The Old Riddle And The Newest Answer Part 1

The Old Riddle and the Newest Answer.

by John Gerard.

PREFACE

The enemies of Science are not the philistines alone--if any still remain--who would muzzle or stifle her. More numerous and dangerous are those--professedly of her own household--who ascribe to her pretensions of which she herself knows nothing, and strive to make her responsible for a philosophy entirely beyond her scope. With this object efforts are a.s.siduously made to popularize the idea that nothing in heaven or earth is beyond her ken, and that she has rendered all such beliefs impossible as alone can satisfy the deeper cravings of humanity. At the same time the very brilliance of her achievements is apt to dazzle our eyes, blinding them to the extremely narrow limits of the field in which she can operate, and making us rush to the conclusion that she has solved the riddle which from the beginning of time Nature has offered to every thinking mind,--or at least that what her search-light cannot illumine must for ever remain unknowable.

How far such a.s.sumptions are rational, it is the object of the present enquiry to examine by means of the evidence furnished by Science herself in her own regard.

I have to thank Mr. W. E. Darwin for permission to use the ill.u.s.tration of feathers of the Argus Pheasant from his ill.u.s.trious father's _Descent of Man_, and for the loan of blocks for the purpose. Through the courtesy of Messrs. Macmillan I am allowed to copy a portion of the plate in the late Professor Huxley's _Lectures on Evolution_, ill.u.s.trating his pedigree of the Horse. If I forbear to mention others who have kindly supplied me with information, it is only lest it might be supposed that they are anywise responsible for the use I have made of it. The design on the cover of the present volume I owe to my friend Mr.

Paul Woodroffe.

J. G.

_March_ 10, 1904.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

In this edition, which has been thoroughly revised throughout, a few corrections have had to be made, especially in the Index, and in one or two instances alterations or additions have appeared advisable for the sake of clearness or accuracy of expression. Nothing has, however, as yet been brought to the author's notice which affects any substantial point in what he has written.

_July_ 28, 1904.

I

TO BEGIN AT THE BEGINNING

That the world as we know it had a beginning is a truth which there is no denying. Not only have philosophers always argued that it must be so: the researches of physical science a.s.sure us that it has been so in fact. Astronomy, says Professor Huxley,[1] "leads us to contemplate phenomena the very nature of which demonstrates that they must have had a beginning." The hypothesis that phenomena of Nature similar to those exhibited by the present world have always existed, the same authority a.s.sures us,[2] "is absolutely incompatible with such evidence as we have, which is of so plain and so simple a character that it is impossible in any way to escape from the conclusions which it forces upon us." This conclusion, physicists tell us, is inevitable when we study the laws by which the operations of Nature are governed, and as Professor Balfour Stewart writes,[3] we thus become "absolutely certain"

that these operations cannot have existed for ever, and that a time will come when they must cease. In like manner, a recent and competent witness to the conclusions of contemporary Science, lays down,[4] as one of the truths which her latest discoveries compel us to accept, that the world is not eternal, that the earth is cooling from a state of heat rendering life impossible, to one of physical exhaustion equally fatal to it. Accordingly "Life must have had a beginning and must come to an end,"--and our whole Solar System (he adds) must similarly have had a commencement, at a period not infinitely remote.

But, if the world had a beginning, what was there before it began?

Something there must have been, and something which had the power of producing it. Had there ever been nothing, there could never have been anything, for, _Ex nihilo nihil fit_. That nothing should turn into something is an idea which the mind refuses to entertain. Nor is the case any better even if we suppose that matter had no beginning, that it has existed for ever as we know it now, and that at first there was nothing else. For if so, whence have all these things arisen which, according to all observation and experiment, matter cannot produce, as, organic life, sensitive life, consciousness, reason, moral goodness? Had matter been always what it now is, and had there been no source beyond matter whence the power of producing all these things could be derived, they could never have been produced at all, or else they would have come into being without a cause. It would be like a milestone growing into an apple-tree, or a mountain spontaneously giving birth to a mouse.

We are therefore compelled by common-sense to ask when we consider Nature, What is the force or power at the back of her, which first set her going, and whence she draws the capability of performing the operations which we find her performing every day; that force or power which must be the ultimate origin of everything that is in the world?

This is the great fundamental problem which the student of Nature has to face, and beside it all others fade into insignificance. It is with this that we are now engaged. We have to ask how our reason bids us answer it, and the first question which arises naturally is, What light is thrown on the subject by modern Science, of whose achievements we are all so justly proud?

II

REASON AND SCIENCE

In studying a question such as this, we must commence by being determined, on the one hand to accept nothing as true but what our reason warrants us in believing, and on the other hand to follow the guidance of reason as far as, rightly used, it will lead us. The principle formulated[5] by Professor Huxley, as the foundation-stone of what he termed "Agnosticism," is that which must needs be adopted, and as a matter of fact has ever been adopted, by rational men.

Positively--in matters of the intellect follow your reason as far as it will take you, without regard to any other consideration. And negatively--in matters of the intellect do not pretend that conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or demonstrable.

But to justify the confidence which we thus repose in it we must obviously be careful to use our reason aright, and not to attribute to it any conclusions which it does not really sanction. It is this right use of reason that is specially claimed for modern "Science,"[6] which, as we are again a.s.sured by Professor Huxley, is only another name for sound reasoning--"_Science_," he declares,[7] "_is, I believe, nothing but trained and organized common-sense_.[8] ... The man of science, in fact, simply uses with scrupulous exactness, the methods which we all, habitually and at every moment, use carelessly."

There can be no sort of question that so long as men of science really act thus, and confine themselves to the treatment of matters in regard of which they can claim special knowledge, common sense bids us listen to them with respect, and even with submission. But the same common sense requires that we should satisfy ourselves that they truly deserve the character a.s.signed them, and pretend to no knowledge on the score of Science but what their scientific methods are competent to acquire. When they step beyond this their own proper domain, whatever weight may be given to their opinions upon other grounds, they cease to speak in the name of Science.

What then, we must ask, is the province of Science, and what are her methods?

"Science," always understanding by the term physical or experimental Science, deals with the universe so far as it is known to us through our senses. The universe known thus we call "Nature," and the whole stock in trade of Science is the examination and verification of natural phenomena, with such inferences therefrom as ascertained facts legitimately suggest. From careful and trustworthy observation she can learn what are called the "Laws of Nature," that is to say the manner in which the various elements and forces of the universe are found constantly to act, in given circ.u.mstances; she can, to some extent, discover the chain of causes and effects, or more properly of conditions and consequences, through which natural operations are carried on. She can even construct hypotheses as to what she cannot directly observe, namely, the nature of substances and forces; and such hypotheses are justified in proportion as they are found to tally with facts. If constantly thus justified, they are styled theories, and come to be practically a.s.sumed as established truths. But it must ever be remembered that Science can take no step in advance which is not based on fact, and that when facts are not forthcoming for its support an hypothesis or a theory has no scientific value.

Bearing this in mind, we will proceed to enquire what Science has to tell us regarding the origin of the world, and the manner in which it has come to be what it is.

III

"EVOLUTION"

We are constantly a.s.sured that Science compels us to believe in "Evolution," and that in this doctrine is to be found the explanation of the universe whereof we are in quest. We must however in the first place make sure that we understand what "Evolution" means, and if we look into the question, it speedily appears that the term is very differently understood by those who use it.

Some who style themselves "Evolutionists" mean only that, as a matter of established fact, the organic world, the world of life, whether animal or vegetable, has been brought to its present condition by _genetic_ development of one species from another, in the natural course of descent and through the operation of natural laws; and that as we see plants and animals of the same kind propagated one from another at the present day, so in the course of long ages the lower and simpler forms of life have given birth to the higher and more complex.

Others again do not limit this process to organic creatures, and believe that from first to last, the whole world, inorganic and organic alike, has resulted from the action of forces such as those with which Science deals; and that life has thus arisen in purely natural course out of non-living matter, the universe in its original condition having been const.i.tuted as a vast machine which was bound to produce all that has since arisen.

In either of the above senses--of which the second obviously includes the first,--"Evolution" is understood as no more than a _process_ which is said to have occurred. But there is a more extreme school which takes "Evolution" for much more, namely for a power, principle, or "law,"

which both governs and accounts for everything, and requires no further cause beyond itself.

If this paramount "Law of Evolution" can be established, there is clearly an end of our enquiry, for here is the ultimate explanation of everything which we are seeking. But what has Science to say concerning it?

IV

"THE LAW OF EVOLUTION"

That there is a self-existing and self-sufficing "Law of Evolution" to which everything in the world must be ascribed, is the doctrine of those Evolutionists who are most active in propagating their creed and who most loudly proclaim that it alone is scientific. The great leader and prophet of this school, Professor Ernst Haeckel, a.s.sures us[9] that he gives expression,

to that rational view of the world which is being forced upon us with such logical rigour by the modern advancements in our knowledge of nature as a unity, a view in reality held by almost all unprejudiced and thinking men of science, although but few have the courage (or the need) to declare it openly.