p. 1 | DARWINISM EXAMINED by P. R. Russel

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 18, 1876

FromThe Review and Herald, Review and Herald, Vol. 47, No. 20.

DARWINISM EXAMINED.

By P. R. Russel

The evolution or development theory of accounting for the wonders of the animal and vegetable kingdoms was projected by some of the old Greek philosophers, but it has been reserved for Prof. Charles Darwin, of England, to elaborate the theory, put it in popular dress, and surround it with a scientific nomenclature.

This philosophy attempts to account for the existence and varied forms of the animal and vegetable kingdoms without the interposing hand of an intelligent and designing Creator, by spontaneous creation, and then perpetual evolution. Mr. Darwin asserts—for it is nothing but assertion—that animal life began its career on earth spontaneously in the organization of an aquatic, as a sponge, a star fish, mussel, or oyster, and that both sexes blended in one, in this fatherless, motherless, Godless non-descript—this forefather and foremother of all flesh—and that all forms of animal life which have since peopled our globe are descendants of this one aquatic monstrosity, developed upwardly and onwardly from age to age until we have at last all the types, genera, species and varieties of living forms; that man is but a developed star fish or oyster; that the evolutions have gone on from age to age upward, through serpents, crocodiles, quadrupeds, monkeys, apes, and then into humanity. This pantheistical nonsense is the last and most plausible attempt of infidelity to vote the throne of the adorable Creator vacant, and to laugh the word of God out of countenance. The most formidable thing about it is, that so many learned men, claiming to be scientists, accept it, and attempt to give it currency among the young as sound philosophy.

Prof. Darwin is a gentleman of liberal culture, and rare tastes, and opportunities in scientific research, and if the evolution theory of the origin of species and of man is correct, we may expect to find in this work a scientific and logical defense; but the careful reader will find throughout assumption upon assumption just where proof was most needed. Mr. D. does not attack, directly, the personality of God or divine revelation; but he moves round in the dark, ignoring God, and sapping and mining at the foundations.

There occur to my mind many, very many fatal objections to this whole theory, aside from the Scripture record and the testimony of natural history. Let me suggest some of the inseparable objections.

1. There is in Darwinism a want of good common sense. I admit that reason alone, a priori, is not a divine umpire, whose suggestions are final and authoritative. But then truth, when discovered, always utters good common sense, and her testimonies are harmonious. But is it good sense to suppose, without testimony, that nature has had one marvelous freak by which she, without a Creator's designing hand, or purpose, without thought, or law, or plan, marshaled dead, inert matter, into an exquisite organism, and kindled the spark of life and set the little heart, a kind of force pump, throbbing, and then throbbing on through the ages in a progeny of countless millions?

Such a wonder must have been a miracle, a most germatic, stupendous miracle, equivalent to all the miracles of successive creations. Mr. Darwin feels this difficulty, and calls it “an inexplicable mystery.” It is an inexplicable mystery, and he should have stopped and solved this problem before he attempted to promulgate and defend the rest of his enigma.

2. There is another difficulty in Darwinism.

It is not an inductive philosophy, based on the facts of experience and observation, but an hypothetical philosophy, invented to solve a problem. It is spun out of his teeming brain, as a spider spins her web. It is hatched by a brooding, scheming, restless, pantheistical mind, contriving to get rid of God. Mr. Darwin does not in his elaborate works, go on to collate facts, and then deduce from them the testimony they utter; but he assumes all along, the fundamental points of his whole theory, and then builds on them his anomalous superstructure. He assumes that nature produced one, and but one, monstrous organism, containing both sexes in itself, and then began to propagate living forms unlike itself. This is the foundation stone of the whole system, and yet it is an assumption. So he goes on assuming and assuming, that nature has an undesigned, unordained tendency upward, toward humanity—that “selection,” and the “survival of the fittest” will sweep away all barriers, and produce all the present varieties and forms of life. This kind of philosophy is vain, misleading, and delusive.

3. There is another objection.

The Scripture record places a crown of honor and dominion on the brow of our common humanity. God is presented to us as our Creator and Heavenly Father and Friend; and the Liberals, who are so ready to adopt this degrading theory, have been telling us in many a learned essay of the paternal character of God, and of the angelic dignity of our common humanity; but Darwinism casts us all down from this elevated platform, and herds us all with four-footed beasts and creeping things. It tears the crown from our heads; it treats us as bastards and not sons, and reveals the degrading fact that man in his best estate—even Mr. Darwin—is but a civilized, dressed up, educated monkey, who has lost his tail. This may be true, but if so, it is a degrading, unpleasant truth, that we should be slow to proclaim.

4. There is another serious difficulty. Man is endowed with a moral, rational, and religious nature. He has a consciousness, in all ages and in all lands, of being a moral agent and accountable to some higher creating, governing power. He instinctively “feels after God,” pants and cries after him, builds his altar and worships in some form. All history, all experience, testify that man has a moral, intellectual and religious nature. But beasts of no kind or type have this. Monkeys have no moral or religious nature. They have no apparent sense of moral right and wrong. Darwinism sweeps away all religion. It is not compatible with Pagan, Jewish, Mahommedan, or the Christian religion. It is not conceivable that learned and civilized monkeys are, or may be, saints, and destined to immortal life, while the rest are mere brutes that perish. If the theory is true, we are all at best brutes, one in our natures. The moment we regard man as but a developed brute, that moment all kinds of religion logically disappear, as incompatible and impossible. If man is only a developed monkey, he is a monkey still, and there is and can be no religion for him, which is not as good, true and admissible for all monkeys.

5. Then, again, if animal life began with aquatics, and there is, in the nature of things, a tendency to evolutionize upward into other types, forms and species, and to culminate in humanity, it follows, logically, that, give these lower forms of life time enough, and they will climb the ladder of progress and pass into men and leave their early forms—cradles of life, the aquatics—all vacant. The starting point is the aquatic, the goal is humanity. Unless new creations should supply the void, life would ascend the ladder, and we should have at last nothing but humanity. But if we look down after what Mr. Darwin calls millions of ages into the cradle, we find the aquatics still in the dirty water. So far as can be seen and known they are just as low and just as tenacious of their places, and just as numerous as in the primitive ages; and they do not even promise to ascend the ladder of evolution. Nor are their places kept good by new creations. This objection is fatal to the whole theory.

6. Then, again, if Darwinism is true, monkeys are naturally, gradually, and surely passing into men—are in fact men of a lower grade.

Mr. Darwin tells us the time was when man was clothed in hair, went on all fours, and had a tail. Men and monkeys then blend and run into each other. But what are the facts? The brain capacity of the lowest types of men is more than treble that of the highest type of monkeys. One has an articulate language, a burning conscience, the instincts of propriety, and a sense of responsibility to God. The other can never speak, or write, or know, love and fear God, or comprehend anything of moral government. The chasm is deep and wide; but where are the intermediate links? If the theory is true, we should see them everywhere. The animal tribes would be found everywhere in a transition state. Cats would be found turning into dogs, and dogs into goats, and goats into bullocks.

We should find monkeys and men blending and shaking hands over the chasm,—men would be found in all stages of the transition—some in fur, and others just putting off their hairy dress, and making attempts at dressing up—some just getting up from “all fours,” and learning to stand and walk erect, while others would be found hiding their tails, and still others just losing their tails.

Monkeys would be found just putting on their hats and putting on airs of humanity, and putting in their claims to be recognized as a part of the brotherhood. But when we look out for these connecting links, they cannot be found. This broad, deep chasm has no bridge. The connecting links in the chain are all gone, and Mr. Darwin has utterly failed to produce one of them, connecting men and monkeys, either in the living specimens or fossils of the geological ages. He acknowledges this as a weak and embarrassing point in his philosophy, but hopes that the connecting links may be found in the researches of the future.

7. Then, again, the instincts, the constitutions and appetites of the animal tribes do and will hold them fast in their various types, genera, and species. The fish can never develop into a bird, nor the bird into a fish. Their natures, food, and habits are radically different. Zoologists and geologists have divided the animal kingdom into four different types, as 1. Vertebrates, 2. Articulates, 3. Mollusca, 4. Radiates. Then there is another division, viz.; genus, species and variety. Now the wise and benevolent Creator has thrown up barriers and placed chasms here that cannot be passed by what Mr. Darwin calls “selections” of any kind or any device. Vertebrates cannot be converted into articulates, and articulates cannot be converted into shell fish or sun fish. Varieties may be changed by climate, soil, culture and mating, but types, genera, and species, never. Hybrids and monstrosities may be produced, but they cannot be retained as a new species. They become barren, or relapse speedily into original forms.

The geologist, as he turns over the fossiliferous strata of the earth and examines the various and wonderful specimens of minerals that have come and gone during the long ages of the past, has found no articulates that have changed into vertebrates; no crocodiles or serpents that have crawled half way over into monkeys, and no monkeys that have half lapped over into men. All the types, genera, and species of animals are placed in certain niches and spheres of the animal economy to subserve a purpose, and there they are held, by the Creator's hand, by their natures, habits, appetites and instincts, and the heavens will fall before they can vacate. Transmutation can work among the varieties, but here its surging waves must be confined.

Vain, foolish, and wicked are all the attempts of man to vote the Creator from his throne by clothing nature with divine attributes, and retiring God. Nature! What is nature? It is simply God, the invisible, immutable and ever-blessed God in his works and ways. Nature, aside from God, has no laws, no plans, no purposes, and can have no adaptations. He is the lawgiver, the executive force of the universe. My heart says, “Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting thou art God. Thou turnest man to destruction; and sayest, return, ye children of men; for a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday, when it is past, and as a watch of the night.”—Rev. P. R. Russel.