Professor Scott, of Princeton, has recently given to the public in his Westbrook Lectures And again, when dealing with the palÆontological evidence in favour of evolution, he points out that Cuvier and Agassiz, examining it as it was known in their day, interpreted the facts as Yet, just as at the time that Darwin's views were first made public, many thought that they were subversive of Christianity, so, even now, some whose acquaintance with the problem and its history is of a superficial character, are inclined when they see the word creation, even with the qualifying adjective "special" prefixed to it, used in contradistinction to evolution, to imagine that the theory of creation, and of course of a Creator, must fall to the ground if evolution should be proved to be the true explanation of living things and their diversities. It is more than a little difficult for us, living at the present day, to understand this curious frame of mind; yet it certainly existed, and existed where it might least have been expected to exist. Nor is it quite extinct to-day, though it only lingers in the less instructed class of persons. The misconception arose from a confusion between the fact and the method of creation. As to the former, no Catholic, no Christian, no theist has any kind of doubt; indeed there are those who could not be classified under any of those categories who still would be prepared to admit that there must be a First Cause as the Being omnipotent, it is obvious that its Maker might have created the universe in any way which seemed good to Him—for example, all at once out of nothing just as it stands at this moment. Such a thing would not be impossible to Omnipotence; and, as we know, Fallopius, suddenly confronted by the problems of fossils in the sixteenth century, did suggest that they were There is nothing more sure than that the world was not created just as it is. Reason and Scripture both teach us that, and geology makes it quite clear that the appearance of living things upon the earth has been successive; that groups of living things, like the giant saurians, which were once the dominant zoological objects, had their day and have gone, as we may suppose, for ever. A few very lowly forms, like the lamp-shells, have persisted almost throughout the history of life on the earth, but on the whole the picture which we see is one of appearances, culminations, and disappearances of successive races of living things. There was a time when Trilobites, crustaceans whose nearest living representatives are the King-Crabs, first became features of the fauna of the earth. Then they increased to such an extent as to become the most prominent feature. Then they declined in importance, disappeared, and for uncounted ages have existed only as fossils. Thus we conclude that the creation of species was a progressive affair, just as the creation of individuals is a successive affair, for every living thing, coming as it does into existence by the power of the Creator, is His creation and in a very real sense a special creation. Now we know very well how living things come into existence to-day; can we form any idea as to how they originated in the beginning? Milton, in his crude description in Paradise Lost, pictured living things as gradually "The grassy clods now calved, now half appeared The tawny lion, pawing to get free His hinder parts, then springs as broke from bonds, And rampant shakes his brindled mane; the ounce, The libbard, and the tiger, as the mole Rising, the crumbled earth above them threw In hillocks: the swift stag from underground Bore up his branching head: scarce from his mould Behemoth, biggest born of earth, up heaved His vastness." In this description Milton probably represented the ideas of his day—a day penetrated with literal interpretation of the Scripture, though it is well to recall to our minds the fact that not one word or idea of the above is contained in the Bible. The only suggestion is that the body of Adam was fashioned from the "slime of the earth," the precise meaning of which phrase has never been defined by the Church. Again, we have to say that the Miltonic scheme is not impossible, any more than any other scheme is impossible, but we may further say that it is more than improbable, and with every reverence we may add that to us it does not seem to be specially consonant with the greatness and wisdom of God. There remains the derivative form of creation, compendiously styled evolution. That this also is a possible method of creation no one will deny, and it has been discussed as such by many of the greatest thinkers in the history of the Church. We can consider it, This is not the place to enter into any elaborate discussion as to the truth of the theory of evolution. Few will be found to deny the statement that it is a theory which does explain Nature as we see it and as we learn its history in the past, but that does not necessarily prove that it is true. St. Thomas Aquinas, dealing with the movements of the planets, makes a very important statement when he tells us, in so many words, that, though That evolution may occur within a class seems to be quite certain. The case of the Porto Santo rabbits, one of many cited by Darwin or brought to knowledge since his time, will make clear what is meant. Porto Santo is a small island, not far from Madeira, on which a Portuguese navigator, named Zarco, let loose, somewhere about the year 1420, a doe and a recently born litter of rabbits, which we may feel quite sure belonged to one of those domestic breeds which have all been derived from the wild rabbit of Europe known to zoologists as Lepus Cuniculus. The island was a favourable spot for the rabbits, for there do not appear to have been any carnivorous beasts or birds to harry them, nor were there other land mammals competing with them for food; and, as a result, we are told that they had so far increased and multiplied in forty years as to be described as "innumerable." In four and a half centuries these rabbits had become so different from any European rabbits that Haeckel described them as a species apart, and named it Lepus Huxlei. This rabbit is much smaller than the European form, being described as more like a large rat than a rabbit. Its colour is very different from its European Darwin remained to the end of his life undecided between the two views, for he allowed his original statement as to life having been breathed into one or more forms by the Creator, to pass from edition to edition of the Origin of Species. If the polyphyletic theory be adopted, it must be said that the position of the materialist is made far more difficult than it is at present. Let us see what it means. On the materialistic hypothesis, and the same may be said of the pantheistic or any other hypothesis not theistic in nature, a certain cell came by chance to acquire the attributes of life. From this descended plants and animals of all kinds in divergent series till the edifice was crowned by man. I have elsewhere endeavoured to point out all that is involved in this assumption, which, it must be confessed, is a very large mouthful to swallow. Let us now consider what the polyphyletic hypothesis involves. According to this view one cell accidentally developed the attributes of vegetable life; a further accident leads another The Divine plan might have embraced either method. It is not merely revelation but ordinary reason which shows us that the wonderful things which we know, not to speak of the far more wonderful things at which we can only guess, cannot possibly be explained on any other hypothesis than that of a Free First Cause—a Creator. FOOTNOTES: |