Joseph LeConte

“ But, if the evolution have been normal throughout; if the highest moral and religious nature have been gathering strength through all, and now dominates all, then the psychic evolution rises to the end—then the course of life is like a wave rising and cresting only at the moment of its dissolution, or, like the course of the sun, if not brightest at least most glorious in its setting. ”

“ In the early stages of his progress, man, like other animals, was largely urged on by forces of organic evolution, unknowing and uncaring whither he tended. But more and more, as civilization advances, this higher and distinctively human factor becomes more and more dominant, until now, in civilized communities, it takes control of evolution. Reason, instead of Nature, now assumes control, though still using the methods and factors of Nature. This free, self-determined evolution of the race, in order to distinguish it from the necessary evolution of the organic kingdom, we call progress. ”

“ Evolution is one thing and materialism quite another. The one is an established law of nature, the other an unwarranted and hasty inference from that law. Let no one imagine, as he is conducted by the materialistic scientist in the paths of evolution from the inorganic to the organic, from the organic to the animate, from the animate to the rational and moral, until he lands, as it seems to him, logically and inevitably, in universal materialism—let no such one imagine that he has walked all the way in the domain of science. He has stepped across the boundary into the domain of philosophy. ”

“ It is again knowledge—knowledge of the laws, and power over the forces, of organic nature. Is it not evident that complete knowledge of the laws of health and the causes of disease would put this evil also under our feet? Is it not evident that a perfect knowledge of the laws of health, and a perfect living according to these laws, would so entirely subdue this evil that men would no longer die except by natural decay or by accident? Is it not evident, also, that the race will not attain this knowledge unless it be forced upon us by the necessity of avoiding the dread evil of disease? ”

“ A man having made a steam-engine, and desiring to use it for a different purpose from that for which it was first designed and used, will nearly always be compelled to add new parts not contemplated in the original machine. Nature rarely makes new parts—never, if she can avoid it—but, on the contrary, adapts an old part to the new function. It is as if Nature were not free to use any and every device to accomplish her end, but were conditioned by her own plans of structure; as, indeed, she must be according to the derivation theory. ”

“ Evolution is certainly a legitimate induction from the facts of biology. But we are prepared to go much further. We are confident that evolution is absolutely certain. Not, indeed, evolution as a special theory—Lamarckian, Darwinian, Spencerian—for these are all more or less successful modes of explaining evolution; nor evolution as a school of thought, with its following of disciples—for in this sense it is still in the field of discussion—but evolution as a law of derivation of forms from previous forms; evolution as a law of continuity, as a universal law of becoming. ”

“ Is there any conceivable meaning in Nature without this consummation? All evolution has its beginning, its course, its end. Without spirit-immortality this beautiful cosmos, which has been developing into increasing beauty for so many millions of years, when its evolution has run its course and all is over, would be precisely as if it had never been—an idle dream, an idiot tale signifying nothing. ”

“ To many, both friends and foes of Christianity, evolution seems to sweep away the whole foundation, not only of Christianity, but of all religion and morals, by demonstrating a universal materialism. Many are ready to cry out in anguish, “Ye have taken away our gods, what have we more? Ye have destroyed our dearest hopes and noblest aspirations, what more is left worth living for?” But I think all who are at all familiar with the history of the so-called conflict between religion and science will admit this is not the first time this cry has been raised against science. ”

“ In every case it is like shadow and substance, promise and fulfillment, or, still better, it is like embryo and child. The change from one to the other is like to a birth into a higher sphere, the beginning of another cycle of evolution. ”

“ Will some one say, the genuine Truth-seeker follows where she seems to lead whatever be the consequences? Yes; whatever be the consequences to one’s self, to one’s opinions, prejudices, theories, philosophies, but not to still more certain truth. Now, to Agassiz, as to all genuine thinkers, the existence of God, like our own existence, is more certain than any scientific theory, than anything can possibly be made by proof. From his standpoint, therefore, he was right in rejecting evolution as conflicting with still more certain truth. ”

“ Or again: we have all heard of the “music of the spheres”—a beautiful and significant name used by the old thinkers for the divine order of the universe—a music heard not by human ear, but only by the attentive human spirit. Harmonic relation apprehended by reason we call Law, and its embodiment Science; the same apprehended by the imagination and æsthetic sense, we call Beauty, and its embodiment Art, music. ”

“ Is it any wonder, then, that the derivative origin of species was welcomed with joy by the scientific world? For five hundred years, scientific thought, like a rising tide which knows no ebb, had tended thitherward with ever-increasing pressure, but kept back by the one supposed fact of the supernatural origin of species. Darwin lifted the gate, and the in-rushing tide flooded the whole domain of thought. ”

“ Objection answered.—This view completes the answer to an objection which is often made to evolution: “If natural species are formed by transmutation, why is it we do not find intermediate links? Why is not organic nature made up only of individual forms, shading insensibly into each other in such wise that classification becomes a mere device to handle more conveniently complex material? Why is it that groups, especially species, are marked out with hard and fast lines?” ”

“ In a word, there was a time when it was thought that the earth with substantially its present form, configuration, and climate, was made at once out of hand, as a fit habitation for man and animals. Now we know that it has been changing, preparing, becoming what it is by a slow process, through a lapse of time so vast that the mind sinks exhausted in the attempt to grasp it. It has become what it now is by a process of evolution. ”

“ But in evolution a goal is not only a completion of one stage, but also the beginning of another and higher stage—on a higher plane of life with new and higher capacities and powers unimaginable from any lower plane. ”

“ May we not say that all physical evil is good in its general effect—that every law of Nature is beneficent in its general operation, and, if sometimes evil in its specific operation, is so only through our ignorance? Partly by survival of the fittest, and partly by intelligence, man, like other animals, brings himself in accord with the laws of Nature, and thus appropriates the good and avoids the evil, and Nature becomes beneficent only. ”

“ We all know that it begins as a microscopic germ-cell, then grows into an egg, then organizes into a chick, and finally grows into a cock; and that the whole process follows some general, well-recognized law. Now, this process is evolution. It is more—it is the type of all evolution. It is that from which we get our idea of evolution, and without which there would be no such word. Whenever and wherever we find a process of change more or less resembling this, and following laws similar to those determining the development of an egg, we call it evolution. ”

“ To science all is mechanics; to theology all is mind. It is the duty of philosophy to reconcile these two opposites by the higher view that mechanics is but the mode of operation of the Divine mind. There is only one form of evolution, viz., human progress, in which mind—but the human, not the Divine mind—is one of the factors of evolution. But to think and speak thus of God in relation to Nature is to place him on the human plane. ”

“ It is a kind of circumstantial evidence, but its force does not consist in a few strong circumstances easily appreciated, such as strike the popular mind, and force conviction, but rather in a multitude of small circumstances, each by itself insignificant, but all together pointing to one conclusion and demanding one explanation. Such evidence is, indeed, overwhelming, but only to the mind that masters it. The evidence for the law of gravitation is literally the whole science of astronomy. So also the evidence for the law of evolution is the whole science of biology. ”

“ All the effects known to us in Nature are finite; therefore a personal will, which determines these separately by successive acts, as we do, must also be finite like ourselves. But a will, which by one eternal act ever-doing, never done, determines the evolution and the sustentation of an infinite cosmos, must itself be infinite. Thus only in the doctrine of universal evolution do we rise to a just conception of God as an infinite cause. ”

“ THE RELATION OF EVOLUTION TO THE PROBLEM OF EVIL.
The problem of evil has tasked the power and baffled the skill of the greatest thinkers in every age. It would be folly in me to imagine that I can solve it. Its complete solution is probably impossible in the present state of science. Yet I can not doubt that on this, as on every important question relating to man, the theory of evolution will throw new and important light. ”

“ It is true that, in the complex of phenomena, material and spiritual inextricably woven together, which go to make up human life, Science must ever strive to reduce as much as possible to material laws, for this is her domain, and she is bound to extend it; but, if our view of man be true, there will always remain a large residuum of phenomena—a whole world of phenomena—which will never yield, because clearly beyond her domain. ”

“ The whole mission and life-work of man is the progressive and finally the complete dominance, both in the individual and in the race, of the higher over the lower. The whole meaning of sin is the humiliating bondage of the higher to the lower. As the material evolution of Nature found its goal, its completion, and its significance in man, so must man enter immediately upon a higher spiritual evolution to find its goal and completion and its significance in the ideal man—the Divine man. ”

“ A branch once separated must grow its own way, if it grow at all.
Of the same nature is the mistake of some extreme evolutionists, such as Dr. Bastian and Professor Haeckel, and of nearly all anti-evolutionists, viz., that of imagining that the truth of evolution and that of spontaneous generation must stand or fall together. On the contrary, if life did once arise spontaneously from any lower forces, physical or chemical, by natural process, the conditions necessary for so extraordinary a change could hardly be expected to occur but once in the history of the earth. ”

“ If, then, evolution as a law be certain, if, moreover, it is a law affecting not only one part of Nature—the organic kingdom—and one department of science—biology—but the whole realm of Nature and every department of science, yea, every department of thought, changing our whole view of Nature and modifying our whole philosophy, the question presses upon us, “What will be its effect on religious belief, and therefore on moral conduct?” ”

“ I suppose most people imagine that it is the special mission of science to destroy all mystery. Many seem to think that superstition, or even religion, is inseparably connected with ignorance and mystery, and all must disappear together before the light of science. But not so. There is only a gradual progressive change—an evolution in the form of mystery as well as in the form of religion. To the savage everything is a separate mystery. The function of science is, indeed, to destroy these separate mysteries, by explaining them ”

“ It is evident, then, that if we, with Darwin, take natural selection, as the most important known factor, the really most important cause of evolution is the cause of varieties. This is the unknown fundamental factor. As Darwin reduced Agassiz’s three formal laws of succession to more general laws of life, and thus made one important step in the advance of biological science, so he who shall explain the cause of divergent variation will make another important step by reducing the phenomena to still more general and fundamental laws of life. ”

“ What, then, is practically the notion which most people seem to have of the relation of Deity to Nature? It is that of a great master-mechanic far away above us and beyond our reach, who once upon a time, long ago, and once for all, worked, created matter, endowed it with necessary properties and powers, constructed at once out of hand this wonderful cosmos with its numberless299 wheels within wheels, endowed it with forces, put springs in it, wound it up, set it a-going, and then—rested. ”

“ We are even now in the midst of the terror created by this doctrine. But what is evolution but law throughout infinite time? The same law which now controls the development of an egg has presided over the creation of worlds. Infinite space and the universal law of gravitation; infinite time and the universal law of evolution. These two are the grandest ideas in the realm of thought. The one is universal sustentation, the other universal creation, by law. There is one law and one energy pervading all space and stretching through all time. ”

“ If the change of environment be slow, the readjustment may be successful, and the species will change gradually into another form, so different that it will be called a different species, especially if the intermediate gradations be destroyed. If the change in the environment be too rapid, many species, especially the more rigid, will be destroyed, while the more plastic may survive by modification. Thus, at every step in the evolution of the organic kingdom, some species have died without issue, while others have saved themselves by changing into new forms in harmony with the new environment. ”