PROFESSOR STOKES, P.R.S., ON MODERN SCINTIFIC THOUGHT.

Dunstan Times, Issue 1086, 23 March 1883, Page 3

PROFESSOR STOKES, P.R.S., ON MODERN SCINTIFIC THOUGHT.

The announcement that Her Ma jesty the Queen had graciously sign!' Hed to the Victoria (Philosophical) 1 nstitute of London her consent to receive the volumes of its “Transactions,” gave additional *dat to a crowded meeting of its members, held on the loth of January at the Hall of Society of Arts. The Institute, founded to investigate all scientific questions, including anv said to militate against Religions Belief, announced that nearly 1,000 Home, Indian, Colonial, and American members had now joined. Dr Stok- s, F. R.S . Secretary and Fellow of the Royal Society, and Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University, read the paper of the evening In it he, as a scientific man, repudiated the idea, sometimes given expressions to, that the progress of science would disprove the truth of Revelation, adding that the progress of science constantly showed the reverse to be the case. The Book of Revelation and the Book of Nature, rightly understood, had never yet clashed. Truth was only iu danger from a want of knowledge, we often had evidence of that, and the progress of accurate scientific research and its full encouragement were therefore of the greatest value Professor Stokes then proceeded to review the hypothesis of Darwin, remarking “there may, I will not sav must, be nothing atheistic in the belief that great numbers of species were evolved under the operation of laws known or conceiveablo from some preceding condition of a simpler character ; in case,” he added, with marked emphasis, “we should find reasonable scientific evidence in favour of an affirmative answer;” but the entire tenor of his paper went to demonstrate that such evidence was not at present forthcoming. After showing from the principles of vision that “ useful ends are brought about by means.” he went on to argue,— “We should expect a priori that, as the wisdom of the designing mind must be immersurably above our own, so contrivance should as a rule extend far beyond what we can trace. We should expect, therefore, on purely theistic grounds, that the doctrine of evolution, assumed for trial, would bo a useful and ordinarily trustworthy guide in our scientific researches; that it might often enable us togo back one step and explain how such or such a result was brought by natural laws from such or such an anterior condition, and so might lead us to extend our knowledge of the operation of natural causes. But this is a very different thing from assuming it as an axiom, the application of which may be extended step by step indefinitely backwards.” As for Mr Darwin’s theory of “ancestral derivation and survival of the fittest,” Dr Stokes said it was one which “ from its nature can hardly, if at all, be made a subject of experimental investigation, or even of observation in the records of the past," and, therefore, must rest mainly on the estimate which may be formed of its own probability,” “ though doubtless,’ Professor Stokes added, ‘an underlying feeling that the phenomenon was in some way explicable . by natural causes has contributed not a little towards its propagation.” Still the most he could say on behalf of Darwinism was that it was “ highly ingenious as a hypothesis.” “ I think,” he added, “ a largo number of scientific men would admit that it is very far indeed from being admissible to the rank of a well established theory,” and though “ true possibly, as accounting for permanent or sunpermanent differences between allied forms, yet not conceivably bridging over the great gulf which separates remote forms of life” [those who have read Professor Nicholson’s University Text-book on Palaeontology will recognise this as his final opinion also. | Professor Stokes, referring to the question of the creation of man, said : —“ln tin* account of the creation it is distinctly stated that man was seperately created, ‘in the image of God,’ whatever that may imply. Nor is this a point in which, by a wide license of interpretation, we might say the language was merely figurative ; that we can afford to understand it so, for that Scripture was not given us to teach us science, Our whole ideas respecting the nature of sin and the character of God are, as it seems to me, profoundly affected according as we take the statement of Scripture straightforwardly, which imt'lies that man was created with special powers and privileges, and in a state of innocence from which he fell, or if we suppose that man came to be what he is by degrees, by a vast i number of infinitesimal variations from some lower anim d, accompanied 1 bv a correspondingly continuous vari- ; ation in his mental and moral condil tion. On this supposition, God was made to be responsible for his present ’ moral condition, which is but the ! natural outgrowth ot the mode of bis i creation. As regards the lower ari- * raals, little change would apparently . be made from a theological point of 1 view, if we. were to interpret as a i figurative tho language which seems * to assert a succession of creative acts, 1 But tho creation of man and his con- | dition at creation aio not confined to f the account given to Genesis. They i

are dwelt on at length, in connexion with the scheme of redemption bySt Paul, and are move briefly referred to by our Lord Himself in connexion with the institution of marriage," As against these statements “so express so closely bound up with man’s highest aspirations,” we have nothing more to adduce on the side of science, says Professor Stokes, ‘than a hypothesis of continous transmutation incapable of experimental investigation, and making such demands upon our imagination as to stagger at last the initiated.” A modified theory of Darwinism, as applied to the creation of man, was thus dealt with jr* “ Some have endeavoured to com bine the statements of Scripture with a modified hypothesis of continuous transmutation, by supposing that at acertain epoch in the world’s history mental and moral powers were conferred by divine interposition on some animal and had been gradually modified in its bodily structure by natural causes till it took the form of man. As special interposition and special creation are here recognised, I do not see that religion has anything to lose by the adoption of this hypothesis, but neither do I see that science has anything to gain. Once admit special divine interposition, and science has come to the end of her tether. Those who find the idea helpful can adopt it; but for my own part this combination •of the natural and the supernatural seems somewhat grotesque, and I prefer resting in the statement of a special creation.” A discussion ensued in which many Fellows of the Royal Society took part, including Sir J Risdon Bennett, vice-president of the Royal Society, Sir J. Fayrer, K.C.5.1., Professor Lionel Beale, Mr J. E. Howard, Dr John Rae, and others. Several applications to join the Institute were received.