Picture - Cosmic Polymath

xxvi INTRODUCTION
and degrees are directly or indirectly caused by the conditions of life to which each being, and more especially its
ancestors, have been exposed."
Dr. St. George Mivart states the case as follows : "It
seems, then, to be undeniable that the characters and
the variation of species are due to the combined action of internal and external agencies acting in a direct, positive
and constructive manner." i It will be seen that Dr. Mivart, while attributing the characters and the variation
of species to the operation of internal and external agencies, properly assigns the internal agency the first place.
It has been customary of late years, especially on the Continent, to ignore a First Cause and the Design which
a First Cause imphes, and to attribute the universe and everything it contains to a chance assemblage of material
particles ; to matter fashioning itself ; to matter assuming movements and life, and, in the fulness of time, evolving
from a monad to a man.
Thus Professor Ernst Haeckel says : " The homogeneous, viscid, plasma substance, which singly and alone
formed the bodies of the first organisms, and even at this day quite alone forms them in the case of the monera, or
simplest amoebic forms, is analogous to the tenacious and viscid planetary substance which contains the elements
and substance of the young earth, as well as the other glowing world bodies. In both cases the form of the creation
happened, not through the capricious interference of a personal Creator, but through the original power of matter
fashioning itself. Attraction and repulsion, centripetal force and centrifugal force, condensation and rarefaction of
the material particles, are the only creative powers, which at this point lay the foundations of the complicated
structure of creation." "
This is the position taken up by extreme evolutionists. Nothing, however, is gained by accepting such an
exacting hypothesis, which seeks to set aside a Creator, Design, and Law and Order in the old sense, and to sub-
stitute what is practically a stone for bread. Ex nihilo nihil fit.
Matter cannot possibly create itself, and cause and effect obtain in the Universe as we know it. It is more
rational to believe in a First Cause and Design than to leave everything to a fortuitous concatenation of circum-
stances. In the one case there is law and order and the adaptation of means to ends from the beginning ; in the
other there is uncertainty, confusion, and marked disorder. The gulf between life and death is wide and deep,
but evolutionists, with an assurance worthy of a better cause, perseveringly ask us to take a stupendous leap
in the dark without, in a sense, looking before or behind. They say, in so many words, that inanimate or
dead matter can create itself, can usurp life, can develop intellect, and can control and shape the destinies of
men and nations.
Every intelUgent being, however, who is capable of thinking and reasoning, has in himself the evidence of an
absolutely opposite state of things. He laiows that he can control and change the shape of inanimate matter.
He further knows that he can control and alter the direction of physical force.
Notwithstanding all this, evolutionists calmly and confidently invite us to believe that matter, dead matter,
is eternal and omnipotent, and that everything that exists is produced from it, in the lapse of time, by infinite per-
mutations. They assert that, given sufficient time and sufficient modifications, " brut " matter assumes and exercises
the prerogative of life and produces rudimentary plants and animals which trend upwards, and ultimately culmi-
nate in man. Evolutionists assuredly make large demands upon our credulity, if not upon our reasoning faculties,
and in doing so they intentionally or unintentionally take for granted what requires to be proved :
theirs
is a case
of petitio principii pure and simple. Educated, thoughtful men may be pardoned if they gravely shake their heads
and refuse to accept a theory which virtually asks them to suppress their reasoning powers, and to keep their iudements
indefinitely in abeyance.
There are serious objections to the evolutionist view in its extreme form. Thus there are breaches of continuitv
and gaps in the geological record which apparently cannot be bridged over. There are, moreover, existing plants
and animals on which little or no change has occurred for untold ages. It happens also, that when a race of plants
and animals becomes extinct, they are, in not a few instances, replaced by forms not occupying a higher position
in the scale of being. The continuous upward trend claimed for plants and animals by evolutionists is not uniform
or universal. Certain plants and animals in geological time culminate or attain perfection and then deteriorate or
altogether disappear. Parasites, in many cases, afford examples of retrogression.
Egyptian and Chaldean tombs, monuments, temples, and writings conclusively show that man has not chano- d
perceptibly for at least 6000 years. The same is to be said of many plants. Mr. William Carruthers a hi h
authority in botany, has shown (British Association Proceedings, 1886) that the earhest vegetable sneci
described by Dr. Schweinfurth from the Egyptian tombs present no appearance of change. This fact aDnears 1
in the leaves and other organs of plants preserved in the nodules of the Pleistocene clays of the Ottawa a H '
specimens of similar age found in various places in Britain and the Continent of Europe. One of his illustr f
' " Oi] tlie Development of the Indiridual and the Species." {Proceedings of the Zoological Societi/, Jixue 17. 1884 p 472 1
Ilaeckol, " Natvlrliche Schopfimgsgesohichte, " ]>. 266. Berlin, 1868.