Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

There it is that most

as much Platonism is vulgarly current, for which we shall search, in vain, the philosopher of Academe, as the Lutheranism of the present day consists largely of opinions of which the founder of Protestantism was guiltless, so a great deal passes for Darwinism which is not to be found in the writings of Mr. Darwin. What the lifelong labours of that patient and conscientious inquirer really established, I shall have occasion to consider by-and-by. I am for the moment concerned with the signification which the word Darwinism bears in common parlance throughout Europe. And this will be best seen if we go to Germany. of the world's cerebration is performed, There the doctrine of Mr. Darwin was eagerly embraced long before it had obtained credit among ourselves. And there it has been developed, with enthusiastic devotion and singular hardihood, by a school of savants, who have sought in it the key to well-nigh all the world's enigmas. Foremost among these is Professor Haeckel, whose writings have unquestionably done more than Mr. Darwin's own for the diffusion of what is generally known as Darwinism, not only in the Professor's native country, but in France, and it may perhaps be said in England too. The account which he himself gives of his aim is, that he has "endeavoured to bind together in a philosophy Darwin's facts; to view them in the light of general conceptions." But, in truth, speculation occupies a much greater place than fact

Iv.] MR. DARWIN AND PROFESSOR HAECKEL. 113

in his system. In the first place, he has adopted Darwin's theories, without the reserves, rectifications, and modifications by which that candid investigator afterwards limited them. Thus, to give merely one example, in the law of natural selection, to the action of which the English naturalist in his latter years confessed himself to have “ probably attached too much," and which he, therefore, thought himself bound to restate, in order "to confine his remarks to adaptive changes of structure" -I am quoting from a well-known passage in his Descent of Man-his Teutonic disciple finds a complete explanation of all the facts of organic life, and of all its possibilities, including "indefinite variation." Again, to the hypotheses thus adopted from Darwin, Professor Haeckel has added others of his own. Of these, the most notable is the theory of abiogenesis, which amounts to this: that the organic comes out of the inorganic as its adequate cause, by a process similar to that whereby the molecules of crystalline bodies assume regular form. The general result at which he arrives is a purely physical explanation of life. He will allow of no activities in the organism but the chemical and mechanic. The persistence of matter and energy, correlation of forces, dissipation of forces, sufficiently explain for him the wondrous All. "The cell," he wrote to the German Association in 1877,"consists of matter called protoplasm, composed chiefly of carbon, with an admixture of

hydrogen, nitrogen, and sulphur. These component parts, properly united, produce the soul and body of the animated world, and, suitably nursed, become man. With this single argument the mystery of the universe is explained, the Deity annulled, and a new era of infinite knowledge ushered in."

Professor Haeckel, whose great attainments in zoology and morphology are unquestionable, here formulates the creed of a school of physicists well known in Germany. It is, apparently, of faith with these very positive Teutonic savants, that life, at first generated spontaneously, has ascended from the simplest form of protoplasm to the human automaton, through the twenty-two distinct stages of evolution which the Professor has excogitated. In England, there are not wanting gifted disciples of Mr. Darwin who, more or less implicitly, adopt this exposition of "nature's great progression from the formless to the formed, from the inorganic to the organic, from blind forces to conscious will and intellect." But it is in France that the Haeckelian version of Darwinism has had freest course, and has been most abundantly glorified; for it has supplied those "materialistic explanations in the science of man"-to use Mr. Morley's phrase-wherein the new gospel hopes to find the most effective weapon for the destruction of the old. It was observed a short time ago by a Revolutionary publicist, in words the terse

Iv.]

A NOSTRUM TO DESTROY RELIGION. 115

ness of which translation would mar, "La révolution démolit Dieu, démolit tout le vieux monde, et une chose seule reste-l'évolution scientifique.” "Others may occupy themselves, if they will,” said M. Paul Bert, "in seeking a nostrum to destroy the phylloxera; be it mine to find one that shall destroy the Christian religion." And that nostrum, we are confidently assured, is found in Darwinism.

The appeal then is to Darwinism. To Darwinism let us go. Whatever is doubtful, this is clear: that every dogma, however widely popular, to which the facts are opposed, is doomed to certain extinction. Now, what are the facts of Darwinism ? Let us view them apart from the theories engrafted upon them by Professor Haeckel. I should be sorry to seem wanting in respect to so eminent a savant. Still I find it impossible to withhold a modicum of sympathy from Mr. Coke, when, in his interesting work, Creeds of the Day, he complains, "The theories of Professor Haeckel are as trying to my credulity as the Pentateuch itself." It is, indeed, difficult to see why the speculations of Professors should be more binding upon our belief than the revelations of Prophets. We will turn, then, from the Darwinism of Herr Haeckel to the Darwinism of Mr. Darwin. What may the researches of that indefatigable observer be taken to have established? The supreme problem to which he addressed him

self was the origin of the human race as a distinct species. I shall present his solution of that problem in his own words, taken from the summary with which he ends his book on The Descent of Man.

"The main conclusion arrived at in this work," he writes, " and now held by many naturalists who are well competent to form a sound judgment, is that man is descended from some less highly organized form. The grounds upon which this conclusion rests will never be shaken, for the close similarity between man and the lower animals in embryonic development, as well as in innumerable points of structure and constitution, both of high and of the most trifling importance-the rudiments which he retains, and the abnormal reversions to which he is occasionally liable-are facts which cannot be disputed. They have long been known, but until recently they told us nothing with respect to the origin of man. Now, when viewed by the light of our knowledge of the whole organic world, their meaning is unmistakable. . . . By considering the embryological structure of man, the homologies which he presents with the lower animals, the rudiments which he retains, and the reversions to which he is liable, we can partly recall in imagination the former condition of our early progenitors, and can approximately place them in their proper position in the zoological series. We thus learn that man is descended from a hairy quadruped, furnished with a tail and pointed ears, probably arboreal in its habits, and an inhabitant of the Old World. This. creature, if its whole structure had been examined by a naturalist, would have been classed amongst the Quadrumana, as surely as would the common and still more ancient progenitor of the Old and New World monkeys. The Quadrumana and all the higher mammals are probably derived from an ancient marsupial animal, and this through a long line of diversified forms, either from some reptile-like or some amphibian-like creature, and this again from some fish-like animal. In the dim obscurity of the past we can see that the early progenitor of all the Vertebrata must have been

« ZurückWeiter »