" THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO DARWIN." Does it Dony the Life After Death?"

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 249, 24 March 1888, Page 6

" THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO DARWIN." Does it Dony the Life After Death?"

Mit Ghast AllknV. second orticlo, in which he stutod that " the Gospel according to Darwin," although silent ns to immortality, yet " lends lititlo sanction to tho popular notion of a life after doath," has says the "Pall Mall Budget" elicited a groat deal of protesting correspondence. To some of our correspondents we must reply that wo cannot undertake to open our columns at present to a general discussion upon the evidence, instincts, and "-intimations " of immortality. Tho point wl.ich seems to legitimately arise fiom Mr Grant Allens paper is, how far ho was justified in reading a negative answer about a future life into his interpretation of tho Gospel according to Darwin. Upon this point wo give 'below a selection fiom the correspondence -which has reached us.

Darwin's "Rollof" to Christianity. In the first place, an Oxford coi respondent, writing 1 under the well-known signature " R S. T.," says :— May I point out that 'the conception of a Oo 1 over present with the visible order, and (if the word may bo ventured) immanent in it., is just as compatible with Darwinism as that ol a God who is only in tho background as a " prime motor and general spectator of tho Universe." In fact, the course of thought, in \\ hich Darwini.-m has been one main element, has gone far bo make this last conception (which Mr Allen rightly compares to that of the Epicureans) impossible. The unknown foitue which Mr Spencpf recognises is an unknown universal concomitant of all phenomena, and not merely an unknown ultimate originator. (This .is well dmwn out in Dr. George Mathesons admiral book, "Can the Old Faith li\e with tho New?") And such a concomitant has a striking resemblance lo a God "in whom we li\e and move and have our being," and " by whom all thintrs con.sist." This deprives Christians ot the suggested piospect of relief 'from the necessity of attributing to God tho "responsibility " for certain painful parts of the ct cation. But Mr Allen shows himself doubtful whether such a Belief would ha\ c a logical foundation ; and ue may be mote than doubtful whether the idea of a God partly responsible for creation would long survive. The " relief. '' which the Christian may obtain through Darwinism comes, I think, in another way. Darwinian accustoms ns to look at nature as a whole: it discredits the idea of taking the cleta-il^ o£ nature as units which you can describe or ufive an account of. singly. And of this whole, Daiwinism, t-o far as it • can judge, gives us an opinion. It judges it to be pervaded with rationality, albeit there are many paits ot it yet unexplained. And it judges it in like mannor (by Mr Darwin's mouth) to be a whole in which " happiness decidedly prevails,"' nu<i speak© of the "generally beneficent ar langement of tho world." It judges that the course of nature has been one of progress, and process in which each detail has been interwoven with the rest, and the lesult has been i cached through the details of which many takon alone aie painful. This is a "relief" to the Christian, or to anyone who, while he might think himscit able to pronounce upon a detail taken siugly — such, for example, as a cat's behaviour to a mouse— can easily recognise that he ha"? no power to fully judge the relations between a sy.«.tein which is as wide as the universe and the details which compose it. It is enough for his moral sense and reason if he can di-cern sufficiently the general i cluuacter and outcome of the whole.

Why Arrcs* Evolution at ttis Grave From another point of view a second roi respondent, Mi D. Chamier, of Bedford Park, objects to Mr Grant Allens inference that it is inconsistent, in its whole idea, with the premises from which it js inferred. Thus : — Just as the germ of life now in the human being has developed by stage' from a simple form - that is the gospel according to Darwin — so must it continue in its course of development after the human existence ceanes. Indeed, it is only logical to conclude that such a germ does not cease its development until tho limit of growth han been reached — until, in fact, it becomes Cosmos. That Cosmos must in its turn be assumed to be of compound nature and also in the course of development. But it is entirely at variance with his premises for Mr -Grant Allen to suddenly terminate the career of the geim in man with his death. Such a stoppage of development cannot be suggested l>y the constant growth ot the germ in its preceding stages. What would man's " relative position " be if the career of a germ which animates him ceases with him ? He would be the end ! The decease ot each human being would be accompanied by th» annulment of a germ which had (for how long ?) been struggling and labouring upwards, obeying the law which Darwin discov«red. Man would indeed be a finality, a goal, a " central fact in the universe " ! He would assume just that very position ot importance which Mr Allen modestly and properly declines to allow him. The only conclusion, the true logical endine to Mr Grant Allens narrative of the "Gospel according to Darwin " is a most emphatic argument in favour of the growth and development of the germ of life, after it has passed through, and left behind, the human body. And the very nature of tho theory prevents any limit of development being assigned.

▲ Flaw in "tho Gobdol According t° Don't Know," We have had the theological and the scientific objection ; now I«t us give a more metaphysical one. A clerical correspondent writes : — I do not deny that Darwin taught the evolution of man from lower forms, and knew the relative size of the earth, etc. But I call it pseudo-Darwinism to make unDarwinian inferences and employ physical facts to cheapen facts which are not physical. In a word, what has " size " or "scale "to do with the "significance" of man ? Anyhow, ho cannot bo as big as a mountain, but he is nevertheless greater than the sun and all the stars. It is his quality, not his quantity, that places him in the immensities ot the Universe. We suffer the old choat of the senses. Masses and forces takes us in — and people who study ODly masses and forces are apt to cheapen mind with matter. But the logical flaw is fatal. You can't compare mind with matter. The things are not in part matcria. You can't weigh one against the other, simply because one has got no weight or any other property of matter— you can't weigh a thought or take the cubic measure of a prayer or dissolve love in a crucible. You can do all that with mountains and stars, and even with man's body, not with his mind, and jusfc as the significance of the eolar system lies not in its materials,- which can be weighed, but in tho law and harmony of it — the co-ordinating something or the Divine Mind, which prevents it from becoming chnos and which cannot be weighed — so tho significance of man turns not on the size or quality of his body, but upon his mind. By that alone thi* " potty insignificant terrestrial species of ours " is greater than sun, moon, and stars. They feel not, know not, aspire not, worship not. The perceiver

transcends the perceived that perceives nob. Man perceives the material universe which perceives not man. He, perceives God who perceives him, ho afcph'es, he prays. He can do this bocause he is likeminded with God. The ,hou)ogoneity of mind— mind in the universo and mind in ni'in alone — rodeoms our *' petty species" from bho " insignifianee " which Mr Grant Allen seems to gloat over. Well, to be rodeemed lrom dnsignitianee and delivered from tho cheat of tho senses doos not prove our immortality. Very true, but it proves that the gospel according to M Don'tknown " is at present unlit to supersede the Synoptics, and that inferences from Darwin- which Darwin was careful not to draw--a»o insufficient to extinguish the hope that is full of immortality," (Wisdom of Sol. 111., 4), on which, depend upon it, the last word has not yet boen said.