The Old Riddle and the Newest Answer

PREFACE

THE enemies of Science are not the philistines alone – if any still remain – who would muzzle or stifle her. More numerous and dangerous are those – professedly of her own household – who ascribe to her pretensions of which she herself knows nothing, and strive to make her responsible for a philosophy entirely beyond her scope. With this object efforts are assiduously made to popularize the idea that nothing in heaven or earth is beyond her ken, and that she has rendered all such beliefs impossible as alone can satisfy the deeper cravings of humanity. At the same time the very brilliance of her achievements is apt to dazzle our eyes, blinding them to the extremely narrow limits of the field in which she can operate, and making us rush to the conclusion that she has solved the riddle which from the beginning of time Nature has offered to every thinking mind, – or at least that what her search-light cannot illumine must for ever remain unknowable.

How far such assumptions are rational, it is the object of the present enquiry to examine by means of the evidence furnished by Science herself in her own regard.

I have to thank Mr. W. E. Darwin for permission to use the illustration of feathers of the Argus Pheasant from his illustrious father's Descent of Man, and for the loan of blocks for the purpose. Through the courtesy of Messrs. Macmillan I am allowed to copy a portion of the plate in the late Professor Huxley's Lectures on Evolution, illustrating his pedigree of the Horse. If I forbear to mention others who have kindly supplied me with information, it is only lest it might be supposed that they are anywise responsible for the use I have made of it. The design on the cover of the present volume I owe to my friend Mr. Paul Woodroffe.

March 10, 1904.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

IN this edition, which has been thoroughly revised throughout, a few corrections have had to be made, especially in the Index, and in one or two instances alterations or additions have appeared advisable for the sake of clearness or accuracy of expression. Nothing has, however, as yet been brought to the author's notice which affects any substantial point in what he has written.

July 28, 1904.

PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION

THIS edition has again been thoroughly revised, and some new matter appended which bears on various points raised in the original volume, especially the establishment of the important group of the Cycado-filices, as affecting the succession of plant life on the earth, and recent evidence concerning the pedigree of the horse.

December 21, 1906.

I

TO BEGIN AT THE BEGINNING

THAT the world as we know it had a beginning is a truth which there is no denying. Not only have philosophers always argued that it must be so: the researches of physical science assure us that it has been so in fact. Astronomy, says Professor Huxley,1 "leads us to contemplate phenomena the very nature of which demonstrates that they must have had a beginning." The hypothesis that phenomena of Nature similar to those exhibited by the present world have always existed, the same authority assures us,2 "is absolutely incompatible with such evidence as we have, which is of so plain and so simple a character that it is impossible in any way to escape from the conclusions which it forces upon us." This conclusion, physicists tell us, is inevitable when we study the laws by which the operations of Nature are governed, and as Professor Balfour Stewart writes,3 we thus become "absolutely certain" that these operations cannot have existed for ever, and that a time will come when they must cease. In like manner, a recent and competent witness to the conclusions of contemporary Science, lays down,4 as one of the truths which her latest discoveries compel us to accept, that the world is not eternal, that the earth is cooling from a state of heat rendering life impossible, to one of physical exhaustion equally fatal to it. Accordingly "Life must have had a beginning and must come to an end," – and our whole Solar System (he adds) must similarly have had a commencement, at a period not infinitely remote.

But, if the world had a beginning, what was there before it began? Something there must have been, and something which had the power of producing it. Had there ever been nothing, there could never have been anything, for, Ex nihilo nihil fit. That nothing should turn into something is an idea which the mind refuses to entertain. Nor is the case any better even if we suppose that matter had no beginning, that it has existed for ever as we know it now, and that at first there was nothing else. For if so, whence have all these things arisen which, according to all observation and experiment, matter cannot produce, as, organic life, sensitive life, consciousness, reason, moral goodness? Had matter been always what it now is, and had there been no source beyond matter whence the power of producing all these things could be derived, they could never have been produced at all, or else they would have come into being without a cause. It would be like a milestone growing into an apple-tree, or a mountain spontaneously giving birth to a mouse.

We are therefore compelled by common-sense to ask when we consider Nature, What is the force or power at the back of her, which first set her going, and whence she draws the capability of performing the operations which we find her performing every day; that force or power which must be the ultimate origin of everything that is in the world? This is the great fundamental problem which the student of Nature has to face, and beside it all others fade into insignificance. It is with this that we are now engaged. We have to ask how our reason bids us answer it, and the first question which arises naturally is, What light is thrown on the subject by modern Science, of whose achievements we are all so justly proud?

II

REASON AND SCIENCE

IN studying a question such as this, we must commence by being determined, on the one hand to accept nothing as true but what our reason warrants us in believing, and on the other hand to follow the guidance of reason as far as, rightly used, it will lead us. The principle formulated5 by Professor Huxley, as the foundation-stone of what he termed "Agnosticism," is that which must needs be adopted, and as a matter of fact has ever been adopted, by rational men.

Positively – in matters of the intellect follow your reason as far as it will take you, without regard to any other consideration. And negatively – in matters of the intellect do not pretend that conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or demonstrable.

But to justify the confidence which we thus repose in it we must obviously be careful to use our reason aright, and not to attribute to it any conclusions which it does not really sanction. It is this right use of reason that is specially claimed for modern "Science,"6 which, as we are again assured by Professor Huxley, is only another name for sound reasoning – "Science," he declares,7 "is, I believe, nothing but trained and organized common-sense.8 … The man of science, in fact, simply uses with scrupulous exactness, the methods which we all, habitually and at every moment, use carelessly."

There can be no sort of question that so long as men of science really act thus, and confine themselves to the treatment of matters in regard of which they can claim special knowledge, common sense bids us listen to them with respect, and even with submission. But the same common sense requires that we should satisfy ourselves that they truly deserve the character assigned them, and pretend to no knowledge on the score of Science but what their scientific methods are competent to acquire. When they step beyond this their own proper domain, whatever weight may be given to their opinions upon other grounds, they cease to speak in the name of Science.

What then, we must ask, is the province of Science, and what are her methods?

"Science," always understanding by the term physical or experimental Science, deals with the universe so far as it is known to us through our senses. The universe known thus we call "Nature," and the whole stock in trade of Science is the examination and verification of natural phenomena, with such inferences therefrom as ascertained facts legitimately suggest. From careful and trustworthy observation she can learn what are called the "Laws of Nature," that is to say the manner in which the various elements and forces of the universe are found constantly to act, in given circumstances; she can, to some extent, discover the chain of causes and effects, or more properly of conditions and consequences, through which natural operations are carried on. She can even construct hypotheses as to what she cannot directly observe, namely, the nature of substances and forces; and such hypotheses are justified in proportion as they are found to tally with facts. If constantly thus justified, they are styled theories, and come to be practically assumed as established truths. But it must ever be remembered that Science can take no step in advance which is not based on fact, and that when facts are not forthcoming for its support an hypothesis or a theory has no scientific value.

Bearing this in mind, we will proceed to enquire what Science has to tell us regarding the origin of the world, and the manner in which it has come to be what it is.

III

"EVOLUTION"

WE are constantly assured that Science compels us to believe in "Evolution," and that in this doctrine is to be found the explanation of the universe whereof we are in quest. We must however in the first place make sure that we understand what "Evolution" means, and if we look into the question, it speedily appears that the term is very differently understood by those who use it.

Some who style themselves "Evolutionists" mean only that, as a matter of established fact, the organic world, the world of life, whether animal or vegetable, has been brought to its present condition by genetic development of one species from another, in the natural course of descent and through the operation of natural laws; and that as we see plants and animals of the same kind propagated one from another at the present day, so in the course of long ages the lower and simpler forms of life have given birth to the higher and more complex.

Others again do not limit this process to organic creatures, and believe that from first to last, the whole world, inorganic and organic alike, has resulted from the action of forces such as those with which Science deals; and that life has thus arisen in purely natural course out of non-living matter, the universe in its original condition having been constituted as a vast machine which was bound to produce all that has since arisen.

In either of the above senses – of which the second obviously includes the first, – "Evolution" is understood as no more than a process which is said to have occurred. But there is a more extreme school which takes "Evolution" for much more, namely for a power, principle, or "law," which both governs and accounts for everything, and requires no further cause beyond itself.

If this paramount "Law of Evolution" can be established, there is clearly an end of our enquiry, for here is the ultimate explanation of everything which we are seeking. But what has Science to say concerning it?

IV

"THE LAW OF EVOLUTION"

THAT there is a self-existing and self-sufficing "Law of Evolution" to which everything in the world must be ascribed, is the doctrine of those Evolutionists who are most active in propagating their creed and who most loudly proclaim that it alone is scientific. The great leader and prophet of this school, Professor Ernst Haeckel, assures us9 that he gives expression,

to that rational view of the world which is being forced upon us with such logical rigour by the modern advancements in our knowledge of nature as a unity, a view in reality held by almost all unprejudiced and thinking men of science, although but few have the courage (or the need) to declare it openly.

The plain and rational conclusion thus exhibited is, he tells us,10 the special glory of modern research.

It is true [he writes] that there were philosophers who spoke of the evolution of things a thousand years ago; but the recognition that such a law dominates the entire universe, and that the world is nothing else than an eternal "evolution of substance," is a fruit of the nineteenth century.

So far as concerns the world which we actually inhabit, its first beginning, we must, he tells us, suppose11 to have been a vast nebula of infinitely attenuated and light material, rotating upon its own axis.12

Given this first beginning of the cosmogonic movement, it is easy, on mathematical principles, to deduce and mathematically establish the further phenomena of the foundation of the cosmic bodies, the separation of the planets, and so forth.

Nor are we to suppose that the beginning of this particular process was in any true sense a beginning at all. Evolutionary philosophy such as Professor Haeckel's, necessarily teaches that beginnings and endings succeed one another everlastingly, one world-system arising phoenix-like from the ashes of another.

The nebular hypothesis above described has recently [we are told]13 been strongly confirmed and enlarged by the theory that this cosmogonic process did not simply take place once, but is periodically repeated. While new cosmic bodies arise and develop, out of rotating masses of nebula in some parts of the universe, in other parts old, extinct, frigid suns come into collision, and are once more reduced by the heat generated to the condition of nebulæ.

It appears, in fact, to be assumed that this cyclic process has been actually demonstrated, for we are told14 that astronomy reveals, in the endless depths of space, "Millions of circling spheres, larger than our earth, and, like it, in an eternal rhythm of life and death."

Moreover, "life" is here to be understood literally, for it is a cardinal article of such evolutionary belief that equally with the foundation of cosmic bodies and the separation of planets, the production of organic life, of plants and animals, has been wrought by forces which the material universe contains within itself,15 and accordingly,16

We now definitely know that the organic world on our earth has been continuously developed "in accordance with eternal iron laws." … An unbroken series of natural events, following an orderly course of evolution according to fixed laws, now leads the reflecting human spirit through long aeons from a primeval chaos to the present order of the cosmos.

Finally, at the back of all these processes, we are to recognize the one ultimate reality, the universe itself, which originates and undergoes all these evolutions. In its regard Professor Haeckel tells us17 that,

The universe, or cosmos, is eternal, infinite, and illimitable. Its substance, with its two attributes (matter and energy) fills infinite space and is in eternal motion. This motion runs on through infinite time as an unbroken development, with a periodic change from life to death, from evolution to devolution…

And again:18

The two fundamental forms of substances, ponderable matter and ether, are not dead and moved only by extrinsic force, but they are endowed also with sensation and will (though naturally of the lowest grade); they experience an inclination for condensation, a dislike of strain; they strive after the one and struggle against the other.

Moreover,

Movement19 is as innate and original a property of substances as is sensation.

Such is the raw material whose metamorphoses produce, or rather constitute, all possible worlds, while paramount over every thing dominates the "Law of Substance," under which title Professor Haeckel unites the scientific principles of the indestructibility of matter, and the conservation of energy. Thus is the conclusion reached,20

Towering above all the achievements and discoveries of the century we have the great comprehensive "law of substance," the fundamental law of the constancy of matter and force. The fact that substance is everywhere subject to eternal movement and transformation gives it the character also of the universal law of evolution. As this supreme law has been firmly established and all others are subordinate to it, we arrive at a conviction of the universal unity of nature and the eternal validity of its laws.

Accordingly we are to conclude with Goethe that all proceeds by iron law to the fulfilling of inevitable destiny; or as an ardent disciple proclaims, who undertakes to expound the new creed to the people,21

We rest in sure and certain hope that no force and no combination of forces can stop the process of Evolution, which from a speck of jelly has developed such living forms as Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer, and which has produced the beauty of the earth and the heavens from formless ether.

This outline of the Evolutionary system in its widest and fullest sense will enable us to judge upon what grounds it can claim the sanction of Science. Various points here present themselves for consideration, which demand separate treatment.

V

WHAT IS A "LAW OF NATURE"?

AS we have seen, the doctrine of Evolution is presented by its advocates as being based upon the existence of a "Law of Evolution," or "Law of Substance," which both brings about evolutionary processes, and certifies us of their occurrence, so that we may appeal to it as an authority for our belief in the facts of evolution themselves. Thus as Professor Milnes Marshall told the British Association,22

The doctrine of descent, or of evolution, teaches us that as individual animals arise, not spontaneously, but by direct descent from pre-existing animals, so also is it with species, with families, and with larger groups of animals, and so also has it been for all time.

It is not said, be it observed, that the establishment of such facts teaches us the doctrine of evolution, but that the doctrine assures us of the facts; and the utterances constantly met with, of which the above is a fair sample, have no signification if they do not mean this. In the same way Professor Haeckel declares23 that his fundamental cosmic law "establishes" the eternal persistence of matter and force, and their unvarying constancy throughout the entire universe, becoming thus "the pole-star that guides our Philosophy through the mighty labyrinth to a solution of the world problem," and the key to this supreme problem, he further tells us,24 is found in one magic word – Evolution.

It would certainly appear from all this, that by "Evolution" we are to understand some sort of entity at the back of the world, with power at its disposal capable of effecting all its operations, – something in fact remarkably like the First Cause of which we are in search, – and that by its "Laws" are signified some definite forces, the practical action of which has been ascertained by us, so that we can foretell the course of events under them, as we can that of the planets or the tides under the influence of gravitation.

But is it scientific, or even intelligible, to use words thus, and to assign any such significance to such terms as "Law of Evolution," "Law of Substance," or any other "Law of Nature"? We are repeatedly warned to the contrary by so high an authority as Professor Huxley. Once, for instance, he discovered in a sermon of Canon Liddon's this "fallacious employment of the name of a scientific conception," for which it was however added, the preacher "could find only too many scientific precedents."25 This fallacious use of terms, which nowise differs from that under consideration, Professor Huxley thus denounces:

It is the use of the word "law" as if it denoted a thing – as if a "law of nature," as science understands it, were a being endowed with certain powers, in virtue of which the phenomena expressed by that law are brought about… All I wish to remark is that such a conception of the nature of "laws" has nothing to do with modern science… A law of nature, in the scientific sense, is the product of a mental operation upon the facts of nature which come under our observation, and has no more existence outside the mind than colour has. The law of gravitation is a statement of the manner in which experience shows that bodies, which are free to move, do, in fact, move towards one another… The tenacity of the wonderful fallacy that the laws of nature are agents, instead of being, as they really are, a mere record of experience, upon which we base our interpretations of that which does happen, and our anticipation of that which will happen, is an interesting psychological fact: and would be unintelligible if the tendency of the human mind towards realism were less strong.

A law, accordingly, "is not a cause but a fact,"26 and we must learn laws from facts, not facts from laws. It is indeed evident on a moment's thought, that to speak of the Law of Evolution as causing things to be evolved, is like saying that the law of growth makes things grow. Till we know what happens, there is nothing of which Science can take account.

True scientific teaching, I cannot too often repeat [says Professor Tait]27 requires that the facts, and their necessary consequences alone, should be stated, as simply as possible.

In like manner Professor Huxley,28 undertaking to vindicate full scientific value for his own favourite Biology, does so by pointing out that biological methods are similar to those of every other branch of Science, since they begin with the observation of facts, and from this proceed to various applications of the knowledge so acquired. And Professor Haeckel himself tells us regarding his own mode of procedure:29

The means and methods we have chosen for attaining the solution of the great enigma do not differ, on the whole, from those of all purely scientific investigation: firstly, experience; secondly, inference.

Therefore, although the phrases we have already heard from him, are found when scrutinized to be only phrases, which explain nothing, it may be supposed that he elsewhere produces such proofs of his doctrine as will place it on a scientific basis. For these we will now seek.

VI

"THE LAW OF SUBSTANCE"

WE have just been told by Professor Haeckel, that the means and methods which he has chosen for the establishment of his philosophy are, on the whole, identical with those employed in all purely scientific investigation, namely, first experience, and secondly inference.

But here a grave difficulty at once presents itself. How, either by experience or by inference, can we learn anything about the commencements of the universe, as to which we have heard so much? How the first bodies, whether organic or inorganic, actually arose, neither philosophy nor science can definitely say, for the latter was not there to see, and the former has no facts on which to argue.30 But if neither by observation, nor by clear inference, can the account that has been given be substantiated, that account cannot pretend to be scientific, for it rests not upon knowledge but upon speculation, – and as Professor Tait warns us,31 "That of which there is no knowledge is not yet part of Science."

This plain consideration seems to account for a fact which is undoubtedly highly significant. Professor Huxley had certainly no prejudices against evolutionary systems, could they but be satisfactorily established. He knew all that Professor Haeckel has urged on behalf of his own theory, and showed how much he was in sympathy with it by naming after his friend the ill-starred Bathybius Haeckelii, the deep-sea slime which was at first supposed to bridge the gulf between the organic and the inorganic worlds, and to be living stuff in process of spontaneous manufacture. Nothing, in fact, as he himself admitted, in his controversy with Dr. Bastian, could have suited him better than a demonstration that Nature possesses all the powers necessary for her own processes, and that the explanation of all is within the scope of Science. But, at the same time, he reverenced scientific truth beyond anything else, and he was keenly sensible of the danger attending the use of hypothetical explanations, leading to conclusions which cannot be experimentally tested, which danger he carefully shunned.32 Accordingly, not only did he never lend his countenance to what Professor Haeckel represents as the inevitable conclusions of Science, but he even plainly intimated that those who advanced such views were going much farther than Science warrants. The doctrine of Evolution, he declared,33 is not only attacked on false grounds by its enemies, but is made by some of its friends to cover so much which is disputable, as to force him in self-defence to make his own position clear in its regard. And the first point of his explanation is to repudiate the idea that we have any such knowledge as Professor Haeckel assumes. "I have nothing to say," he writes, "to any 'Philosophy of Evolution.'"