.
This particular phase of the general theory bears less directly on the
subject of our present inquiry than either of the three which have
already passed under review, and yet it has recently been applied in
such a way as may entitle it to a passing notice.
For while the theory of Ecclesiastical Development has a direct
relation only to the question in regard to the Rule of Faith, it has
also an indirect or collateral relation to the truths of Natural as
well as of Revealed Religion; and this relation demands for it,
especially in the existing state of theological speculation, the earnest
attention of all who are concerned for the maintenance even of the
simplest and most elementary articles of Divine truth.
The most elaborate and systematic exposition of this theory is exhibited
in the "Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, by John Henry
Newman;" an Essay primarily directed to the discussion of the points of
difference between the Popish and the Protestant Churches, but which
will be found to have an important bearing, also, on some doctrines
which are common to both, and especially on the fundamental articles of
Natural Religion itself.
It is thus stated by Mr. Newman:[91] "That the increase and expansion of
the Christian Creed and Ritual, and the variations which have attended
the process in the case of individual writers and churches, are the
necessary attendants on any philosophy or polity which takes possession
of the intellect and heart, and has had any wide or extended dominion;
that, from the nature of the human mind, time is necessary for the full
comprehension and perfection of great ideas; and that the highest and
most wonderful truths, though communicated to the world once for all by
inspired teachers, could not be comprehended all at once by the
recipients, but, as received and transmitted by minds not inspired, and
through media which were human, have required only the longer time and
deeper thought for their full elucidation. This may be called the
Theory of Developments."
It is further illustrated as follows: "It is sometimes said that the
stream is clearest near the spring. Whatever use may fairly be made of
this image, it does not apply to the history of a philosophy or sect,
which, on the contrary, is more equable, and purer, and stronger, when
its bed has become deep, and broad, and full. It necessarily rises out
of an existing state of things, and, for a time, savors of the soil. Its
vital element needs disengaging from what is foreign and temporary, and
is employed in efforts after freedom, more vigorous and hopeful as its
years increase. Its beginnings are no measures of its capabilities, nor
of its scope. At first, no one knows what it is, or what it is worth. It
remains, perhaps, for a time, quiescent; it tries, as it were, its
limbs, and proves the ground under it, and feels its way. From time to
time it makes essays which fail, and are, in consequence, abandoned. It
seems in suspense which way to go; it wavers, and, at length, strikes
out in one definite direction. In time it enters upon strange territory;
points of controversy alter their bearing; parties rise and fall about
it; dangers and hopes appear in new relations, and old principles
reappear under new forms; it changes with them, in order to remain the
same. In a higher world it is otherwise; but here below to live is to
change, and to be perfect is to have changed often."[92]
In answer to the objection, "that inspired documents, such as the Holy
Scriptures, at once determine the doctrines which we should believe," it
is replied, "that they were intended to create an idea, and that idea is
not in the sacred text, but in the mind of the reader; and the question
is, whether that idea is communicated to him, in its completeness and
minute accuracy, on its first apprehension, or expands in his heart and
intellect, and comes to perfection in the course of time. Nor could it
be maintained without extravagance that the letter of the New Testament,
or of any assignable number of books, comprises a delineation of all
possible forms which a Divine message will assume when submitted to a
multitude of minds."[93]
What relation, it may be asked, can this theory respecting the
development of revealed or Christian truth bear to the question of the
being and perfections of God? We answer, that it is founded on a general
philosophical principle which may affect the truths of natural as well
as those of revealed Religion; and that it is applied in such a way as
to show that, as it has already led to the worship of angels and saints,
so it may hereafter issue in the deification of Nature, which is
Pantheism, or in the separate worship of its component parts, which is
Polytheism; and, in either case, the personality and supremacy of the
one only, the living and the true God, would be effectually superseded,
if not explicitly denied.
But, is there any real danger of such a disastrous consummation? We
answer, that the mere coexistence of the theory of Ecclesiastical
Development with the infidel speculations on the doctrine of Human
Progress is of itself an ominous symptom; and, further, that the mutual
interchange of complimentary acknowledgments between the Infidel and
Popish parties is another, especially when both are found to coincide in
some of the main grounds of their opposition to Scripture as the supreme
rule of faith, and when the homage which the advocates of Development
render to the theory of progress is responded to by glowing eulogiums
from the infidel camp on the genius of Catholicism as the masterpiece of
human policy. But there are other grounds of apprehension, arising more
directly out of the very nature of the theory of Development itself.
That theory has been described by Dr. Brownson—himself a convert to
Catholicism—as the product of "a school formed, at first, outside of
the Church, but now brought within her communion," and compared, in
regard to its dangerousness, with the speculations of Hermes and
Lamennais.[94] And a still more competent judge—Professor Sedgwick, of
Cambridge[95]—has characterized it as "a monstrous compound of Popery
and Pantheism," according to which "the Catholic faith is not a religion
revealed to us in the Sacred Books we call canonical, and in the works
of the Fathers which are supposed to contain the oral traditions of the
Apostles and their followers; but a new Pantheistic element is to be
fastened on the faith of men,—a principle of Development which may
overshadow both the verbum Dei scriptum and the verbum Dei non
scriptum of the Romish Church, and change both the form and substance
of primitive Christianity."
It is only justice to Mr. Newman to say that he appears to have been
aware of this possible objection to his theory, and that he makes an
attempt to obviate it. Speaking of the difficulty which the Church
experienced in keeping "Paganism out of her pale," he adverts to "the
hazard which attended on the development of the Catholic ritual,—such
as the honors publicly assigned to saints and martyrs, the formal
veneration of their relics, and the usages and observances which
followed." And he asks: "What was to hinder the rise of a sort of
refined Pantheism, and the overthrow of Dogmatism pari passu with the
multiplication of heavenly intercessors and patrons? If what is called
in reproach 'Saint-worship' resembled the Polytheism which it
supplanted, or was a corruption, how did Dogmatism survive? Dogmatism is
a religious profession of its own reality as contrasted with other
systems; but Polytheists are liberals, and hold that one religion is as
good as another. Yet the theological system was developing and
strengthening, as well as the monastic rule, all the while the ritual
was assimilating itself, as Protestants say, to the Paganism of former
ages."[96]
It seems to be admitted in these words, that, in the past history of
the Church, the development of the Catholic ritual was attended with
some danger of infection from Paganism or Pantheism; and there may be
equal reason to fear that, in the future history of the Church, still
working on the principle of development, that danger may be very
considerably aggravated by the general prevalence of theories utterly
inconsistent with the faith of primitive times. What the Church has
already done in the exercise of her developing power may be only a
specimen of what she may hereafter accomplish. She has already
developed Christianity into a system which bears a striking resemblance
to Polytheism; she may yet develop it more fully, so as to bring it into
accordance with philosophical Pantheism; or, retaining both forms,—for
they are not necessarily exclusive of each other,—she may use the first
in dealing with the ignorant, and reserve the second as a sort of
esoteric doctrine for minds of higher culture. Nor let it be said that
we are either unjust or uncharitable towards the Romish Church, in
suggesting the possibility of some such development; for what she has
already done, and what she still claims the power of doing, afford very
sufficient ground for our remarks. When Dr. Conyers Middleton published
his celebrated "Letter from Rome," showing an exact conformity between
Popery and Paganism, and that "the religion of the present Romans is
derived from that of their Heathen ancestors," many liberal Catholics
resented the imputation as an insult to their faith; but now Mr. Newman
not only admits the fact that the Church did assimilate its ritual to
the Paganism of former ages, but vindicates her right to do so, and
ascribes to her a power of assimilation to which it seems impossible
to assign any limits. "There is, in truth," says this writer, "a certain
virtue or grace in the Gospel, which changes the quality of doctrines,
opinions, usages, actions, and personal characters, which become
incorporated with it, and makes them right and acceptable to its Divine
Author, when before they were either contrary to truth, or, at best, but
shadows of it."—"Confiding, then, in the power of Christianity to
resist the infection of evil, and to transmute the very instruments and
appendages of demon worship to an Evangelical use, ... the rulers of
the Church from early times were prepared, should the occasion arise, to
adopt, or imitate, or sanction the existing rites and customs of the
populace, as well as the philosophy of the educated class."—"The
Church can extract good from evil, or, at least, gets no harm from it.
She inherits the promise made to the disciples, that they should take
up serpents, and, if they drank any deadly thing, it should not hurt
them."—"It has borne, and can bear, principles or doctrines which, in
other systems of religion, quickly degenerate into fanaticism or
infidelity." This marvellous power of assimilation, which made "those
observances pious in Christianity" that were "superstitions in
Paganism," advanced, rapidly in its work, and successively introduced
the deification of man, the cultus of angels and saints, and the
beatification of Mary as Queen of heaven and earth. The sanctification,
or rather the deification of the nature of Man, is one of these
developments. Christ "is in them, because He is in human nature; and He
communicates to them that nature, deified by becoming His, that it may
deify them." The worship of saints is another of these developments:
"Those who are known to be God's adopted sons in Christ are fit objects
of worship on account of Him who is in them.... Worship is the necessary
correlative of glory; and, in the same sense in which created nature can
share in the Creator's incommunicable glory, do they also share in that
worship which is His property alone." But a "new sphere" was yet to be
discovered in the realms of light, to which the Church had not yet
assigned its inhabitant. "There was 'a wonder in heaven;' a throne was
seen, far above all created powers, mediatorial, intercessory; a title
archetypal; a crown bright as the morning star; a glory issuing from the
Eternal Throne; robes pure as the heavens; and a sceptre over all. And
who was the predestined heir of that Majesty? Who was that Wisdom, and
what was her name?—'the Mother of fair love, and fear, and holy hope,'
exalted like a palm-tree in Engaddi and a rose-plant in Jericho, created
from the beginning before the world in God's counsels, and 'in Jerusalem
was her power.' The vision is found in the Apocalypse, a Woman clothed
with the Sun, and the Moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of
twelve stars." The Deification of Mary is decreed. The doctrine of her
Immaculate Conception is a further development at the present moment,
and who can tell what other developments may be in store for the future?
We advert to this form of the theory only in so far as it stands related
to our great theme,—the existence, perfections, and prerogatives of the
one only, the living and the true God; and it can scarcely be
questioned, we think, that it has already introduced doctrines and
practices into the Church which have a manifest tendency to obscure the
lustre and impair the evidence of some of the most fundamental articles
of Natural Religion. Let it still advance in the same direction, and who
shall assure us that it may not develop into still grosser idolatry, or
even into Pantheism? Why should it not develop, for example, into Sun
worship? "On the new system," says Professor Butler, "a modern growth of
Christian Guebres might make out no feeble case; the public religious
recognition of this great visible type of the True Light is but a fair
development of 'the typical principle;' the justifiable imitation of the
guilt of heathens in its adoration is but an instance of the
transforming powers of 'the sacramental principle;' while it requires
but the most moderate use of the great instrument of orthodoxy,
'mystical interpretation,' to find the duty hinted (clearly enough for
watchful faith, though obscurely to the blinded or undevout) in those
passages that speak of a 'tabernacle for the Sun,' or Deity itself being
'a Sun,' or the rising of 'the Sun of righteousness.'... Indeed, the
whole body of the righteous are promised to 'shine as the Sun' in the
heavenly kingdom,—an expression which, though it appear superficially
to refer to a period not yet arrived, the Church has correctively
developed into an assurance of their present beatification, and
consequent right to worship; while it must be at once manifest that, if
any representative emblem of the Deity may demand religious prostration
in our Churches, the analogous emblem of the 'deified,' in the great
temple of the Material Universe, may fairly expect a participation in
that honor. It is true there is an express command, 'Take heed lest,
when thou seest the Sun, ... thou shouldst be driven to worship them;'
but so there is a command, at least as distinct and imperative, against
the worship of Images, which, Mr. Newman instructs us, has been
repealed under the Gospel, and was never more than a mere Judaic
prohibition, 'intended for mere temporary observance in the
letter.'"[97]
If it be said that, in the case of the Church of Rome, there is not only
a process of development, but an infallible developing power, and that
this affords a guaranty, strong as the Divine promise itself, against
that risk of error which is attendant on the ordinary methods of human
teaching,—we answer, that this is a mere assumption, which requires to
be proved, and that it cannot be proved in the face of the facts which
attest the historical variations of the Romish Creed, as these are
admitted and defended by Mr. Newman himself. For some of these
variations are not consistent developments of the primitive articles of
faith, but involve either a corruption or a contradiction of these very
principles; and if her infallibility has not preserved her from the
deification of saints, what security have we that it will preserve her
from the deification of Nature? If it has already introduced a Christian
Polytheism, why may it not issue in a Christian Pantheism?
Admit the principle of development, and it may lead to the deification
of man, as well as to the worship of Mary; to a sacred Calendar of
Heroes, as well as of Saints.[98] It may terminate either in Infidelity
or in Superstition, according to the mental temperament of the
individual by whom it is adopted and applied. "An organ of
investigation being introduced, which may be employed for any purpose
indifferently, the tendency of such a theory of religious inquiry will
just tell according to the spirit in which it acts. A skeptic will
develop the principle into Infidelity, a believer into Superstition; but
the principle itself remains accurately the same in both."[99] The
connection between the theory of Ecclesiastical Development and the
infidel theory of Progress has not escaped the notice of many acute and
profound thinkers in recent times, nor the danger resulting from it to
the most fundamental articles of faith. "Modern Spiritualists tell us
that Christianity is a development, as the Papists also assert, and the
New Testament is its first and rudimentary product; only, unhappily, as
the development, it seems, may be things so different as Popery and
Infidelity, we are as far as ever from any criterium as to which, out of
the ten thousand possible developments, is the true; but it is a matter
of the less consequence, since it will, on such reasoning, be always
something future."[100] One of the most pernicious tenets of the
Neologists beyond the Rhine is thus expressed by themselves:
"Christianity renews itself in the human heart, and follows the
development of the human mind, and invests itself with new forms of
thought and language, and adopts new systems of Church organization, to
which it gives expression and life." ... "But are these teachers the
only destroyers of Faith and Morals? Are not they also chargeable
with precisely the same offence who command us to submit implicitly to
the so-called divinely-inspired Spirit of 'one living Infallible
Judge' or 'Developing Power'? Can we have fixed articles of faith and
morals in this system, any more than in the other? No. 'Unus utrisque
error, sed variis illūdet partibus.' There is the same evil in both,
but it operates in different ways; in the former, every one develops
for himself; in the latter, the Pope develops for every one. You look
with fear on the progress of Rationalism; and what hope can any man
derive from that of Romanism?"[101]
We have examined, each on its own peculiar merits, the various forms of
the Theory of Development which have been propounded in modern times,
and applied to account for the origin of planets and astral systems, of
vegetable and animal races, and of the different successive systems of
human opinion and belief. We have found that, imposing as it may seem to
be, and high as its pretensions are, that theory has no claim to the
character of a scientific doctrine; that it is a mere hypothesis, and
nothing more; a speculative figment, which may be injurious to those who
thoughtlessly dally with it, but which can have no power to hurt any one
who will resolutely lay hold of it, and examine its claims.
"Gently, softly, touch a nettle,
And it stings you for your pains;
Grasp it, like a man of mettle,
And it soft as silk remains."
It is only necessary to add, that the same general principle seems to
be involved in all the forms of this theory,—the principle, namely,
that we are bound to account for the past only by causes known to be
in actual operation at the present day. M. Comte lays it down in the
following terms: "Our conjectures on the origin, or formation of our
world should evidently be subjected to this indispensable
condition,—not to allow of the interposition of any other natural
agents than those whose influence we clearly discern in our ordinary
phenomena, and whose operations, then, would only be on a greater
scale. Without this rule, our work can have no truly scientific
character, and we shall fall into the inconvenience, so justly made a
ground of reproach to the greater number of geological hypotheses,—that
of introducing, for the purpose of explaining the ancient revolutions of
the globe, agencies which do not exist at the present day, and whose
influence it is impossible, for that very reason, to verify or even to
comprehend." The same principle is strongly stated, but with due
limitation, by Sir Charles Lyell, who insists on the explanation of all
terrestrial changes by means of causes and according to laws known to
be in operation at the present day: "During the progress of Geology,
there have been great fluctuations of opinion respecting the nature of
the causes to which all former changes in the earth's surface are
referable. The first observers conceived that the monuments which the
Geologist endeavors to decipher relate to a period when the physical
constitution of the earth differed entirely from the present, and that,
even after the creation of living beings, there have been causes in
action distinct in kind or degree from these now forming part of the
economy of nature. These views have been gradually modified, and some of
them entirely abandoned."[102]
The general principle which is involved in these and similar statements
may be perfectly sound, when it is applied merely to natural events,
occurring in the ordinary course, and according to the established
constitution of the material and moral world; but it is manifestly
inapplicable to supernatural events, such as the creation of the
world, or the revelation of Divine truth, since these events cannot be
accounted for by any known natural cause, and must be ascribed to the
immediate agency of a Higher Power. Without some such limitation, the
general principle cannot be admitted, since it would involve an
egregious fallacy. We must not limit Omnipotence by circumscribing the
range of its possible exercise within the narrow bounds of the existing
economy, or of our actual experience. We are not warranted to assume
that the origin of the world, on the one hand, or the establishment of
Christianity on the other, may be accounted for by natural causes
still known to be in actual operation. In regard to natural events the
principle is sound, and it is rigorously adhered to by the expounder of
Natural Theology; in regard to supernatural events it can have no
legitimate application, except in so far as it is combined with the
doctrine of efficient and final causes, which leads us up to the
recognition of a Higher Power. It might be safe and legitimate enough,
when we find a fossil organism imbedded in the earth, to ascribe its
production to the ordinary law of generation, even although we had not
witnessed the fact of its birth, provided the same species is known to
have existed previously; but when we find new races coming into being,
for which the ordinary law of derivation cannot account, we are not at
liberty to apply the same rule to a case so essentially different, and
still less to postulate a spontaneous generation, or a transmutation
of species, for which we have no experience at all. In such a case, we
can only reason on the principle that like effects must have like
causes, that marks of design imply a designing cause, and that
events which cannot be accounted for by natural causes must be
ascribed to a Power distinct from nature, and superior to it. It is
manifestly unreasonable to assume that nothing can be brought to pass in
the Universe otherwise than by the operation of the same natural laws
which are now in action; or that, in the course of our limited and
partial experience, we must necessarily know all the agencies that may
have been at work during the long flow of time. And, in accordance with
these views, Sir Charles Lyell expressly limits the general principle to
natural events, and shows that "Geology differs as widely from
Cosmogony as speculations concerning the Creation of Man differ from
his History."