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· CHAPTER III
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· DECADENCE OF
DARWINISM
Y REV, H ENRY H. BEACH,
GRAND JUNCTION,
COLORADO
•
( Copyright, 1912, by
He11ry
H. Beach,)
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This paper is not a disct1ssion
of
variations tying
withi 11
. the boundaries of
heredity ;
nor do we remember tl1at tl1e
Hebrew and
Greek Scriptures reveal
anything
on
that
sub-
ject; nor do we thinlc that it can be rationally discussed unti1
species and genus a.re defined. .
· Failure to condition spontaneous generation by sterilized
l1ay tea,, and a chronic inability to discover the missing link
have shaken the popularity of Darwinism.
Will
it recover?
Or
is
it
f
a:lling
into a
fixed condition of innocuous d.esuetude?
•
As a purely academic qt1est ion, who cares whether a
protoplastic cell, o,r an a1noeba, or a11 ascidian larva, was
his primordial progenitor? It does not grip us~ It is doubtful
. whether any purely academic question ever grips anybody.
But
the issue
between Darwinistn
and mankind is 11ot a
•
purely academic qttestion. ·
Half his life
1
Cl1a1·le Darwin was af rai
1
d of t.he re·p1·01cl1es
of Christia11s.,
I ·t \\1as something like t·he fear felt by anotl1er
Charles, of the reproacI1es of the Huguenots were he to
1
1
ons1nt
to
the assassination o,f
Coligny.
He
ref
1
ers
to it in
tl1e Introdu ,ction to the Descent of Man :
During
many
years I collected notes
on
the
origin ancl
descent of man,
wit ·hout
any intention
of
publislting
011
the
subject, but rather
with
the determination not to
publish ;
as I ·
thought
that
I should
thus
add to the
prejudice s
against
my· views~ ·
At the end of the book he says : I am a ware that the l
I
conclusion ..
arrived
at in this worl{ wi]I be
denominated
by
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Decadence o f
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Some as highly irreligious ; bui he ,vho denounces them is
bo4nd to show why
it
is 1nore irreligious
to explain
the
origin of man as a distinct speci,es
by
descent fro1n some
lowly
form
througl1
the Jaws of variation
and
nat11ral
selec
tion, than to explain the birth of the individual thiough the
laws of ·ordinary reproduction.
He confessed his fear by protesting his innocence: ''I
hal'e done
notl1ing· only
explained . a choice between two
theories of
bringing
man into the world''. This way of
puttii:ig
it is .characteristic. I-le
often
refers t,o traversing the doctrine
of successive creations, as, the sum of his
offending.
rfhe
Prestidigitator calls special attention to one hand while be
works the trick with the ,
othe·r.
His apprehensions were
•
not altogeth
er groundless.
Pr
1
ofessor Haeckel was braver,
or,
mo·re
rash,
,vhen
lie
styl
ed
the
''Descent of Man'' as
''anti-Genesis'';
,vith
equal
truth and moderation he might have added,
anti-John,
anti
Hebrews and anti-Christ. The point to pierce the busi~e
and bosoms of men is a denial of the integrity and reliability
of tl1e
Word
of
God. We cannot depend on
the
Bible
to
show us ''how to go · to heaven'' if
it
misleads us as to ''how
tl1e heavens go'' regarding the origin, nature, . descent and
destiny of brutes and men, Darwinists
have
been
diggi11g
at
the foundations of society
and
souls ; and their powers
of ·
endurance are a
matter
of some mom
ent.
We venture to differentiate life and if we ,go too fat· a1·e
sure to be corrected : ·
l.
Vegetable life is
the
su1n of the forces which pervade
2. Brute life is the st.1m of the forces which pervade
conscious an,d thinks.
3. Huma ,n life is the u n o·f the f,orces whi,cl1 perva(le
tonscious,
thinks
and
is religious.
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The Fu idamentals
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It is logical to assu1ne, until disp .roved, that these three
kinds of life t.ouch ea
1
ch otl1er, but n,ever merge. They · as ··
sociate as intimately as air and light, but are as ·far from
passing ·
fro1m
plants to brutes and from brutes to
men
as
i 'rom no
1
.-·being to being. ''By f1itl1 we
u11derstan,d
the age,s
to be set in order by the saying of God, in regard to the
. things ,
seen
n,ot
haying come out .
o,f
the 'things manif 'es
1
t''
(Heb. 11 :3). ·
. He who would
overtl1row Biblical
Christianity
e,xpect ,s
to t.ake the initiative. H
1
e· recognizes . that
there
is al,vays a
p~esutnption in favor of an existing institution; and has
always , been ,swift
t
1
0 open the battle,
. Professor
I-Iuxley,
in his article
on
1
evolution,
in the ninth
edition of th
1
e Britannica, has ably brou ,ght together th ie argu
ments for Darwinis1n; and we will foll ·ow his order.
GROWTI-I
•
Given a nucleated cell, and Darwinists have watcl1ed
the
•
process of generation from its beginning to birth, ''with the
best optical instruments' ·,. There have bee11 two theories.
The first theory is that
nothi 11g
new is, p1·oduced i11 the living
world; the
germs
f
ronri which
all
or·ganis1ns
have
developed
l1ave contained in miniatu1·e, and passed ort do,vn through
success i·ve generati .0
1
ns, a]l the e.ssenti .al organs of adults. To
get anything out of anything it mu st first be in it. This
is archaic. The ,second tl1eory is that evolution i,s progressive;
it results from so111etl1i11gn11ate in tl1ings, dynamic and pan
theistic. This
is
up to date.
All tha't
the
Dar ,wit1ists,
''witl,
th~ be.st
opt .ical
i11str11
1nents' ', have actually seen is g1·owth; b11t they have inf erred
a whole pantheon. Na.tural selectio n is tl1e s,upreme demiurge ;
•
exual selectio ,n an
1
d vari ,atio11 are su·bordinates. A 'billion
years ago there was
a
God, but He
immediately
disappeared.
I ·t wa,s 'Oe,c,essary to
1
l1ave Him then, to b,r·idge the g11lf be- 1
t,veen nothing and
something. Having
discovered growth,
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Dec adence of Darwinism
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they called
it
evolution,
thinking
perhaps the
naa.1e might
prove ·useful, but we t·1~st not t ,o be b,lame
1
d for pref
1
erring
gro~th, for evolution is something of
a
harlequin, having
turned a complete
somersault
within a, hundred
y,ears ,
w hi]e
g1·owth. is univ ,ersally ac,l
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The
Fitnda1ne1itals
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an
1
d
1
0n brutes . consciousne~s and thought, a11d on all of us
that which preserve ,s out·
bodies
from deca.y and
causes
them
•
to gro-w:,it seems natural that, in tl1e holy of
holies
of
His
laboratory, He has constructed us with similar characte ·rs,
tt·anscie11tor
p,errnan ,ent. ·
But
the very
nomenclatut
1
e of evolution h.as
bee·n.
seduced
and C0
1
rrt1pted. Rever ·sion and
1
ru
1
diment must be
laid
a.w.ay
with phlogiston and caloric .. Tl1ere are no retreatin .gs
. or abortions in the D
1
ivine
eco11omy,
but God adjusts every
feature · to present and future conditions, ·and causes all to
march regu larly forward in the grand procession of
e·t·ernal
•
progr ·ess. .
But wh)i, it may he asked, are so
many
creatures b,tiilt on
the same plan
las,
for instance,
vertebrates?
The answer is
axio1natic.
The whole creation
is
divided into
vertebrata
•
and
invertebrata
becattse there 1nust in the nature of things,
be at
leas.t tWo
classes ; ,or boundless monotony or an eternal
•
1011eliness. But wl1y s,o ma11y
v,er tebrates?
Bec.ause t l1er
1
e
caln be but 0
1
ne
best
of a clas.s .and vertebr .ates are h
1
est. The
number redounds to the glory _of God, not the glory of evolu
tion~ This is kind
1
ergarten inst1--uction, but some seem to
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1ntSS Jt.
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· But we st1bmi t a b·roade1· ·generalization. The whole
univers
1
e bears a
fa·mily
re seinb,lance. It is tl1e warm touch
of the M~ ·er,, and. His i1niver sal style.. Li,ght is truth, and
darkne ,ss is error. I-Ioli11essis pu1·itJ ,
and
sin is dirt . Phys•
icaJ birtl1 and g1·owth,
decay
and deatl1, typif y sp,i1·itual birth
and growth, decay and
1
death.
T,vo pictures hang side b
1
y
si
1
cle.
1
The
subjects
1
diff,er greatly
and
they differ ·in
size. Ffl1e
larger is
th
1
e
Dom ,es of th,e
Y
1
osemit
1
e
and . the
sma.1Ier Sun set
in.
California .
But
they
see.in strangely
alike.
The smaller must have
evolved
from
the larger.
So,me
Mahatma, an adept of
·the
Himalayas,
a·bte
to do
the
plant
trick t
has done
it.
No
The
san1e artist
pai ,nted
both. . ·
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Decade ice of DatAwinism
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Nature ''s limit 'less netw ork of types and.
s,ymbols
and
resem blances is wondro us 1y beauti f ttl. It wakens the spi1it
of poe.tiy in the soul, but an
abse11t-m1nded
dreamer has gazed
and forgotten himself ., and is lost in a labyrinth of vagaries.
Darwinists have been turning the world over searching for
•
a co,mm,on fatherhood, b·ut th iey have found a 1ommo·n maker-
l1ood. An
Italian a
Dr. Barrago gave his book the title,
''Man, made : in the imag ·e of God, was also made in the
'
image of
an
ape'', and Mr. Darwin refers to it without dis-
approval, and the
bla sphem y
is
logical.
Darwinism degrades
· God and man. ,
RUDIMEN ·Ts
•
The Darwinian notion of rudime11ts is that they are
abortive reversions to ancestral types. erever one oi the
cult has heard of anything nearly or rem
1
otely
Ii.ke
rudiments,
or insta nce, Stanley Hall on rhythm , beati ng waves, ancestraJ
fish and dancing particul ar ly outside the bounds of heredity,
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it
h.as
been grist
for
their mill. And yet they ha.rdly know '
Whe1e to · put the se st1·uctur es. If they claim
that ·
they are
absolt1teJy
useless
they
p
1
lace ·them ot1ts,ide the sce>peof natural
selection; and
if,
on
tl1e
other hand, they admit that they
se1ve
so1ne purpose ·
they admit
t11at
God may l1ave
1nade
t'hen,. Hux-
ley f
e]t the difficulty when he confessed ·
''It is almos t impossible to prove that
any
strttcture,
110,v
lever rudiment .ary,. is useless ; that _s. to say, that it plays no
part what ,ever in the economy; a11d if it is in the sli,ghtest
degree useful there is no rea son why, on the hypothesis of
direct creation, it should not have been. created.'' (Britan-
nica, Art. on E volution.) ·
May we add ·th ·at if Mr.
I-Iuxley
an ,d
Mr. Darwin
and I
and ·you have £ailed to discover the use of anytl1ing, ''there
is no ·reason why it should not have been
created''?
We
- remember that 'We have not even defined life; that the most
that
we
can do is to distinguish ome of
it~
forces;
that
we
,
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42
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know as little of its essence as of that of .matter. We may
as well be, modest .
Accepting
then the
dictum of
Professor Huxley
tl1a11
whom n,o one has ever been better qualified that it is almost
imposs,ible, to prov ,e the useless11ess of rudiments, we p,ass
the subject with the remarl< that, like lilcenesses, they are
a signet of the Almighty an
1
d a badge of His creatures
-not
ne,cessari],y of kinship, but of remoter 1·el1t io
1
ns. Tirie r e a,re
some
men
who
need
the
evidence of their
own
rudimentary
mammae to prove to them
that
they
belong to
the same race
wi th their
Wives
,a·n
1
d sl10
t1ld
,enclure
th
1
e s,ame
hardship s
and
do a little more work,
SELE CTIONS
•
Sexual selection, as the nan1,e
implie ,s,
is concerned witl1
pairing and reproduct ·ion;
bt1t
the Darwinian end in view,
like that of natural selecti ,on, is evolution. But
sexual
S
1
elec
tion fails to
1
discrimin .ate,
an,d
turn ,s out
degene-rat ,ion.
Fe1·al
and
unrege ,nerate
sexua l selec,tio,n is 1no1·e lust than love.
From hares to elephants wild tl1ings are blinded by jealoltsy
and ,cr ,azed by heat. Lil
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parts
preserved. N
atu ,ral death is th
1
e means o:f cl.es,truction;
· and generation, of
preservation, The favorable
alw,ays
· prove the stronger,
tl1e injurious
th
1
e
weaker ,.
Alth ,ough
sweetest
graces
and most resplendent virtues of
the
highest
type of · man
ar·e product ,s of natur ,al
S
ele·ction,
the,y a re
co·n-
ditioned promiscuously on l{illing the other fellow
and
pro -
•
1
creating
o,ne s
kin.cl.
The :killing
is ,done by acts of·
Goid ,
as express
companies
phr .ase
it, and
by hatred, envy, anger,
avarice, .sel.fishness, In the strugg ·e
for , e:xistence the ,
s·tronger
gloat over
the
s.lain while
poverty
of
spirit, meekness,
mercy
and
peace
1
die, unhonored a11dunsung.
B;y
these means
every
kind of organic being will eventually
gain
the
summit
of
finitud
1
e. It js imm
1
oral.
Professor Huxley make s a notable concession to truth and
s,anity when he says :
It
1s quite conceivable that every species tends to pr0r
duce
varieties of a limited nt1mber
,and
kind,
and
th,at
th·e
effect of natural selection is
t.o fav .or the
development of
so1ne
o~ th,ese,
while
·it op
1
po ses
the
·developm:ent
of
1
others
· along their
predetermined
lines
,of
modification. (Britan
njca.
Evolt
1
etion.
Taking
the
P1.
f ess
1
or s
la11guage
as ac-
. curate, he surrenders natt1ral selec·tion.
We
were
tau .ght
t l1at, it
wasl
as
·rcliabl
1
,as
gravitation, but if
we get
the
notion
that some species improve, some
are stationary
and some
deterior .ate, a,greeably with
heredity
and
env·i1·onm
1
ent,
we
have no further use for
it. To
sum up tl1e
case
for natural
•
selection:
( 1) It is, poor n1orals. A theory of· nature must be
id·eal
t
1
0
be
t1,.ue.
Natural
s
1
el
1
ection
is a
s,cheme
for the sur,.
•
vival of
the p,assionate and
the
violent, the destruction of
the
weak and
defe·11sel.es.s.,
To be true, b
1
lack
must
be white, and
¥.rrong must be right, and God an I van the
terrible ..
(2) l t,s as sumptions ar ,e f a lse,. It is fa1s
1
e
t·t1at
unlimited
attenuation of
the
steps
of
the
process,
and unlimited ·time for
the acco·mplishm ,en·t
of
it, assure , us tha ·t it
might hav ,e
been
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·Po
sible. ''Attenuation'' and ''t ime ' iVouldhave been but con-
•
ditions, not causes. They could prove 11othing.
It
is false
that in
tl1e struggle
for
existence the ''fittest''
survive.
The
''fittest'' is
an
ambigt.1ousword.
With
natural
selection it means
the
strongest and best armed.
They
do
not surv ive ; they degenerate and expire.
They
who bear.
arrns challenge attack. This providence may be penal or car-
r,ective.
It
is
false
that
man is
derived from
a
brute
and a br ute
from a vegetable. One of the forces
of
human life makes
for .
a recognition of God
arid
a consciousness ' of sin against
liim. This was not unfolded fro1n anthrol)oid apes, for
it
•
is
not in them. Brutes
are
distinguished from plants
by
self-consCiousness, and this was not developed ·from · plants,
for
it
is not in them.
•
(3) Natural selection is self~contradictory and impo s-
sible. Fifty years ago, Alfred Russel Wallace devised the
Scheme and wrote Charle s Darwin about it. Mr.
Datwin
PUblisl1ed
the plan. He afterwards refers
to
Mr • .Wallace
as having ''an innate genius for s.olvi11gdifficulties'' . . · (E>es--......
cent, p. 344.) rfwo years ago Mr. Wallace, in an address
at
tl1e
Dar\vin anniversary, before tl1e Royal Institution in
Lo11don, ref
erring
to
Professor
Haeckel
said :
. ''These unavailing efforts seem to lead us to the irr~sist
ible
conclusio11
that beyond and above all terrestrial agencies,
~ere is some great source of energy and guidance, which
1
n unknown ways pervades every form of organized life,
and
Which
,,re
ourselves are the ulti.mate and for,eordained out-
con1e''. ·
l
1
Tl1us an author of
the theo1·y, hin1self , a,dn1its
the
cont1·a
diction of claiming a
''selection', and denying
a selector.
n ,ISTRIBUTION
•
. The Darwinists assutne that because certain creatures live
tlwn limited areas, like the loth in South Amer.ica
ancl
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48
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ing ir1 a grandson is as credible as reversion under
Similar
· conditions. Backing up
is
hardly
in harmony
with the
twen-
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ti,eth
century. · ·
Tl1e
teaching
of
Darwinism, as
an approved science,
to
the
cl1ildren
and youth of the
schools
of the world is the
most deplorable feature of the whole
wretched
propaganda.
It
would
be difficult
to
fix
the
re sponsi bility of it.
D3.rwin
himself hesitated. Virchow · trie
1
d, nobly,
to
protect tl1e
primary schools of Germany. The burden of his lecture at
Munich is througho
1
ut a
caut .ion
against
eva ,ding
the
di stinc
tion between the
problematical and
the
proven ;
they
a1·e not
on the
same ·evid ,ential level.
H
1
e
woul.
d
tea,cht , he
said,
· evolution,
if it were only proven;
·it
is, as,
yet·, in the hypo-
thetical stage;
the audience ought to be . warned that
the
speculative is
only
the
possible,
no,t
actual
truth; that
it be
longs
to the region
of
belief, and riot
to
that
of
demonstration.
As long as a problem continues in the speculative stage,
it
·Would be mi.schievous t
1
0 teach it i11 ou·r school.s.
We o·ttgl1t
not to
represent our
conjecture as a
certainty, nor our hypo
thesis as
a
doctrine. I-Iaeclcel, al,vays rash,
a.dvocated,
it.
As
tl1e;y
struggled, somebody lighted the fire ·. It was like
the burning
of
the temple at Jerusalem.
Titus ·
had is..uecl
an order to spare it, but a Roman
s,oldier ·
threw a .blazing
torch into a small window and tl1e w·hoie structure \Vas in
flames. It
was like the revenge
of the Pied Piper;of Hamlin
Town. It was Racl11elweeping for he1·
childrent and she
1
wo11ld
not
be comfo
1
rted,
because
they were not .
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