CHAPTER IV. Eden or Evolution

EDEN OR EVOLUTION

GENESIS AND THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES

Early Beliefs in Creation

Although we may entirely reject the evidence of man’s presence on earth long before the dawn of history, even so there still remains a perplexing question that must be answered. What was man’s origin? It is surprising how many people have attempted to solve this troublesome problem. It seems to be one of the first questions that primitive man tried to answer for himself when he began his earliest speculations. He was naturally anxious to know who made the land and the water and the sky and all that is in them. He was especially interested, when he thought about such things, in deciding how he came to be what he was himself. And so, from earliest times, beliefs concerning the beginning of things have sprung up all over the world. They constitute a mass of speculation, which is called cosmogony (beliefs or theories about the creation of the universe). Only a few races or tribes of mankind have failed to indulge in speculations leading to such beliefs. Appearing as they do in the infancy or early life of a race, these beliefs must be the fruit of the primitive human mind. In peoples who have failed to progress and have always remained primitive, such beliefs, like many other traits and customs, continue for generations almost unchanged. Sometimes they become an important part of the religion of the race. If they are looked upon less seriously they form themes for folklore.

This searching question about man’s origin has always been present and is, in fact, still with us. In times gone by, when man was primitive, or at least more primitive than he is to-day, he tried to answer the question as best he could. He was hampered by lack of facts because his knowledge and understanding of his own surroundings were limited. His racial experience in the world had yet been too brief for him to do more than see the great generalities of nature. At best he could merely surmise the truth of the universe. He had neither the training, the methods, nor the instruments necessary to disclose the intimate details upon which reasonable theories might be based. Being so largely destitute of facts, he relied upon intuition or drew heavily upon his imagination. It is a matter of wonder that his beliefs often took such noble form.

Not infrequently a common central theme runs through the beliefs of primitive people, even though they may belong to different races and are separated from each other by long distances. Such, for example, is the belief in the manlike appearance of the Supreme Being held by the Hebrews, Greeks, Romans, and many other ancient civilizations. Early ideas concerning creation illustrate this common or central theme still more vividly. Doubtless the conception of creation has its supreme expression in the opening chapters of Genesis in the Hebrew Testament. But other primitive people had exactly the same ideas about creation and the origin of man. This way of solving the problem must have been one of the inherent tendencies of the human mind in its earliest beginnings. Isolated peoples in far-distant parts of the earth could not have shared such similar ideas as a result of racial contacts or propinquity. Time and distance set them widely apart. The similarity might be ascribed to traditions handed down from a common stock. In any event, an identical theme runs through the creation story of many different peoples. The most effective record of this theme is given in Genesis, especially in the first chapter, the King James version of which is accepted by many as the highest literary mark ever set by the English language. It is of particular interest for us to follow the sequence of events in this incomparable chapter which depicts creation with such grandeur that it may well be called inspired.

Early Accounts of Creation

According to this record, creation proceeded as a succession of separate miracles. First came the miracle creating heaven and earth, then the creation of light, of the firmament, of the earth set apart from the waters, of vegetation upon the earth, of the sun, moon, and stars, of fish and fowl, of beasts and cattle and all creeping things, of man and woman together in the image and likeness of the Creator. The second chapter of Genesis repeats the story of creation, but this time in a minor key, with certain striking differences and discrepancies. The grandeur of the original description and its sublime intuition are missing. The master mind which conceived it has obviously been replaced by one at once much more naïve and manifesting a thoroughly parochial interest in the affairs and frailties of humankind. This second narration largely reverses the original order given to creation. By it man is created before all other animals and woman last of all. This account produces man from the dust of the ground, into which the Creator breathes the breath of life and gives him a living soul, while the rib taken from man is used to create woman. The discrepancies in the two accounts are obvious at once. To explain them the second chapter is attributed to a very early writer (Jehovistic document). The first chapter is ascribed to a much later writing (Priestly document) made during the Hebrew captivity in Egypt.

Earlier than this Biblical record was the Babylonian idea of creation. These people also conceived that man was molded out of clay. According to the Babylonian version of creation, the god Bel cut off his own head, and the other gods, catching the flowing blood, mixed it with the dust of the earth, and from this bloody paste molded the forms of men. The Babylonians believed that men were wise because their mortal clay was thus tempered with divine blood. According to the Egyptians, the father of the gods molded men out of clay on his potter’s wheel. A Greek explanation of man’s origin contains the same idea, in that Prometheus is said to have molded the first men out of clay at Panopeus in Phocis. These naïve conceptions about the origin of mankind, common to the Hebrew, the Babylonian, the Egyptian, and the Greek, were doubtless handed down to these ancient civilized people by their savage or barbarous forefathers. Legends of creation of exactly this kind are current among savages and barbarians of the present day. It is particularly interesting to note the different forms in which this story has made its appearance in many distant places of the earth.

Creation Beliefs of Barbarous People

The Australian blacks, near Melbourne, held that the Creator cut large sheets of bark with his big knife. He placed on one of these a mass of clay and prepared it with his knife until it had the proper consistency. Then he set a portion of the clay on another piece of bark and fashioned it in human form, making first the legs and then the trunk and arms and finally the head. Having finished his molding, he took stringy bark from the eucalyptus tree, made hair of it, and attached it to the heads of his models. When all was finished he blew his breath into the mouths and noses and navels of these clay men until they rose and spoke as full-grown human beings.

In New Zealand the Maoris believed that a certain god took red riverside clay, kneaded it with his own blood into a likeness of himself, with eyes, legs, and arms exactly similar to his own. When this model was finished he breathed into it the breath of life through its mouth and nostrils, with the result that the clay man at once came to life and sneezed.

Among the Tahiti there is a tradition that the first man and woman were made by the chief god, who created them out of red earth. In Netherland Island, one of the Ellice Islands, a great deity is supposed to have made models of man and woman out of the earth and brought them to life by lifting them up. Similar in general conception is the tradition of creation among the Pelew Islanders who believe that certain of their deities made man and woman out of clay by kneading it with the blood of various animals. This feature is a new detail and somewhat of a departure from the general story. It shows, moreover, the interest which these primitive people had in explaining the different behaviour of their fellow men. Thus they believed that the characters of these first men as well as their descendants were due to the characteristic traits of the animal whose blood was mingled with the clay. Men, for instance, who had rats’ blood in their clay were thieves. Those who had serpents’ blood were sneaks and informers. Those who were vitalized by cocks’ blood were brave and daring.

According to a Melanesian legend in one of the Banks Islands, the great hero Qat molded men from red clay taken from the marshy riverside. At first he made men and pigs to appear alike, but subsequently he forced the pigs to go upon all fours and caused men to walk upright. This distinction indicates man’s early recognition of the subtle meanings of the erect posture. Qat also constructed a female out of flexible twigs. Finally she smiled at him, and by this unfailing sign of feminine allurement he immediately recognized her as the first woman.

Inhabitants of the Kei Islands believe that their ancestors were fashioned out of clay by the supreme god who breathed the breath of life into the clay models. The Dyaks of British Borneo claim that the first man was made by two birds. After several failures in attempting to hew him out of rock they at length molded him out of damp clay and infused into his veins the red gum of the Kumpang tree. When they called him he answered, and they gave him a name which in the Dyak tongue means “molded earth.”

In India also the same kind of legend explains man’s origin. The Kumis who inhabit the hill tracts in eastern India believe that a powerful god made the world and the trees and the creeping things first. After this he made a man and a woman, shaping their bodies from clay. When he had finished his work a great snake came while the god was sleeping and devoured the two images. This occurred several times, so that the deity was much perplexed. Feeling that after his day’s work he needed a good night’s sleep, it was impossible for him to sit up to protect his handiwork. At length he conceived the plan of making a dog out of clay before he created his next models of man and woman. This device solved the problem in a satisfactory manner. The god was now able to sleep in peace after his hard work of modelling human beings, since the dog, watching over them, would bark and frighten away the destructive serpent. To this day the Kumis believe this is the reason why dogs howl when a man is dying.

Africa has similar legends about the creation of mankind. Many of the natives on the White Nile believe that men were modelled out of clay. They even go so far as to explain the different complexions of various races by the differently coloured clay out of which they are molded. Their great creator, wandering about the world, found pure white earth or sand and from this he fashioned the white man. Returning to Egypt he molded red and brown men from the mud of the Nile. Finally, coming upon black earth far in the depths of Africa, he created black men.

The story of man’s creation out of clay also occurs in America among the Eskimos and the Indians from Alaska to Paraguay. Many of the Eskimos have the belief that a certain spirit made a man of clay. Then having set him upon the shore to dry he breathed into him and gave him life. Certain Indians of California conceive of an all-powerful being who created man out of a deposit of clay which he found on the shores of a lake. From this clay he made both male and female, and the Indians of the present day are descended from this original clay man and woman.

The Mayas in Central America believe that their gods first made men out of clay, but that these clay models lacked vitality because they were dissolved by water. Then the gods created man out of the wood of one tree and the woman from the sap of another. Unfortunately these human beings could neither move nor propagate their kind, and for this reason the gods caused a shower of pitch to produce a flood, which destroyed this wooden race. A few of them survived, however, and from them are descended the small monkeys. The Maya gods at last created four perfect men out of yellow and white maize, and, wishing to confer the greatest boon, while these four perfect beings slept, four women were created for them.

Primitive Ideas Foreshadowing Evolution

It is interesting also to find that all savage people did not believe in the legend that ascribed the origin of man to clay models or to effigies made by some supreme being. Many primitive races appear to have preferred the theory of evolution to this other idea of creation. In any event, even if they did not fully recognize the nature of their belief, their idea was that man evolved from some lower form of animal life. The particular form of animal from which this evolution started varied considerably with the local colour, with the character and with the opportunities of different people.

Some California Indians believe that they are descended from coyotes. In their early stages of evolution all members of their tribe walked on all fours. Slowly they acquired some of the features of human beings, one toe or one finger at a time. Then came an eye or an ear, until at length these animals grew to be perfect human beings by losing their tails. This loss, which was regarded as deplorable, came from the habit of sitting upright.

The Iroquois, belonging to one important clan, hold that they are the descendants of mud turtles that formerly inhabited a certain large pool in their territories. The Choctaw Indians believe that they were descended from crayfish, while throughout the Osage Indians it is generally understood that their ancestors were a male snail and a female beaver. A great flood carried the snail down the Missouri River, leaving him upon a bank, where the sun ripened him into a man. In time he met and married a beaver maid, and these two were the ancestors of the Osages. The Delaware Indians call the rattlesnake their grandfather and would on no account destroy one of these serpents.

Certain Indians of Peru claim to be descended from the puma or American lion, and this animal is worshipped as their god. Some natives of East Africa look upon the hyena as one of their ancestors. The death of this animal is mourned by the whole people with great funereal ceremony. On the Gold Coast of West Africa certain tribes believe that they were descended from the horse mackerel.

Natives of Borneo think that the first man and woman were born from a tree which had become fertilized by a creeping vine that waved to and fro in the wind. Some of the primitive inhabitants in the northeastern extremity of Celebes believe that they are descended from apes and that the parent stock of these animals still inhabits the woods. The aborigines of western Australia considered that their ancestors were swans, ducks, or various other kinds of water birds, which were later transformed into men.

All of these illustrations of the creation idea among primitive people show that man has held at least two widely different views about his own origin. One of these is the idea of separate miraculous creation; the other corresponds to or foreshadows the theory of evolution. In accordance with the view of separate creation, a god or a tribal hero was the great creator who fashioned the first members of the race in their present form. According to the other view, man was evolved from lower forms of animals, or even from vegetable life. These two viewpoints of man’s origin still divide the peoples of the world. It is probably true, as Sir James Frazer has said, that “by weighing one consensus against the other, with Genesis in the one scale and the Origin of Species in the other, it might be found, when the scales were finally trimmed, that the balance hung even between creation and evolution.”

The development of the evolutionary theory among civilized people has a long history. This theory has already passed through many interesting phases. Doubtless other equally interesting phases lie before it. At present there are many who still believe that Darwin was the originator of the evolutionary idea. This belief is in no sense true. The origin of the doctrine long antedates Darwin’s time. It may be traced back to the age when the human race first began to think clearly. Like many other things of high cultural value, it had its earliest recognizable beginnings in the Greek period--in those days when man sought to gain an intelligent understanding of himself and the world in which he lived.

Growth of the Evolutionary Theory

The basic conception of evolution is as old as Empedocles (450 B. C.). Aristotle (384-322 B. C.) was the originator of the theory of animal descent, which he formulated with remarkable clearness. A strong inhibiting influence fell upon this conception of life as a result of mediæval scholasticism. This influence restrained further developments until the subject was again reopened in the Eighteenth Century. The works of Leibnitz and Buffon (1707-1788) reawakened interest in this problem. Modern constructive efforts to formulate the theory of evolution did not begin, however, until the early Nineteenth Century. By a strange coincidence, the real founding of this theory occurred in the year of Darwin’s birth, 1809. Up to this time, with few exceptions, it was thought that man’s body was the result of special creation. Some savage people, as we have seen, have believed that man was derived from lower animals. But this belief was only a fantastic forerunner of the evolutionary concept. The birthplace of the theory was in Paris. It may appear strange that such a doctrine did not originate in the great schools of learning, and that it first saw the light in the quiet, out-of-the-way location of the Museum of Natural History. The names of three scientific immortals are associated with this revolutionary conception of the animal kingdom. All three of these distinguished men lived at the same time, worked together at the same place, and together profoundly influenced our modern views of man’s place in nature.

The most noted of this famous trio in his own day was Cuvier (1769-1832). He was a professor of comparative anatomy and though only forty years of age was accumulating the material for his epoch-making work, Ossements Fossiles. This work was to show conclusively that the great ages of time, filled with multitudes of strange, extinct animals, had passed over the earth before the dawn of our modern era. Cuvier believed that each group of these extinct animals represented a series of separate creations. It was doubtless his energetic and brilliant insistence upon this point that denied to the French nation the first place of distinction in advancing the theory of evolution. Although he held vigorously to the old creative interpretation of life, Cuvier was in a sense an unconscious promoter of the evolutionary idea. His recognition of a succession of epochs in the earth’s history and in the animal inhabitants of the globe was an important step toward the modern theory. Besides this, his keen powers of observation had enabled him to discern one of the chief principles underlying evolution. This principle is known as the law of “correlation of parts.” In consequence of this law there is a definite relation of one part of the body to another, as well as a combination of these parts in the habits of the animal. Thus, horns belong with hoofs, and hoofs are associated with complicated grinding teeth, which latter in their turn are possessed by animals having complex stomachs and feeding on plants.

The second great pioneer in the discovery of life’s true origin was somewhat younger than Cuvier. This was Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire. He was intent upon seeking the common plan upon which all animals with backbones were built. In this way he was laying the foundations of that broad conception of life which holds that all living things have a common descent.

The third of these great French contemporaries was more obscure than either of his associates in the Museum. In his own period the public heard and knew little of him. He was a retiring person, but an indefatigable student. As time passes it is he who stands as the towering figure of this famous trio. In 1809, when he was already sixty-five years of age, he made his remarkable contribution to knowledge. His careful studies of nearly fifty years were then published in two small volumes entitled Philosophie Zoologique. This was a milestone in human progress. In consequence of this work alone the name of Jean Baptiste Pierre Lamarck will stand as one of the most eminent figures of science. From his long and laborious researches he had reached the conclusion that all living creatures were the outgrowth of a common tree of life. In this treatise of his there appears the first clear declaration that man has been evolved from some anthropoid ancestor like the chimpanzee, and that man’s erect posture has been derived from one which was ape-like.

The Lamarckian and Darwinian Theories

The Lamarckian theory of evolution holds that progress takes place by the imperceptible transformation of one species into another through the efforts of the organism to adapt itself to new conditions. It also maintains that, by inheritance, the changes thus produced are handed on from one generation to the next. These changes may be slight, almost insensible variations produced by the use or disuse of certain parts and organs. Through their accumulated effects they are capable of transforming one species into another. The following quotation from Lamarck’s Philosophie Zoologique (Vol. 1, p. 349) furnishes some of the more important details in the concept by which he explains the evolution of man:

Indeed, if any race of primates (quadrumanes) whatsoever, particularly the more highly evolved of them, were to lose, either from force of circumstances or any other cause, the aptitude for tree climbing and of grasping the branches with their feet, as with their hands, for security of grip, and if the individuals of this race, for a series of generations, be obliged to use their feet only in walking, and cease using their hands as feet; then there is no doubt, from the evidence produced in the foregoing chapters, that these apes would finally be transformed into man (bimanes) and that the great toe would no longer be separated from the other toes like a thumb, the feet merely serving the purposes of progression.

Despite the fact that Lamarck was a pioneer he did not, in so far as the evolution of man is concerned, induce a single anatomist of his own time or of a succeeding generation to follow in his footsteps. In this respect his great work remained strangely ineffective. The more persuasive introduction of the evolutionary theory was made by an illustrious English naturalist, Charles Darwin. After a somewhat mediocre university career, for which he received the degree of Bachelor of Arts, Darwin devoted himself to the natural sciences. In his early manhood he spent five years on the famous barque Beagle in which he made a trip around the globe. Twenty-three years later (1859) he published his renowned Origin of Species, which proved to be one of the most revolutionary books ever written. In an educational sense, Darwin was far more fortunate than Lamarck. Almost at once he obtained the ear of the public and started the theory of evolution on its strenuous course around the world. Twelve years later (1871) he published his second monumental book, The Descent of Man, which proved to be the most telling step in our modern knowledge of man’s evolution. These two great books set forth the Darwinian theory. Like Lamarck, Darwin believed that progress from lower to higher forms of animal life took place as a result of insensible variations. These variations were due to what Darwin and one of his contemporaries, Alfred Russell Wallace, called natural selection. This factor was the prime and sufficient cause of evolution. Through its operations new species arose by the selective action of external conditions upon individual variations. Natural selection, as a law, implies the effects of those forces which separate living creatures into two groups--those which survive and those which, being ill equipped to make the struggle for existence, perish. The selective effects of external conditions on an organism or its parts operate in such a way that individual variations or peculiarities of advantage are perpetuated in the race and thus give rise to the survival of the fittest. Darwin in his Descent of Man makes clear his opinion of the manner in which natural selection has operated in human evolution:

As soon as some ancient member (elsewhere defined as some species of anthropoid like the chimpanzee) in the great series of the primates came to be less arboreal, owing to a change in its manner of procuring subsistence, or to a change in the surrounding conditions, its habitual manner of progression would have been modified and thus it would be rendered more strictly quadrupedal or bipedal.... Man alone has become a biped and we can, I think, partly see how he has come to assume his erect attitude which forms one of his most conspicuous characters.... As the progenitors of man became more and more erect and their hands and arms more and more modified for prehension and other purposes, with their feet and legs at the same time transformed for firm support and progression, endless other changes in structure would have become necessary. The pelvis would have to be broadened, the spine peculiarly curved, and the head fixed in an altered position, all which changes have been attained by man. It is very difficult to decide how far these modifications are the result of natural selection and how far of the inherited effects of the increased use of certain parts or of the action of one part on another. No doubt these means often coöperate.

Comparing the explanations given by Lamarck and by Darwin it is clear at once that they have much in common. Both suppose that man was evolved from a chimpanzee-like anthropoid. Both agree that the transformation had been initiated by a change from an arboreal to a terrestrial mode of existence. Both believe that the results of habit or of function acquired by one generation may be inherited by the next generation. Darwin made certain important additions to this theory. He applied the law of natural selection--the tendency of successful individuals to survive and prosper. He also recognized the effects of sexual tendencies and perceived that there was a law of correlation of parts. By this latter mechanism a number of structures were modified at the same time to suit some particular function of the body.

Since Darwin’s time, although the general principle involved in the theory of evolution has been accepted by scientists everywhere, there has been much discussion concerning specific details of the evolutionary process. Simultaneously with the conviction that evolution was a fact in the animal life there arose an eager desire to discover its underlying causes. Many students of the problem have arrived at independent explanations of their own. To some the theory of Lamarck has been considered satisfactory; to others Darwin’s interpretation is most convincing. Such differences of opinion as do exist among those who have seriously pursued this matter centre primarily upon the causes of evolution. For this reason a number of different theories are recognized to-day. It is probable that these theories do not represent all of the differing shades of opinion concerning this subject at present. They may be said, however, to express the high points of difference. Their chief interest lies in the fact that they indicate the degree of energy and determination devoted to the solution of this problem. Recent students of the Darwinian theory have modified and extended it in such a way as to make the law of natural selection entirely sufficient to explain evolution. Such students, with Weismann the most prominent among them, deny the inheritance of acquired characters. This view is known as the neo-Darwinian theory.

Lamarck’s original conception was also modified and became the basis of the neo-Lamarckian theory. This view recognized all of Lamarck’s ideas, including insensible variation, use and disuse of parts, and hereditary transmission. But it added to these causative factors certain influences of consciousness and the will, thus introducing an internal and psychological principle in the evolutionary process. In America this newer view of Lamarck’s conception has been vigorously upheld by many naturalists (Cope and Hyatt) who attempted to explain evolution according to the fundamental laws of growth plus the inherited effects of use and disuse.

Explanations such as these seem to lose sight of many influences acting upon animal life from without and along certain determinate lines. These influences were highly specific in their character and embraced definite chemical and physical factors. Their effects were concentrated upon limited organic areas, such, for example, as the eye, but they spread to correlated organs like the brain, the muscles, and the bones, all of which are functionally continuous with the visual apparatus of vertebrates. Such a spread of modifying influences from a determinate focus like the eye throughout the entire body caused a widespread tendency to variation and thus afforded the opportunity for progressive development. This explanation is known as the Orthogenetic Theory (Eimer, 1897).

Still more recently the pendulum has swung away from this extremely materialistic viewpoint in what is called the Creative Theory of Evolution (Henri Bergson, 1907). According to this explanation the variations that bring about evolution from lower to higher forms of life require some good genius to preserve and collect the effects in the interest of progress. This presiding genius working from within is the original impetus of life, the élan vitale, or vital impetus (entelechy), which like some internal perfecting agency passes from one generation of germs to the next and through the developed organism bridges the interval between generations.

Philosophy, with its conception of an internal creative power common to all life and biology, pinning its faith to physicochemical factors, have vied with each other in bringing to light the causes of evolution. Among the latest explanations is the Energy Theory (Henry Fairfield Osborn, 1918). This interpretation holds that the life of every animal is due to the action, reaction, and interaction of four types of energy. The first type arises from chemical elements and compounds surrounding the animal (inorganic environment). The second is the energy derived from the body substance of the developing organism (protoplasm and body chromatin, the chief substance in the nucleus of body cells). The third source of energy is from the sex cells, especially those parts of them which contain the hereditary elements (hereditary chromatin). The fourth type of energy comes from the living matter surrounding the animal (life environment). Selection and adaptation are constantly at work upon the reactions of these four types of energy. Divergence in the form of different animals depends upon adaptations to special conditions of life as seen, for example, in the whales and the meat-eaters. Altogether there are twelve major environments for living, like the plain, the forest, the air, the sea, which require special adaptations. All life has tended to radiate out into such habitat zones, and the four types of energy represented by each living creature have been adjusted to a particular environment. This spreading out of life into many different zones of existence is a recognized principle in natural selection (law of adaptive radiation. Osborn).

The most recent interpretation is that offered by the Emergent Theory of Evolution (C. Lloyd Morgan, 1928). Evolution, according to this explanation, is the name given to the plan of sequence in all natural events. Orderly sequence presents from time to time something genuinely new. In the physical world emergence is exemplified by the advent of each new kind of atom, each new kind of molecule, each new form of life. Emergence is not the mere addition to or subtraction from existing properties. It is the appearance of something new and unpredictable from the combination of properties already in existence. A true emergence of this kind is produced by the combination of carbon and sulphur out of which the gaseous carbon bisulphide arises. This gas is totally different from either sulphur or carbon, its two combining ingredients. It is something genuinely new and hence an emergent. This principle affects all spheres of life in such a manner that it is possible for new characters, new structures, new activities to appear as emergents from preëxisting elements. Variations and progressive development may be thus explained as the result of orderly sequence.

In spite of the differences in opinion among scientists concerning the evolutionary process, there is an almost unanimous agreement with regard to the correctness of the general theory of evolution and the principle underlying it. To attempt a critical estimation of these several theories would be futile and far removed from our present purpose. Doubtless each one of them contains some portion of the truth. It is, however, their large number that is of striking significance, inasmuch as these theories indicate a widespread, profound, and growing interest concerning evolution among intelligent people. Whatever their minor differences, such theories demonstrate a determined effort in the search for truth and manifest tendencies in thinking which cannot fail eventually to reshape the intellectual outlook of mankind.