John William Dawson

“ Perhaps the most troublesome opposition to science, or rather to the progress of science, has sprung from the tenacity with which men hold to old ideas. These, which may at one time have been the best science attainable, root themselves in the general mind, in popular literature, in learned bodies, and in educational books and institutions. They become identified with men's conceptions both of Nature and religion, and modify their interpretations of the Bible itself. ”

“ Perhaps I shall begin at the utmost limits of my subject by remarking that in matters of natural and physical science we are met at the outset with the scarcely solved question as to our own place in the nature which we study, and the bearing of this on the difficulties we encounter. The organism of man is decidedly a part of nature. We place ourselves, in this aspect, in the sub-kingdom vertebrata, and class mammalia, and recognize the fact that man is the terminal link in a chain of being, extending throughout geological time. But the organism is not all of man ”

“ But surely the supposition of mere chance and magic is unworthy of science. Varieties must have causes, and their causes and their effects must be regulated by some law or laws. Now, it is easy to see that they can not be caused by a mere innate tendency in the organism itself. Every organism is so nicely equilibrated, that it has no such spontaneous tendency, except within the limits set by its growth and the law of its periodical changes. ”

“ A geologist, however, is not necessarily tied up to one or the other alternative. His subject covers the whole history of the earth in time. At the beginning it allies itself with astronomy and physics and celestial chemistry. At the end it runs into human history, and is mixed up with archæology and anthropology. Throughout its whole course it has to deal with questions of meteorology, geography, and biology. In short, there is no department of physical or biological science with which geology is not allied, or at least on which the geologist may not presume to trespass. ”

“ The Bible is surely to be regarded as a religious book, and a very old one. Yet, its constant appeal to the individual judgment in matters of religion exposes it quite as often as science to the attacks of ecclesiastical power, and gives to those who rely on it as a rule of faith a mental stimulus which is to this day the strongest guarantee that we possess for intellectual liberty in other matters. ”

“ But if we are content to start with a number of organisms ready made—a somewhat humiliating start, however—we still have to ask, How do these vary so as to give new species? It is a singular illusion in this matter, of men who profess to be believers in natural law, that variation may be boundless, aimless, and fortuitous, and that it is by spontaneous selection from varieties thus produced that development arises. ”

“ Superstition, considered as the unreasonable fear of natural agencies, is a passive rather than an active opponent of science, except when it becomes affected with some cruel panic. But revelation which affirms unity, law, and a Father's hand in Nature, is the deadly foe of superstition; and, as a matter of fact, no body of people who have been readers of the Bible, and imbued with its spirit, have been found ready to molest or persecute science. Work of this sort has been done chiefly by the ignorant and superstitious votaries of systems which detest the Bible as much as they dislike science. ”

“ With reference to the two alternatives, while it is true that no certain evidence has yet been obtained—either by experiment, observation, or sound induction—as to the mode of origin of any species, enough is known to show that there are numerous possible methods, grouped usually under the heads of absolute creation, mediate creation, critical evolution, and gradual evolution. It is also true that almost the only thing we certainly know in the matter is, that the differences characteristic of classes, orders, genera, and species, must have arisen, not in one or two, but in many ways. ”

“ I would merely say here, that we should bear in mind that in this latter half of the lower Laurentian, or, if we so choose to style it, middle Laurentian period, we have the conditions required for life in the sea and on the land; and, since in other periods we know that life was always present when its conditions were present, it is not unreasonable to look for the first traces of life in this formation, in which we find for the first time the completion of those physical arrangements which make life, in such forms of it as exist on our planet, possible. ”

“ What do we know of the oldest and most primitive rocks? At this moment the question may be answered in many and discordant ways; yet the leading elements of the answer may be given very simply. The oldest rock formation known to geologists is the lower Laurentian, the fundamental gneiss, the Lewisian formation of Scotland, the Ottawa gneiss of Canada. This formation of enormous thickness corresponds to what the older geologists called the fundamental granite—a name not to be scouted, for gneiss is only a stratified granite. ”

“ If, instead of framing, like Haeckel, fanciful phylogenies, we take the trouble, with Barrande and Gaudry, to trace the forms of life through the period of their existence, each along its own line, we shall be greatly struck with this, and especially with the continuous existence of many low types of life through vicissitudes of physical conditions of the most stupendous character, and over a lapse of time scarcely conceivable. ”

“ True religion, which consists in practical love to God and to our fellow-men, can have no conflict with true science. They are fast allies. The Bible, considered as a revelation of spiritual truth to man for his salvation and enlightenment, can have no conflict with science. ”

“ Still more certain is this conclusion when we consider the vast and orderly succession made known to us by geology, and which must have been regulated by fixed laws, only a few of which are as yet known to us.
Beyond these general considerations, we have others of a more special character, based on paleontological facts, which show how imperfect are our attempts, as yet, to reach the true causes of the introduction of genera and species.
One is the remarkable fixity of the leading types of living beings in geological time. ”

“ Theology claims to be itself one of the sciences, and as such it is necessarily imperfect and progressive, and may at any time be more or less in conflict with other sciences. But theology is not religion, and may often have very little in common either with true religion or with the Bible. ”

“ Fortunately, as a geologist, I do not need to invite your attention to those transcendental questions which relate to the ultimate constitution of matter, the nature of the ethereal medium filling space, the absolute difference or identity of chemical elements, the cause of gravitation, the conservation and dissipation of energy, the nature of life, or the primary origin of bioplasmic matter. ”

“ Men could not, more especially, do without some knowledge of the unity of God and the unity of Nature until these great truths should be worked out by scientific induction. Perhaps they might never have been so worked out ”

“ All these conflicts are, however, necessary incidents in human progress, which comes only by conflict; and there is reason to believe that they would be as severe in the absence of revealed religion as in its presence, were it not that the absence of revelation seems often to produce a fixity and stagnation of thought, unfavorable to any new views, and consequently to some extent to any intellectual conflict. ”

“ How superior they must be to our rude and always more or less unsuccessful attempts to produce and carry forward varieties and races in definite directions! This can not be chance. If it exists, it must depend on plans deeply laid in the nature of things, else it would be most monstrous magic and causeless miracle. ”

“ Thus there is in the older formations a genealogy of rocks which, in the absence of fossils, may be used with some confidence, but which does not apply to the more modern deposits. Still, nothing in geology absolutely perishes or is altogether discontinued; and it is probable that, down to the present day, the causes which produced the old Laurentian gneiss may still operate in limited localities. Then, however, they were general, not exceptional. It is further to be observed that the term "gneiss" is sometimes of wide and even loose application. ”

“ In short, here we have evidence of new factors in world-building—of land and ocean, of atmospheric decay of rocks, of deoxidizing processes carried on by vegetable life on the land and in the waters, of limestone-building in the sea. To afford material for such rocks, the old Ottawa gneiss must have been lifted up into continents and mountain-masses. ”

“ It has been urged, on the side of rational evolution, that this hypothesis does not profess to give an explanation of the absolute origin of life on our planet, or even of the original organization of a single cell or of a simple mass of protoplasm, living or dead. All experimental attempts to produce by synthesis the complex albuminous substances, or to obtain the living from the non-living, have so far been fruitless ”

“ There may, however, be equilibrium more or less stable. I believe all attempts hitherto made have failed to account for the fixity of certain, nay, of very many, types throughout geological time; but the mere consideration that one may be in a more stable state of equilibrium than another so far explains it. ”

“ Yet these groups are fundamentally the same, from the beginning of the palæozoic until now; and modern species seem scarcely at all to differ from specimens procured from rocks at least half-way back to the beginning of our geological record. If we suppose that the present sponges and foraminifera are the descendants of those of the Silurian period, we can affirm that, in all that vast lapse of time, they have, on the whole, made little greater change than that which may be observed in variable forms at present. ”

“ Another caution which a paleontologist has occasion to give with regard to theories of life has reference to the tendency of biologists to infer that animals and plants were introduced under embryonic forms, and at first in few and imperfect species. Facts do not substantiate this. The first appearance of leading types of life is rarely embryonic. ”

“ When discussions arise between theology and other sciences, it is only a pity that either side should indulge in what has been termed the odium theologicum, but which is unfortunately not confined to divines. ”

“ How vast is the gap in our knowledge and our practical power implied in this admission, which must, however, be made by every mind not absolutely blinded by a superstitious belief in those forms of words which too often pass current as philosophy! ”

“ This sudden incoming of animal life, along with the subsequent introduction of successive groups of invertebrates, and finally of vertebrate animals, furnishes one of the greatest of the unsolved problems of geology, which geologists were wont to settle by the supposition of successive creations. ”

“ It promotes the study of Nature, rendering it honorable by giving it the dignity of an inquiry into the ways of God, and rendering it safe by separating it from all ideas of magic and necromancy. It gives a theological sanction to the ideas of the unity of Nature and of natural law. The actual conflict of science, when historically analyzed, is fourfold: 1. ”

“ It has great conglomerates, some of them made up of rounded pebbles of Laurentian rocks, and others of quartz-pebbles, which must have been the remains of rocks subjected to very perfect erosion. The pure quartz-rocks tell the same tale, while limestones and slates speak also of chemical separation of the materials of older rocks. The Huronian evidently tells of movements in the previous Laurentian, and changes in its texture so great that the former may be regarded as a comparatively modern rock, though vastly older than any part of the palæozoic series. ”

“ In an address delived at the Detroit meeting of the Association in 1875, I endeavored to set forth the facts as to this succession, and the general principles involved in it, and to show the insufficiency of the theories of evolution suggested by biologists to give any substantial aid to the geologist in these questions. ”

“ Gaudry, in his recent work, "Enchainements du Monde Animal," [7] though a strong advocate of evolution, is obliged in his final résumé to say: "Il ne laisse point percer le mystère qui entoure le developpement primitif des grandes classes du monde animal. Nul homme ne sait comment ont été formés les premiers individus de foraminifères, de polypes, d'etoiles de mer, de crinoides, etc. ”

“ This is also a proper place to say something of the doctrine of what is termed "metamorphism." The Laurentian rocks are undoubtedly greatly changed from their original state, more especially in the matters of crystallization and the formation of disseminated minerals by the action of heat and heated water. Sandstones have thus passed into quartzites, clays into slates and schists, limestones into marbles. So far metamorphism is not a doubtful question ”

“ It thus becomes a most difficult matter to wrench them from their hold, and their advocates are too apt to invoke in their defense political, social, and ecclesiastical powers, and to seek to support them by the authority of revelation, even when this, rightly understood, might be quite as favorable to the newer views. ”

“ An instructive commentary on the capacity of our age to deal with these great questions is afforded by the fact that this little piece of clever mental gymnastic should have been practiced in a university lecture and in presence of an educated audience. ”