CHAPTER I.. Evolution As an Unproven Theory.

EVOLUTION AS AN UNPROVEN THEORY.

With perhaps the exception of Prof. Ernst Haeckel of Jena, all evolutionists admit that Evolution is unproven. One of the latest writers, and most impartial, is Prof. H. W. Conn, who says in his "Evolution of To-day:" "Nothing has been positively proved as to the question at issue. From its very nature, Evolution is beyond proof.... The difficulties offered to an unhesitating acceptance of Evolution are very great, and have not grown less since the appearance of Darwin's Origin of Species, but have in some respects grown greater." (pp. 107, 203.) He makes many such admissions. Dr. Rudolph Schmidt writes, "All these theories have not passed beyond the rank of hypotheses." (Theories of Darwin, p. 61.) Prof. Whitney, of Yale University, says, "We cannot think the theory yet converted into a scientific fact and those are perhaps the worst foes to its success who are over-hasty to take it and use it as a proved fact." (Oriental and Linguistic Studies, pp. 293-4) Tyndall said: "Those who hold the doctrine of Evolution are by no means ignorant of the uncertainty of their data, and they only yield to it a provisional assent." (Fragments of Science, p. 162.) Dr. J. A. Zahm writes: "The theory of Evolution is not yet proved by any demonstrative evidence. An absolute demonstration is impossible." (Popular Science Monthly, April, 1898.) Huxley said, "So long as the evidence at present adduced falls short of supporting the affirmative, the doctrine must be content to remain among the hypotheses." (Lay Sermons, p. 295.) Down to the end of his life, he said the evidence for Evolution was insufficient. (Quarterly Review, January, 1901.)

This universal admission will be a surprise to the non-scientific, especially in view of the astounding and sweeping claims the theory has made. It will seem strange that a confessedly unproven theory should be made the basis of all "modern thinking," the foundation of a universal philosophy, the cause of a revolution in theology, and the reason for rejecting the narratives of the Bible, and, on the part of some, of abandoning Christianity and launching into atheism. Yet such is the case. Well may we draw a long breath here and say, Is this Science? Is it scientific to accept as true an unproven theory and make it the basis of all belief? We have even more startling facts to present as to this amazing form of unbelief.

In discussing Evolution, we must also continually distinguish between fact and theory, between things proven and assumed. For the writers continually intermingle these in a confusing way. We need ever to ask concerning its statements, Is this proven or assumed? The jury have a right to ask that everything be proved absolutely before rendering a verdict for Evolution.

EVOLUTION IS NOT ACCEPTED BY ALL SCIENTISTS AND SCHOLARS.

The statement is often made that Evolution has "the Consensus of Scholarship." This carries force to the non-scientific, indeed to all, for we must rest our faith, for facts at least, on the opinion of scientists. But while many have followed it, there remain many scholars who have not bowed the knee to Baal. Prof. Haeckel, its greatest living advocate, complains bitterly of the opposition of many of the scientists of Europe, and that many once with him have deserted him.

The late Dr. Virchow, the great pathologist and the discoverer of the germ theory, was an active opponent of Evolution. He says: "The reserve which most naturalists impose on themselves is supported by the small actual proofs of Darwin's theory. Facts seem to teach the invariability of the human and the animal species." (Popular Science, pp. 50, 52.) Dr. Groette, in his inaugural address as rector of the University of Strasburg, rejected Evolution.

Dr. D. S. Gregory of New York, editor of the Homiletic Review and in a position to know the facts, vouches for the statement, that, "It is a strange fact that no great scientific authority in Great Britain in exact science, science that reduces its conclusions to mathematical formulae, has endorsed Evolution."

The late Dr. J. H. W. Stuckenberg, of Cambridge, wrote me, that many of the scientists of Germany reject the extreme views of Evolution, and the inferences which men like Prof. Haeckel, of Jena, have drawn from Darwinism. He quotes Dr. W. Haecke, a zoologist of Jena, the home of Prof. Haeckel, as saying: "We the younger men must free ourselves from the Darwinian dogma, in which respect quite a number of us have been quite successful." Prof. Paulsen, of Berlin, has exposed some of Haeckel's fallacies and regards his reasoning as "a disgrace to Germany." He said the mechanical theory for which Darwinism was held to stand, is rejected by such scientists as Naegeli, Koelliker, M. Wagner, Snell, Fovel, Bunge, the physiological chemist, A. Brown, Hoffman and Askernazy, botanists; Oswald Heer, the geologist, and Otto Hamann, the zoologist. Of Carl Ernst von Baer, the eminent zoologist and anthropologist, Haecke affirms, that in early years he came near adopting the hypothesis of Evolution into his system, but that at a later date he utterly rejected it. The same change occurred in the late Du Bois Reymond and Prof. Virchow, the eminent scientist of the University of Berlin. (See also articles of Dr. Stuckenberg in Homiletic Review, January, 1901, May, 1902.)

Sir J. William Dawson, the great geologist of Canada, utterly rejected it and says: "It is one of the strangest phenomena of humanity; it is utterly destitute of proof." (Story of the Earth and Man, p. 317.) Dr. Etheridge, examiner of the British Museum, said to Dr. George E. Post, in answer to a question, "In all this great museum, there is not a particle of evidence of the transmutation of species. This museum is full of proofs of the utter falsity of these views." Thomas Carlyle called Evolution "the gospel of dirt." Ruskin said of it, "I have never yet heard one logical argument in its favor. I have heard and read many that are beneath contempt." (The Eagles Nest, p. 256.)

Prof. Zöckler writes: "It must be stated that the supremacy of this philosophy has not been such as was predicted by its defenders at the outset. A mere glance at the history of the theory during the four decades that it has been before the public shows that the beginning of the end is at hand."

Such utterances are now very common in the periodicals of Germany, it is said. It seems plain the reaction has commenced and that the pendulum that has swung so strongly in the direction of Evolution, is now oscillating the other way. It required twenty years for Evolution to reach us from abroad. Is it necessary for us to wait twenty years more to reverse our opinions? Why may we not pass upon facts for ourselves without awaiting the "Consensus of European Scholarship," which is after all so subject to perplexing reversals? It makes plain people dizzy to attempt to follow leaders of opinion who change with every wind that blows across the ocean.

Many citations will appear in the following pages which show the strong exceptions taken by leading scholars against the theory in whole or in part. Indeed, as said already, the arguments to be given herein against Evolution are drawn from the statements of leading evolutionists themselves. Some of these are earlier opinions and some their latest utterances. In every case the state of the discussion will be shown to be far from that "Consensus of Scholarship" so airily claimed by the writers on the subject and so unhesitatingly accepted by their followers.

It may be objected that some of these authorities are dead and that later scholars differ from them. Not to mention the names of still living writers named above, let us remark that all wisdom is not left to our day. Socrates and Bacon are dead, yet their opinions are still of value. Moses is dead, yet the Ten Commandments are still believed if not obeyed. Our present evolutionary writers will also one day be dead, yet they hope even then to be given some credit for sense and science. The "consensus of scholarship" ought to include wisdom past as well as present.

It is also to be remembered that there are thousands of quiet thinkers who have never given in their adhesion to this startling theory, and more, that the great masses of the church at least, have no confidence in it. Those preparing to launch their ships upon this current had better, as a matter of common prudence at least, wait a while at least till the mists have rolled away.

DISCARDED THEORIES OF THE PAST.

Prof. George Frederick Wright says, "The history of science is little else than one of discarded theories.... The so-called science of the present day is largely going the way so steadily followed in the past. The things about which true science is certain are very few and could be contained in a short chapter of a small book." (The Advance, May 12, 1902.)

It is sometimes charged to the church that it has held theories which the discoveries of science have shown to be untrue. But it must be borne in mind that these false theories were just as firmly held by the scientists of the day as by the church.

Dr. Andrew White has written two great volumes on the warfare between science and theology. He might write many and larger volumes on the wars between the theories of science. Every one of these discarded theories, and they are numbered by thousands, has been the center of terrific conflicts.

Galileo's discovery of the satellites of Jupiter was opposed by his fellow astronomers, who even refused to look at them through his telescope. Dr. J. A. Zahm quotes Cardinal Wiseman as saying that the French Institute in 1860 could count more than eighty theories opposed to Scripture, not one of which has stood still or deserves to be recorded. At a meeting of the British Association, Sir William Thomson announced that he believed life had come to this globe by a meteor. His theory lived less than a year. Mr. Huxley said that the origin of life was a sheet of gelatinous living matter which covered the bottom of the ocean. This theory had even a shorter life. Among the most recent reversals of this kind is that of a universally held theory, namely, that coral reefs are built up by the coral insects in their desire to keep near the surface as the ocean's bottom sinks. Prof. A. Agassiz has just demolished this theory.

Scholars were unanimous a short time ago that Troy was a myth. But Dr. Schliemann's great discoveries have overthrown that "consensus of scholarship." Prof. Harnack, one of the greatest of critics in his great work, The Chronology of the Christian Scriptures, admits that science, meaning Higher Criticism, has made many mistakes and has much to repent of. Joseph Cook said, "Within the memory of man yet comparatively young, the mythical theory of Strauss has had its rise, its fall, its burial."

The thirty thousand citizens of St. Pierre on Martinique, trusting in the assurances of the scientists, remained in their fated city and the next day were overwhelmed in the most awful calamity of modern times.

We may consider in this connection the dissatisfaction of some of the greatest minds of evolutionary circles with the results of their own theory.

Mr. Herbert Spencer is thus quoted, writing in his eighty-third year: "The intellectual man, who occupies the same tenement with me, tells me that I am but a piece of animated clay equipped with a nerve system and in some mysterious way connected with the big dynamo called the world; but that very soon now the circuit will be cut and I will fall into unconsciousness and nothingness. Yes I am sad, unutterbly sad, and I wish in my heart I had never heard of the intellectual man with his science, philosophy and logic." (Facts and Comments.)

Prof. Frederic Harrison, the agnostic, thus writes: "The philosophy of evolution and demonstration promised but it did not perform. It raised hopes, but it led to disappointment. It claimed to explain the world and to direct man, but it left a great blank. That blank was the field of religion, of morality, of the sanctions of deity. It left the mystery of the future as mysterious as ever and yet as imperative as ever. Whatever philosophy of nature it offered, it gave no adequate philosophy of Man. It was busy with the physiology of Humanity and propounded inconceivable and repulsive guesses about the origin of Humanity." (North American Review, December, 1900, p. 825.)

From the opposite side of the field, President Woodrow Wilson writes: "This is the dis-service scientific study has done for us; it has given us agnosticism in the realm of philosophy, scientific anarchism in the field of politics. It has made the legislator confident that he can create and the philosopher sure that God cannot." (Forum, December, 1896.)

UNCERTAINTY OF SCIENTIFIC THEORIES IN GENERAL.

Another feature which strikes the non-scientific mind curiously is the wide differences among great scientists as to the facts of nature. The age of the earth is variously declared to be ten million years by some, and by others equally able, a thousand million years. The temperature of its interior is stated to be 1,530 degrees by one, and 350,000 degrees by another. Herschel calculated the mountains on the moon to be half a mile high, Ferguson said they were fifteen miles high. The height of the Aurora Borealis is guessed from two and a half to one hundred and sixty miles, and its nature is still more widely described. The delta at the mouth of the Mississippi was calculated by Lyell to have been 100,000 years in forming. Gen. Humphrey, of the United States survey, estimated it at 4,000 years, and M. Beaument at 1,300 years.

The deposits of carbonate of lime on the floor of Kent Cavern in England have been estimated by different scientists to have been from a thousand to a million years in forming.

The discovery of radium and other similar substances, it is said, is almost revolutionizing the theories of the constitution of matter and affecting all physical science.

These facts are not cited to discredit science. No one in his senses would fail to acknowledge our great debt to the earnest and laborious workers in these varying fields. But these instances of many such are cited to show that there is need for caution in accepting proposed theories.