DARWIN CENTENARY.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 449, 6 March 1909, Page 10

DARWIN CENTENARY.

« EVOLUTION AND MODERN THOUCHT. NATURAL SELECTION. In bis third "lecture in London in connection with tlio Darwin Centenary, which is to bo celebrated during the present year, the ttcv. P. N. Wiiffictt, ALA. (First Class in Natural Science, Oxford), who has made a special study of biology and kindred cubjocts, summarised the arguments in favour ol natural selection as follow:— Variation, excess production, nnd elimination aro facts, and it is reasonable to believe that those individuals survivo in tlio strugglo for existence which are best fitted to survive Tlio "fitness" required by the doctnno of natural selection is no other than this. ; Natural selection, as an explanation of adaptations, while incomplete in respect of many cases, is yet in form applicable to all J™ adaptations. Whereas the theory of "effort , (Lamarck), attractive because of our own consciousness of effort, ennnot even bo conjectured to have produced adaptations except of certain limited kinds. The samo thing is true of direct-effect. The third possible cause—viz., vital reaction to the stimulus of circumstances, is not excluded by the theory of selection; but is required to account for those larger (or discontinuous) variations which natural selection would act upon, as well aa upon the smaller. Natural selection goes far to explain the tacts of geographical distribution, taking account of former as well as present conditions ol the world's population. Natural selection alone begins to explain, in the sense of natural history, the facts of protective colouration and form, and of protectivo mimicry in particular. In general terms, we may say that without assuming any inheritance of acquired characters, natural selection is reasonably regarded as tiro way in which the mean or average form of an organism could bo gradually changed m vp.pous directions in accordance with different opportunities of survival. Just because the statement of Divine purpose is no rival of any particular explanation given by natural history, so also it is no alternative or substitute for a good natural history explanation. It leaves natural history free, and with its work before it. If wo speak in tho terms of science, and if regard to tho past history of tho earth's surface and populations, we havo a case.of tho greatest strength when wo contend that natural selection gives, so far, very much tho most roasonablo account of the present distribution of organisms, of their adaptations, and especially of particular adaptations summed up under the words protective form and colour, and protective mimicry. ' • ■ T?io Doctrine of Design. The weight of difficulty or objection arising from natural selection falls upon tho religious doctrine of design, or providential guidance of tho world. Natural selecton seems'to deprecate,- or rob of its value, tho argument from design. Evolution seems to bo inconsistent with tho Christian statement that God mado the. world. It is very difficult to get any glimpse of theso difficulties as to«A iraac\\\V\ra. One Vas Vo exorcise strong historical imagination. As we havo seen" evojutiou cannot bo placed in opposition to theism. You cannot Iwliovo less m God because you think you have seen, or really havo seen,' somo few links-of ono of tho chains of process which Ho had brought' into boing. You might. as well refuse to believe in tho oxistcnca of the motor of an engine,; because you had caught sight of some, of the links of tho phain which carries tho driving power to axlo. You cannot contrive, by any ingenuity, a collision botween the doctrine of evolution and a belief in God as such. Bni you can botween tho doctrine of evolution and what people imagine tho Bible says, what people imagine the Church is committed to. I am tempted to say that the whole of the so-called Biblical difficulty about evolution aroso from tho fact that peoplo would not read their Bibles throueh. To us tho Bible; instead' of being a collection of sacred words intended to mako us wise, is a collection of problems interesting to resolvo for oneself, and amusing to puso one's neighbour with. Further, I wish to say in parting froni this question of tho Scriptures— I say it with complete conviction—it is not true that it was tho Christian, advocates who put forward tho narrow views of Scripture. Look at Puscy, for instance. There is ono great sermon, "Unscienco not Science Adverse to Faith"-(188/). If you-read this you will seo that from an early time, even before many naturalists accepted his view Pusey accopted tho viows of Darwin '

Who wore Responsible? . I ask you to take away this definite statement open to proof or disproof-viz., that it is not tho.caso that tho leaders of .Church thought wero responsible for this conflict winch arose becauso of the want of liberality and freedom and boldness in men's conception of the real-relations between tho phenomenal and tho spiritual. Who were responsible P In my belief, it was the religious naturalists, a bewildering kind of men. For whilo they attract us by.their simple, faith and ardent zeal, they often place us in strange positions by the method of their apologetic, lho typo of this person is Philip Henry Gosse, one of tho heroes of that scrango booi;, "Father and Son." His Hfo ffas written in a more serious spirit bv hi 3 son somo years after. If you want to know what a religious naturalist is like, you will find a picture of him there-I do not mean a naturalist who is a religious man, but a man who makes it his professional business to justify tho ways of God to man by the examination of the facts of natural history Iheso aro tho men who drew that narrow line of conflict. It is quito proper and rHit that a naturalist should find evidences of the beauty of God m the almost infinite beauty of tho adaptations ho studies. When ho watches tho exquisite unfolding of tho spiral form of a snail in slowly advancing types, dofLf fV" i that f< ? rm ono of th ° most t ,?, 3 f h °f harmomc progressions known to students of mathematics, naturally tho man is amazed by tho delicacy and oxquisite..oss of this hne of life which he pcrceivct But he is wrong ,f ho endeavours to rest tho case of tho Church upon what appeals to him. And. if when some other naturalist says, I can give, you a different account I or tho harmonic gradations between" the different whorls of tho snail's shell," ho flies into anger and says, "If that is once admitted, there is an end to the belief in God " he is quite wrong. ' No Conflict. For , " s > 3«st as there is no conflict on grounds of philosophic theism with the state, ment or evolution, so thoro is no conflict on grounds of dogmatic Christianity. To mako that which i» rehearsed to us in tho l'ourth Commandment the ground for religious despair when tho naturalist says that the succession of forms in time is a 'reality, that the animals we now see did not exist as such iu former periods, that tho ereatu-es wo now see aro undergoing changes which will mako them m timo to come different in their descendants, to say that this is in conflict with tho great spiritual command enforcing upon us labouring people tho duty of recurrent contemplation in accordance 'with tho fact that God is Himself unmoved, is surely to twist a prophecy and a spiritual command to strange uses. Tho troubles about the Bible would disappear, if people remembered that its statements are prophecies, inspired utterances, by men inflamed ] with tho Spirit of God, who utter out of tho Diyino.truth such things us may lend us on to its complete apprehension. I liey are not histories like tho ycnr-hook of some newspaper. Genesis is a DiVino son? in its earlier chapters, disclosing to us tho great net that the world is not eternal, but had a leginmngj that not only its existence but its lorm is duo to tho Divine wisdom and purwso; that its present constituents urn drawn by long process from something which wns more genoral- tliau any of them, called in the song "Tho Dust of the Earth"; that man, tiiough in his spiritual existence uniquo and separate, is, with regard to those material constituents, of ono stuff with tho rest; that that which differentiates him from them, while ho shares in somo measure their state, is nothing else than tho Spirit of tho Lord. As soon as a man attempts to see what Genesis really means, and must mean to him, ho cannot help admitting that it is child's play to attempt to bring it into collision with tho beginnings of a history of certain changes which liavo taken placo in the form of tho animal and vegetablo populations of the globe.