The Evening Star. THURSDAY, MAY 23, 1876.

Evening Star, Issue 4132, 25 May 1876, Page 2

The Evening Star. THURSDAY, MAY 23, 1876.

The controversy on Evolution, Materialism, and cognate subjects which has lately been raging in the columns of the most ancient and versatile of our local morning contemporaries has been more amusing than instructive ; and the conductors of a certain periodical, who are threatened with its continuance under their special patronage, can hardly fail to entertain lively fears lest the threat should be carried out. Of the principal disputants, Captain Hutton seems to have had the best of the controversy, so far as it has gone. When a man argues, as Professor S almond has done, because almost all Materialists are EvoluZionists, therefore Evolutionists are necessarily Materialists, it is obvious that, however great his mental attainments may be in other respects, his logical faculties will yet stand a considerable amount of cultivation. That, however, does not prove Professor Salmond to be wrong and his opponent right, since the fault may be with the advocate and not with the cause. The fact is, Evolution is far too large a subject to be dealt with in a newspaper discussion. Danwin and other advocates of Organic Evolution have found it necessary to publish whole books in support of their views; while their leading adversaries have replied in just as voluminous a manner. Evolution has, moreover, been carried into the fields of metaphysics, and there are not wanting doctrinaires , even in New Zealand, who would gladly apply its theories to the administration of public affairs and, manufacturing a political machine of the latest fashion in Evolutionist circles, strive to create a constitution marvellously unlike anything that ever existed before, and which, as soon as it began to work, would probably evolve a hurricane of public indignation strong enough to drive the Evolutionists and their publications into the regions of Laputa. Then, as was properly remarked by our friend Mr Stout, who insinuated himself into the wordy conflict in an unusual spirit of meekness and zeal for the cause of orthodoxy, the theories of Evolution have a direct bearing upon the doctrines of Christianity. That is to say, Evolution, in its latest shape, has such a bearing; Darwinism, in its original form, had not. Whetheranimated beings were created by one act performed at a remote period of time, and developing its consequences by gradual steps, or by numerous acts, each complete in itself, done at intervals, cannot affect either the fundamental doctrine of the existence of a Deity or the manifestations of God to man. It would, doubtless, affect the chronology of the Bible, but that, interesting enough in itself, is not a matter of vital importance. When, however, Evolution comes to be applied to mental and psychical operations, it touches man’s life at the core, and challenges all his actions, hopes, and beliefs.

Yet the steadiest believer in Christianity need not be alarmed. Darwinism, although accepted by numerous scientific men, is as yet an unproved theory. It is the fashion to accept it, that is all ; and even should future researches prove natural selection to be as certain a physical law as gravitation, it would not, as already observed, shake the truth of the Christian doctrines in the slightest degree; although it would doubtless, as indeed it has already done, materially change our conceptions of the mode of nature’s working. Almost every great scientific discovery has excited strenuous opposition in religious minds at first. Geology has had literally to fight its way through such opposition. Any person who will take up geological works written five and twenty years ago, and compare them with religious treatises published at about the same period, will see how hard even able and highly educated men found it to believe facts which are now patent to everybody, and how fearful they were of those facts clashing with Divine revelation ; as if it were possible that they could do so! People long felt a difficulty in believing that the fossils dug up from beneath the earth’s surface were the remains of animated creatures, and that was succeeded by the notion that these creatures must all have lived between the days of Adam and the flood; while geologists who thought otherwise were branded as infidels. Such.narrow ideas have now vanished, and educated persons accept these geological discoveries as matters of fact, just as they do the existence of living animals, and seek to harmonise them with revelation, beirg fully conunced that there can be i.o

real discordanc"* hotwren *T’e twr • a.liiuUgli science, while on its road to ultimate truth, may occasionally find the outlines of tbo promised land obscured with mist of its own creation. With regaul to Evolution, ns applied to mental j .-veches, hj is hut a moo ulitory, standing on the same footing a* jt-her philosophical theories wince Jiuvo abounded in all aa’es <if t■;o world, ;vid it is deserving of no more respect. There never yet was a cultivated society which did not contain its coterie of philosophers, who patronised religion as fit for common folks, but counted themselves above such puerilities. These gentlemen may have been right—the mental Evolutionists may be right; but hitherto their doctrines have smelt of the closet, and have proved inapplicable to the wants and wishes of men battling with the sad realities of life. Man is a machine, but he is a good deal more, and is not to be wound up like a clock, or satisfied with the dry husks of a cold philosophy, unable of itself to produce anything great, or good, or noble. Besides, in the present instance, while the full-blown Evolutionist asks his fellow-men to cast away all their ancient and consoling beliefs, he proffers naught in exchange ; nor can he even agree with his brother Evolutionist where the domain of their philosophy begins and where it ends.