Read Ebook: The Old Riddle and the Newest Answer by Gerard John

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"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 circumstances; 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 assumed 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.

"EVOLUTION"

We are constantly assured 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.

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 constituted as a vast machine which was bound to produce all that has since arisen.

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?

"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, assures us 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 to declare it openly.

The plain and rational conclusion thus exhibited is, he tells us, the special glory of modern research.

It is true that there were philosophers who spoke of the evolution of things a thousand years ago; but the recognition that such a law dominates the entire universe, and that the world is nothing else than an eternal "evolution of substance," is a fruit of the nineteenth century.

So far as concerns the world which we actually inhabit, its first beginning, we must, he tells us, suppose to have been a vast nebula of infinitely attenuated and light material, rotating upon its own axis.

Given this first beginning of the cosmogonic movement, it is easy, on mathematical principles, to deduce and mathematically establish the further phenomena of the foundation of the cosmic bodies, the separation of the planets, and so forth.

Nor are we to suppose that the beginning of this particular process was in any true sense a beginning at all. Evolutionary philosophy such as Professor Haeckel's, necessarily teaches that beginnings and endings succeed one another everlastingly, one world-system arising phoenix-like from the ashes of another.

The nebular hypothesis above described has recently been strongly confirmed and enlarged by the theory that this cosmogonic process did not simply take place once, but is periodically repeated. While new cosmic bodies arise and develop, out of rotating masses of nebula in some parts of the universe, in other parts old, extinct, frigid suns come into collision, and are once more reduced by the heat generated to the condition of nebulae.

It appears, in fact, to be assumed that this cyclic process has been actually demonstrated, for we are told that astronomy reveals, in the endless depths of space, "Millions of circling spheres, larger than our earth, and, like it, in an eternal rhythm of life and death."

Moreover, "life" is here to be understood literally, for it is a cardinal article of such evolutionary belief that equally with the foundation of cosmic bodies and the separation of planets, the production of organic life, of plants and animals, has been wrought by forces which the material universe contains within itself, and accordingly,

We now definitely know that the organic world on our earth has been continuously developed "in accordance with eternal iron laws." ... An unbroken series of natural events, following an orderly course of evolution according to fixed laws, now leads the reflecting human spirit through long aeons from a primeval chaos to the present order of the cosmos.

Finally, at the back of all these processes, we are to recognize the one ultimate reality, the universe itself, which originates and undergoes all these evolutions. In its regard Professor Haeckel tells us that,

The universe, or cosmos, is eternal, infinite, and illimitable. Its substance, with its two attributes fills infinite space and is in eternal motion. This motion runs on through infinite time as an unbroken development, with a periodic change from life to death, from evolution to devolution....

And again:

The two fundamental forms of substances, ponderable matter and ether, are not dead and moved only by extrinsic force, but they are endowed also with sensation and will ; they experience an inclination for condensation, a dislike of strain; they strive after the one and struggle against the other.

Moreover,

Movement is as innate and original a property of substances as is sensation.

Such is the raw material whose metamorphoses produce, or rather constitute, all possible worlds, while paramount over every thing dominates the "Law of Substance," under which title Professor Haeckel unites the scientific principles of the indestructibility of matter, and the conservation of energy. Thus is the conclusion reached,

Towering above all the achievements and discoveries of the century we have the great comprehensive "law of substance," the fundamental law of the constancy of matter and force. The fact that substance is everywhere subject to eternal movement and transformation gives it the character also of the universal law of evolution. As this supreme law has been firmly established and all others are subordinate to it, we arrive at a conviction of the universal unity of nature and the eternal validity of its laws.

Accordingly we are to conclude with Goethe that all proceeds by iron law to the fulfilling of inevitable destiny; or as an ardent disciple proclaims, who undertakes to expound the new creed to the people,

We rest in sure and certain hope that no force and no combination of forces can stop the process of Evolution, which from a speck of jelly has developed such living forms as Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer, and which has produced the beauty of the earth and the heavens from formless ether.

This outline of the Evolutionary system in its widest and fullest sense will enable us to judge upon what grounds it can claim the sanction of Science. Various points here present themselves for consideration, which demand separate treatment.

WHAT IS A "LAW OF NATURE"?

As we have seen, the doctrine of Evolution is presented by its advocates as being based upon the existence of a "Law of Evolution," or "Law of Substance," which both brings about evolutionary processes, and certifies us of their occurrence, so that we may appeal to it as an authority for our belief in the facts of evolution themselves. Thus as Professor Milnes Marshall told the British Association,

The doctrine of descent, or of evolution, teaches us that as individual animals arise, not spontaneously, but by direct descent from pre-existing animals, so also is it with species, with families, and with larger groups of animals, and so also has it been for all time.

It is not said, be it observed, that the establishment of such facts teaches us the doctrine of evolution, but that the doctrine assures us of the facts; and the utterances constantly met with, of which the above is a fair sample, have no signification if they do not mean this. In the same way Professor Haeckel declares that his fundamental cosmic law "establishes" the eternal persistence of matter and force, and their unvarying constancy throughout the entire universe, becoming thus "the pole-star that guides our Philosophy through the mighty labyrinth to a solution of the world problem," and the key to this supreme problem, he further tells us, is found in one magic word--Evolution.

It would certainly appear from all this, that by "Evolution" we are to understand some sort of entity at the back of the world, with power at its disposal capable of effecting all its operations,--something in fact remarkably like the First Cause of which we are in search,--and that by its "Laws" are signified some definite forces, the practical action of which has been ascertained by us, so that we can foretell the course of events under them, as we can that of the planets or the tides under the influence of gravitation.

But is it scientific, or even intelligible, to use words thus, and to assign any such significance to such terms as "Law of Evolution," "Law of Substance," or any other "Law of Nature"? We are repeatedly warned to the contrary by so high an authority as Professor Huxley. Once, for instance, he discovered in a sermon of Canon Liddon's this "fallacious employment of the name of a scientific conception," for which it was however added, the preacher "could find only too many scientific precedents." This fallacious use of terms, which nowise differs from that under consideration, Professor Huxley thus denounces:

It is the use of the word "law" as if it denoted a thing--as if a "law of nature," as science understands it, were a being endowed with certain powers, in virtue of which the phenomena expressed by that law are brought about.... All I wish to remark is that such a conception of the nature of "laws" has nothing to do with modern science.... A law of nature, in the scientific sense, is the product of a mental operation upon the facts of nature which come under our observation, and has no more existence outside the mind than colour has. The law of gravitation is a statement of the manner in which experience shows that bodies, which are free to move, do, in fact, move towards one another.... The tenacity of the wonderful fallacy that the laws of nature are agents, instead of being, as they really are, a mere record of experience, upon which we base our interpretations of that which does happen, and our anticipation of that which will happen, is an interesting psychological fact: and would be unintelligible if the tendency of the human mind towards realism were less strong.

A law, accordingly, "is not a cause but a fact," and we must learn laws from facts, not facts from laws. It is indeed evident on a moment's thought, that to speak of the Law of Evolution as causing things to be evolved, is like saying that the law of growth makes things grow. Till we know what happens, there is nothing of which Science can take account.

In like manner Professor Huxley, undertaking to vindicate full scientific value for his own favourite Biology, does so by pointing out that biological methods are similar to those of every other branch of Science, since they begin with the observation of facts, and from this proceed to various applications of the knowledge so acquired. And Professor Haeckel himself tells us regarding his own mode of procedure:

The means and methods we have chosen for attaining the solution of the great enigma do not differ, on the whole, from those of all purely scientific investigation: firstly, experience; secondly, inference.

Therefore, although the phrases we have already heard from him, are found when scrutinized to be only phrases, which explain nothing, it may be supposed that he elsewhere produces such proofs of his doctrine as will place it on a scientific basis. For these we will now seek.

"THE LAW OF SUBSTANCE"

We have just been told by Professor Haeckel, that the means and methods which he has chosen for the establishment of his philosophy are, on the whole, identical with those employed in all purely scientific investigation, namely, first experience, and secondly inference.

But here a grave difficulty at once presents itself. How, either by experience or by inference, can we learn anything about the commencements of the universe, as to which we have heard so much? How the first bodies, whether organic or inorganic, actually arose, neither philosophy nor science can definitely say, for the latter was not there to see, and the former has no facts on which to argue. But if neither by observation, nor by clear inference, can the account that has been given be substantiated, that account cannot pretend to be scientific, for it rests not upon knowledge but upon speculation,--and as Professor Tait warns us, "That of which there is no knowledge is not yet part of Science."

Being thus necessarily destitute of support either directly from observation or by inference from observed facts, it would seem that only in one way can Professor Haeckel's system of cosmogony, or world-production, obtain any support from Science. If amongst the operations now in progress in the universe, is to be found evidence of an exhaustless and self-renewing energy, a mainspring capable of keeping the machine going everlastingly, then undoubtedly there will be an explanation forthcoming, which, whatever difficulties may still remain on other grounds, will at least furnish a complete mechanical account of things within the ken of Science. May we not suppose that this is what is claimed as being supplied by the "Law of Substance," which is represented as the cornerstone of the whole edifice, the supreme triumph of scientific discovery, and, in fine, "the universal law of evolution"? Let us see how far such a notion can be styled scientific.

As has been shown, a "Law" is nothing but a statement that a certain kind of fact is found to occur in certain circumstances. Professor Haeckel has told us that the "Law of Substance" is a blend of two such statements, namely, "the Law of the persistency or indestructibility of matter," which signifies that in no instance within our knowledge is any particle of matter destroyed, and "the Law of the persistence of force, or conservation of energy," which signifies that the sum of force, at work in the world, and producing all phenomena, is similarly found to be unalterable.

It must here first be observed that the term "Conservation of Energy," is more correct and intelligible than "Conservation of Force"; by "Energy" being understood the power of doing "work," that is to say, of overcoming resistance.

It is in this form alone that Force becomes subject to observation and can be measured by Science, and the Law of Conservation which observation reveals is thus stated: The sum of all the various energies in the universe is a constant quantity, which can be neither increased nor diminished, though it may be changed from one form to another; such forms being motion, heat, chemical action, electricity, magnetism.

But another point is of far greater importance. The mode in which Professor Haeckel states this fundamental Law is altogether deceptive. He tells his readers only half the truth, and when the other half is told, not only is his whole doctrine found to receive no support from the Laws of Energy, but it is these very Laws which appear most incompatible with it.

Although, therefore, in a strictly mechanical sense, there is a conservation of energy, yet, as regards usefulness or fitness for living beings, the energy of the universe is in process of deterioration. Universally diffused heat forms what we may call the great waste-heap of the universe, and this is growing larger year by year.

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