The Natural Theology of Evolution

J. N. Shearman

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781000063745
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

Originally published in 1915, The Natural Theology of Evolution looks at the concept of natural theology, examining the argument for the existence of God based on reason and ordinary experiences of nature. The book looks at natural theology in light of Darwin's theory of evolution, and how this important discovery affected belief in intelligent design. The book argues that the discovery of evolution, far from diminishing the existence of God, provides stronger proof for an intelligently designed earth and therefore the existence of God. This book provides a unique and interesting take on the debates surrounding evolution in the late 19th and early 20th century. It will be of interest to philosophers, historians of religion and natural historians alike.

PART I

A COMMON-SENSE ARGUMENT

THE NATURAL THEOLOGY OF EVOLUTION

CHAPTER I

THE COMMON-SENSE VIEW

WE must begin our exposition of the Natural Theology of Evolution by putting a question of the greatest practical importance. We are going to ask whether this world, in which we find ourselves and of which we are part, contains in its nature and working anything which would lead us to suppose that it had come from the hand of a conscious, intelligent Being with Whom we may possibly have personal dealing. The answer to such a question, if we can find it, will necessarily colour our whole outlook on life and will form a presupposition which we shall take with us into every other enquiry. But before we ask it we shall step aside to enquire how we are equipped for this investigation and what hope we have of prospering in it.

Now it is a point of no small importance that we are able to exist in the world, and not only to exist but to prosper beyond all other beings that are found in it, and that our prosperity depends, not like theirs upon instincts accommodated to some special way of living, but upon an exercise of reason which results in our understanding the nature of the things around us and knowing or observing their way of working. When we have settled how things work we act on the conclusions we have arrived at, and by the result of our action in each case the truth of our conclusion is tried and proved. When we are right we succeed and when we are wrong we fail, and this goes on through the whole time of every man’s life and has gone on during the period, whatever it may be, covered by the existence of the human race as we know it. We have, therefore, the best of ground for saying that if our interpretation of nature were fundamentally erroneous it would long ago have caused the race of man to perish.

A single example will make this clear, and will, at the same time, enable us to see what our interpretation of Nature really involves. Let us suppose a primitive hunter to set out in the pursuit of game. His hunting is no mere sport, but the most serious of occupations, for his life and the lives of his family depend on his success. And his success depends on his knowledge of the nature of the animals which he pursues and his power of guessing what they are going to do as various incidents of the pursuit occur. The world is for him an examination hall and his whole life one long examination in which certain questions are put to him over and over again with the most tremendous penalties attached to erroneous answers. This examination has gone on for many generations, can we have any better test than it furnishes of the truth and accuracy of the beliefs which bring us through it successfully?

Some part of the knowledge on which the primitive hunter relies is knowledge which belongs only to hunters and which is of no use to fishermen or farmers, but another part of it is common to all men and necessary for every occupation. What is peculiar to hunters is a personal possession to be acquired in one way only and that a way not open to any but hunters, but what is necessary for every occupation may be acquired by ways open to everyone, and is so simple, so fundamental and so important that many have supposed that it is not acquired at all, but belongs to the very constitution of the mind itself. To us, however, it is only so much knowledge. We are not now concerned with the ways we have of getting it.

When the hunter is stalking a timid animal his conduct is determined by his knowledge that the animal will be startled if he shows himself and will run away. But he also depends on his belief that the trees, stones and hillocks behind which he hides will not be startled and will not move but will remain absolutely inert. Now if he were wrong in his beliefs as to the nature of the animals he pursued his hunting would go wrong and he and his family would suffer, but if he were wrong in his beliefs as to the nature of sticks and stones and other common things all human action would go wrong and human life would be impossible. And therefore these common beliefs are the most important and the most severely tested of all. Yet these common beliefs are so intimately united to all our thoughts and actions that we hardly feel them to be beliefs at all. We do not seem to think them, but rather to see them and feel them and hear them. We do not expect a stone to move out of the way unless it is pulled or pushed or struck, but yet we do not feel that we are entertaining a belief as to the nature of the stone, we only feel that we are looking at an impediment. Thus our deepest and truest thoughts about common things are so familiar to us that they hardly look like thoughts, and we seem to see the inertness of the stone almost in the same way as we see the greenness of the grass. Only now and then, when we have to use these intimate beliefs in argument, do we bring them distinctly into consciousness as beliefs, and then we are apt to speak of them as common sense. When the hunter does not find his spear where he laid it down his common sense tells him that somebody has taken it away, when he finds meat roasting at a fire his common sense tells him that somebody put it there. But even in such cases the reasoning may take place so rapidly and spontaneously as not to be easily recognised for what it is.

With care, however, we may criticise our common-sense views of things, that is to say, we may come to see clearly what they are and how they can be usefully employed. To effect this we ask three questions: (1) What are the facts? (2) What are my common-sense beliefs? (3) How do these beliefs apply to the facts? The asking of these three questions marks the transition from common sense to Science, for Science always begins with criticised common sense and never indeed gets altogether away from it. Let us take as an example the common-sense belief which we all have, that no material thing will ever move itself or make any change in itself or, to put it in another way, that matter is inert. The facts to which we apply this belief are changes and alterations in things about us. Our belief is that none of these things have changed themselves. The application of our belief to the facts results in the conclusion that something else has brought about the change in every case, and so we say that every change or every event must have a cause. Thus our common-sense view of the nature of things when criticised and examined turns into the principle of causality, which dominates the whole course of scientific enquiry. We are then taking a reasonable course and one likely to be successful when at the beginning of Natural Theology we try to get at the common-sense view of things. What it has done for other enquiries it will also do for ours. And we shall now go on to ask whether the world shows any sign of having come from the hand of a conscious, intelligent Being, with the full conviction that the world we are examining is a world of which we have a genuine and well-proved knowledge.

Let me suppose that in walking over a level field I come across a number of small stones so arranged as to form the letters of my name; what has common sense to say about them? Most certainly it will say that they were so arranged by some intelligent being. I must take their arrangement to be an instance of design. When the first stone was put down the whole arrangement had been thought of, the result of putting down the stones was foreseen and action was so directed as to bring it about. Now if this decision depends on a principle of common sense as fixed and certain as the principle that sticks, stones and other common objects will not change unless some force is brought to bear on them it will give us a result as far-reaching and important. As the belief that material things are inert gives us the principle of causality according to which we hold that every event implies a preceding cause, so the belief that material forces are blind or without any self-contained principle of arrangement will give us the principle of design according to which we shall hold that order implies thought and foresight. Before, however, taking this as settled I must further examine my common sense so as to make sure that I have expressed its deliverance with accuracy.

Let me go back then again to the case I have put and ask whether I could not manage to believe that this arrangement of pebbles on the grass by which my name is expressed came about by chance, meaning by chance nothing more than the action of force without design. If a cartload of stones had been brought this way these stones might have been shaken out by the jolting of the cart as it passed; why then might they not have fallen as they now lie? The only answer is that if they had so fallen out there would have been no design to guide them, their arrangement would have been a chance arrangement and could not, therefore, have been an orderly arrangement such as this. “But then,” I go on to reason with myself, “the stones, however they got here, must have some arrangement, whether orderly or disorderly, this is only one out of all possible arrangements, could they not have fallen thus as well as in any other way?” I find, however, that the verdict of my common sense is not changed. This orderly arrangement did not come by chance. Yet I remind myself again that the question is not whether this arrangement might be repeated if the cart were to pass by again, nor yet whether I might find this or any other arrangement which was before expected or wished for. Let these ideas be put aside as impossibilities. Let us duly consider the incalculable infinities of positions in which the stones might lie, and let us only say, on the other side, that they must lie in some position. May we not ask Why should they not lie in this position as well as in any other, or if not in this precise position in some position which would present an equally striking example of order? The only possible answer is that I cannot help.myself. I must hold the common-sense principle that order implies design, and when I see this or any other instance of order I am compelled to believe that it came about by design and not by chance.

For so far the course of my reasoning has been very clear and simple, and the conclusion will not be disputed by anyone. Confining my view to the ordinary things with which I am well acquainted, the things which I see and handle from day to day, whether they are things as found in nature or as manufactured for human use, provided only that they are things without life, I say that they are inert or have no power of spontaneous motion, and that the forces which operate in them and through them are blind—that is they have no power of self-direction or arrangement. Consequently whenever I come across order or regular arrangement I ascribe it to design and say that it is the work of mind as involving foresight and purpose. Thus if I find the furniture in a room all in disorder I say that the positions of the chairs and tables are due to chance; but if there is any regular order or arrangement I cannot help ascribing it to design, and the same holds good of all other instances of orderly arrangement amongst things with which I am acquainted, such as trees or plants growing in regular rows, flower-beds having regular shapes, paths having a definite form and direction, walls, hedges, and ditches having a regular and orderly shape and formation. No one can possibly doubt that in all such cases the regularity and order which I find is due to design and could not by any possibility come about by chance, and if any such instance of order and regularity were discovered in the depths of a primeval forest, where it was supposed that the foot of man had never come before, there would not be the slightest hesitation in coming to the conclusion that this also was due to the design of some intelligent being.

May I, then, carry my argument one step farther and apply it to the instances of order and regularity which I find in nature? May I say that as the regular shape of the flower-bed proves the existence of an intelligent being to whom it is due, so likewise does the regular shape of the flower which grows in it? May I say that as the regular and orderly arrangement of a number of pebbles forming the letters of my name, if I found them so displayed on the sea beach, would be an infallible proof of design, so is the regular and orderly arrangement and disposition of the sands on which they lie, which are sorted according to their degrees of fineness and arranged so as to have a regular sloping surface? The matter is the same inert matter with which I have to deal every day and I cannot attribute to it any other properties or any power of spontaneous movement in the flower or in the strand which it does not possess in other positions. It is moved into its position by such ordinary physical forces as are capable of imparting motion to matter, how can I suppose these forces to be capable of producing order and regularity apart from mind here if they are not able to do it everywhere? Must I not come to the conclusion that in every case in which it is found order is the result of design?

I believe that if the final decision of the human mind can be disentangled from everything that may obscure its application or conceal its force, that will be its purport, but many things may cause confusion of thought and become obstacles to the legitimate application of the most certain truths, and therefore we cannot at one glance see design in the sands or the flower. The regular shape of the flower, the orderly disposition of the sands, are not due to a single action which can be looked on as a whole and which has but few steps, but are due to the general course of nature which works as an immensely complicated machine carrying on a process which extends over a vast tract of time, and in that working it is supposed that chance (that is the action of force apart from design or intention) might have the power of doing what we are unable to suppose it to do in any action or movement that can be regarded as a whole. If that is not accepted yet the mind may so lose itself in the consideration of an almost infinitely complicated process extending over an almost endless period of time as never to arrive at any conclusion at all. Thus it becomes necessary to consider the course of nature as a continued process, and to ask whether an examination of the common-sense view of it will disclose the fundamental principles of belief by which all such questions as these must be decided.

CHAPTER II

PALEY’S COMMON-SENSE VIEW

WE have then to consider not things at rest but things in motion. We have to look for possible evidences of design not in mere order or regularity of arrangement, but in the orderly and regular performance of function. And certainly at first sight it would appear that whatever testimony an orderly arrangement might bear to the existence of design, the testimony of orderly functioning must be immensely stronger and more impressive. There is as much order and arrangement in the parts of a machine when at rest as in any of the cases of orderly arrangement which we have already considered, and there are besides the facts that the parts are so compacted and joined together that they move on one another and produce a certain result, and that they are so fitted to the circumstances in which they are placed as to respond to these circumstances, affecting and being affected in an orderly way and to a definite end. It is therefore with some surprise that we find that it is in this, which should be the strongest part of our argument, that weakness is supposed to be discovered. The proof of design, which seemed irresistible when we considered the flower simply as a regular arrangement of parts put together once for all, is thought to lose all its force when the flower is considered as a machine supplying the bee with honey, in return for which it is helped by the bee over a difficult part of its life, after which it proceeds to form a seed out of which will come another plant bearing a similar flower. We have then, to enquire what is the new element introduced into the argument at this point to produce so strange a result. We shall, therefore, in the first place carefully examine the common-sense view of a machine or organism as an evidence of design and bring out all that it contains. In doing this we shall have to ask whether there is any difference for the purpose of our enquiry between a machine which is a mere machine and one which is also an animal or vegetable organism, but we must, it is evident, begin with the mere machine, and we cannot therefore do better than to follow the line of enquiry pursued by Paley in his justly celebrated work.

Paley supposes himself to find a watch in crossing a heath and asks what account could possibly be given of it in contrast to what might be said about a stone if it were found in the same place. As Geology had not yet become a commonly known science when Paley wrote, the stone was to him an object in which no particular structure could be discerned and to which no history could be ascribed, and, therefore, all that he was able to say about it was that for aught he could tell it might have lain where he found it since the world came into being. If we know more about the stone than Paley did, so that to us the contrast between it and the watch is not so great as it was for him, that does not affect the validity of the argument, which in no way depends on what he failed to see in the stone, but rests altogether on what he did see in the watch. And this is what he saw:—

When we come to inspect the watch we perceive (what we could not discover in the stone) that its several parts are framed and put together for a purpose, e.g. that they are so formed and adjusted as to produce motion, and that motion so regulated as to point out the hour of the day; that if the different parts had been differently shaped from what they are of a different size from what they are or placed after any other manner or in any other order than that in which they are placed either no motion at all would have been carried on in the machine or none which would have answered the use that is now served by it. To reckon up a few of the plainest of these parts and of their offices all tending to one result. We see a cylindrical box containing a coiled elastic spring which by its endeavour to relax itself turns round the box. We next observe a flexible chain (artificially wrought for the sake of flexure) communicating the action of the spring from the box to the fusee. We then find a series of wheels the teeth of which catch in and apply to each other, conducting the motion from the fusee to the balance and from the balance to the pointer, and at the same time by the size and shape of those wheels so regulating that motion as to terminate in causing an index by an equable and measured progression to pass over a given space in a given time. We take notice that the wheels are made of brass to keep them from rust, the springs of steel, no other metal being so elastic, that over the face of the watch there is placed a glass, a material employed in no ot...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Preface
• Contents
• Illustrations
• Part I A Common-Sense Argument
• Part II A More Abstract or Philosophical Argument
• Part III The Application of the Argument
• Part IV Objections Considered
• Index