Chapter II: Part 2

A man making his appearance among us as a lecturer, condemning all the sciences, presenting to the public mind the hundred and one old false ideas known in the history of scientific investigation, would be hissed out of literary circles.

An orator coming before the American people as a speaker, loaded with all the imperfections of our government, with its errors in legislation, its wicked and corrupt men accepting bribes, its mistakes on the fields of battle, resulting in great loss of life, as an open enemy to our country, breathing out treason, would subject himself to the anathemas of our government. The course pursued by unbelievers against the religion of Jesus Christ is without a parallel in the fields of science, civil governments and morals, yet the way is equally open in all those directions for a similar effort.

What is the value of the religion of Christ? What is the estimate placed upon it by the best minds of America? Andrew Jackson said, in his last hours, "That book, sir," pointing to the Bible, "is the rock on which our republic rests."

Benjamin Franklin said, "As to Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the system of morals, and his religion, as he left them to us, is the best the world ever saw, or is likely to see."

John Adams said, "The Bible is the best book in the world."

Henry Clay said, "I always have had, and always shall have, a profound regard for Christianity, the religion of my fathers, and for its rites, its usages and observances."

U. S. Grant said, "Hold fast to the Bible as the sheet anchor of our liberties; write its precepts on your hearts, and practice them in your lives. To the influence of this book we are indebted for the progress made in true civilization, and to this we must look as our guide in the future."

General George Washington said, "It is impossible to govern the world without God. He must be worse than an infidel that lacks faith, and more than wicked that has not gratitude enough to acknowledge his obligation."

THE DOMAIN OR PROVINCE OF SCIENCE.

The Greeks used the word "epistasin" to express the idea that we express by the word science. Our word means certain knowledge. Theirs was understood to mean "coming to a stand," from "epi," upon, and "staseo," to stand. Science takes account of phenomenon and seeks its law. When you apprehend a phenomenon and discover its law you have accomplished all that the term indicates, even though you fail to comprehend the whys and wherefores of the law. "Certain knowledge," this phrase indicates limitation. All that it demands is that you know that which you profess to know. It therefore follows that the word "science" is equally applicable to the comprehensible and incomprehensible. The word is from "scio," _I know_. As men's knowledge, in the present state, at least, is limited, so science, as presented by man, is also limited; but, as men are progressive beings, science and the sciences may increase, adding more and more of truth. There are, however, shores beyond which science will never carry us, but on the contrary will leave us to settle down, to rest forever in content or discontent, just as we choose.

The modern hypothesis of materialistic unbelievers is that there is but one substance in the universe, and that is matter. If this be so, then all knowledge pertains to matter, and when you have reasoned yourself to the last element known, or knowable, in physical analysis, which will be the point of departure as well as your ultimate truth behind which you can not go, then, of course, you are where you must rest satisfied or dissatisfied; you have come to the Rubicon beyond which you will never pass. The mere physicist finds, as a legitimate result of his hypothesis of but one substance, his rest in the ultimate of eternal matter and blind force. The Christian, recognizing spiritual substance also, finds his ultimate or resting place in God, who is the last element in vital and mental analysis, and also the Christian's starting point in his inductive reasonings. We realize that scientific knowledge is profitable, even in the field of matter, but if we refuse to science any domain above matter she will lead us to the dust of the grave, there to forsake us forever amid its gloom and sorrow. Here Colonel Ingersoll's "night birds"--for angels he has no use--move with "rustling of wings." When such men reason themselves back to the germ cells and sperm cells, and stand there upon the last element in the analysis of the human body, they are not able to take another step until they acknowledge the existence of spiritual substance as matters master, which ever was, and is above matter, which takes hold of matter and builds germ cells and sperm cells and inhabits them, as the inherent fore which superintends the building, differentiating the species, and determining the sex.

Ask the unbeliever, the materialist, what this vital principle is, and he answers: "It is the all-pervading force that is modified by the organic structure." That is, in his philosophy, the "vital force is produced by the organism," and the "organism is produced by the vital principle?" So, being at the last limit of the physical analysis of the organic being, he is involved in a contradiction, while the Christian who believes in a spiritual substance refers all to spirit, and claims a continuation of his identity as an intelligent spirit, resting in his ultimate or starting point, viz: God. Do you say I am lost in God? Well, to be thus lost in God is to be saved from corruption and from the dust of the grave; but to be lost in the dust of the grave and in the ceaseless changes of matter is to be lost to God and to spiritual being. Let me be with God rather than lost amid the dark waves of oblivion.

Has science no prerogatives above the physical? Tread lightly here; you might step on holy ground. Do you use the old cry that all outside of matter belongs to the "unknown" and "unknowable?" Exchange the terms for the terms the "uncomprehended" and the "incomprehensible," and we will walk side by side. We know many things which we do not comprehend. Do we comprehend all that belongs to the physical sciences? Do we comprehend matter? I know that I know, but do I comprehend that knowledge? If I should say I know the unknowable, I am guilty of a contradiction in language. Do you say matter is infinite? Can I comprehended the infinite? If science be that certain knowledge which is the equivalent of comprehension, then one of two things is true: First, there is no such thing as physical science; or, secondly, I may have certain knowledge of the infinite--may comprehend the infinite. How is this? Where is the difficulty? It is here: the knowledge which constitutes science is not necessarily that knowledge which is the equivalent of the comprehension of the thing known. Hence the incomprehensible is not to be excluded from the field of scientific investigation. If matter be infinite, and if it belongs to the field of scientific knowledge, then the infinite and incomprehensible belong, also, to the domain of scientific investigation. If the infinite can not be comprehended, matter can not be comprehended, and if all that can not be comprehended should be dismissed from scientific investigation, then matter should be dismissed.

In physical science we know the vital force exists which builds the germ and sperm cells, but we do not comprehend it. If you ask physical science to explain this invisible force or power, she will say, Gentlemen, I have given you an introduction to this wonderful builder; you see it is there at the threshold of organic being, but I can not tell you why it is there, nor what its properties are; if it has any, they are outside of my domain. I deal with matter. You must ask at the gate of the unseen, ask the science of the spiritual, the mental and vital. I am in wonderful contrast with mind, with life also. I am inertia. Some of my votaries have tried to give you the answer which you so much desire. They have said, "It is the all-pervading force which was lying away back in the antechambers of eternity." Have said, "It was burdened with a universe of worlds." Have said, "It was destitute of personality." Have said, "It was not, and is not, an intelligence." Have said, "It was without will, purpose or desire." Have said, "All beauty, harmony and order were its results." Have also said, "It was," away back in the ages past, groaning and heaving, travailing, in great anxiety to be delivered. Speaking of it in the light of "natural selection," they have deified it, giving to it all the mental operations of an intelligent, living God. On this account some of my lovers are Pantheists. They deify nature; deify everything, and call it all God. A few ignorant Christians, on this very account, are ready to give up their warfare with Pantheists. But the battle is not won because the word "God" is pronounced; for sober reason says, If nature is _all_ God, she is _a_ God, who is no God; or a nature without a God, just as you choose to express it. After all, it remains an axiom, that "you can not get more out of a thing than there is in it." So, of necessity, there must be, somewhere in this universe, _Eternal life and mind_. Reader, "how readest thou?"

BLIND FORCE OR INTELLIGENCE, WHICH?

In the discussion of this question I think it proper to submit a few axiomatic or common-sense truths which are universally admitted by the unbiased mind.

_First._ "Every effect must have a cause."

_Secondly._ "Every series must have a unit lying at its base."

_Thirdly._ "In every beginning there must be that which began."

_Fourthly._ "Something is eternal."

_Fifthly._ "There can not be an endless succession of dependent things."

_Sixthly._ "There must be that upon which the first dependent link in the chain of dependent things depended."

_Seventhly._ "That thing, whatever it may be, upon which the first dependent thing depended, must be eternal."

Was it blind force or intelligence, which?

The existence of a supreme intelligence is the first great leading thought made known in the Bible.

The first that is made known in unbelief, is the existence of "the unknown."

When a man adopts the idea of the unknown, he lays down all his strength to oppose the idea of a supreme intelligence, for what right has he to dogmatize about the unknown? The use of the word force will not help us to a better understanding of things. Force is simply the manifestation of energy, and there must, necessarily, be something lying behind it to which it, as an attribute or quality, belongs. That "something" the Bible calls "spirit." It has never been christened with a name by the unbeliever. Force is the bridge between it and matter, and the bridge between it and all things upon which it operates. The unbeliever's "unknown" lies behind force. Has he ever given it a name?

So far as science is concerned, it is paying her proper respect to say she demands an intelligence in order to account for the wonderful things with which she has to deal. Laycock, treating upon the questions of mind and brain, says: "The phenomena of life present a vast series of adjustments and modifications to fill certain purposes and bring about ends."--_Mind and Brain, vol. 1, p. 222 to 224._

Systematic action in the use of means to accomplish certain ends or purposes we regard as the evidence of intelligence. By what other means do we distinguish between the rational and the insane? Winchel says, in his "Religion and Science," p. 102, "Without God we can not account for the correlation presented by the world of structural part to structural part, of structural part to intelligible end, of structural part to persistent plans or archetypes, of correlations which show that they were anticipated."

Beal, on Protoplasm, p. 104 to 107, says, "Living matter overcomes gravitation and resists and suspends chemical affinity." He adds, "It is in direct opposition to chemical affinities that organized beings exist."

What power is that which lies behind chemical affinities, and controls them with direct reference to organic being? Will some bold unbeliever answer?

Carpenter says, "The most universal and fundamental attribute of life is the mode of vital activity manifesting itself in the development of the germ into the complete organism and type OF ITS PARENT, and the after maintenance of the organism in its integrity at the expense of materials derived from external sources. The life in the germ is the controlling agency, superintending the building, charged with the working out the design of the architect." Who is the architect? Or, if you prefer it, what is the architect? Whoever he or whatever it may be, the design and decrees of nature are with that official. All the changes that can be made in environments or food will not change the organism from the type of its parent. Then the structure of the male and the female with reference to future living organisms, or procreation, is in very poor harmony with the idea that the architect is "blind force."

The same milk from one and the same animal, with the same heat and air, will build up bodies of different types, one as well as another, making human flesh in the human body, and dog's flesh in the dog's body, and sheep's flesh in the sheep's body. If the living germinal organism has its paternity in a dog, it will remain a dog in spite of food and environments.

Carpenter says, "The vital force," in the germ, "is not the entire force or means of growth; heat is a constructive stimulus, but amounts to nothing where there is no life. Food is material for the building, but like heat, it is of no consequence in the absence of life."

The constructing force in the germ manifests itself, in the plant, in the conversion of the insoluble starch of the seed into sugar, and in an additional change of a part of that sugar so as to set at liberty a large amount of carbon, which, uniting with the oxygen of the air, forms carbonic acid, and this process is attended with a liberation of heat which supplies the germ with stimulus.

"It is different with the advanced plant. The organic compounds required to extend the fabric, are formed by the plant, instead of being supplied from without. The tissues of the green surface of the stem and leaves have the peculiar power, when acted on by light, of generating, at the expense of carbonic acid, water and ammonia, with various ternary and quarternary organic compounds, such as chlorophyll, starch, oil and albumen. A part goes to build new tissues, and a part is stored up in the cavities of tissues for food for parts to be developed in the future." Mr. Carpenter says, "Of the source of this peculiar power we have no right to speak confidently." Is it a blind force that anticipates growth in the plant, and lays away food, in the tissues, for future use? Why should it be different with the young plant?

Sixteen simple substances are known to exist in vegetable organisms, and many of them are more strongly inclined to unite with substances which have no existence in vegetable cells; so they separate, in violation of chemical laws, and unite in vegetable cells in utter disregard of the affinities which are known to be their strongest. How do unbelievers manage such objections to the hypothesis that chemical laws explain everything in vegetable life? How is all this accounted for? We, Christians, answer, "The course of nature is the art of God." This answer is equivalent to the thought that vegetable life is the result of the union existing between God and the vegetable kingdom. The force that lies behind all chemical affinities and controls them, together with the wisdom displayed in that kingdom, belongs to God.

SPECIES, OR UNITS OF NATURE.

Are millions of years adequate as a cause, when associated with all the forces known in nature, to produce new species and extirpate old ones? The teachings of Darwin require an answer in the affirmative.

The survival of the fittest is one of Darwin's emphasized laws of natural selection. He says: "In all cases the new and improved forms of life tend to supplant the old and unimproved forms. New varieties continually take the place of and supplant the parent form. New and improved varieties will inevitably supplant and exterminate the older."--_Origin of Species, pp. 264, 266, 413._

Do the facts sustain this assumption? The little animals whose remains compose the great chalk-beds are alive and working. Inarticulate or molluscan life is seen in a sub-fossil condition in the Post Pliocene clays of Canada. They are just as they were in the beginning of their history. Species seem to be immutably fixed. The demand for millions of years, in order to get old species out and new ones in, breaks down with the mollusk of the Pliocene in the clays of Canada. The Pliocene species are the more recent; such is, in fact, the meaning of the term in geology. The mollusk of Canada Pliocene clay has undergone no change since its first appearance upon our globe.

In order to account for ancient life, that passed away, as far back as the carboniferous age, it is claimed that millions of years passed before that age began. But here are the very first species of mollusca in the more recent clays unchanged, and here are the same little animals that floored so much territory in the bygone with chalk. How does this look by the side of the last quotation from Darwin?

Crabs or lobsters, cuttle-fish, jelly-fish, star-fish, oysters, snails, and worms lived contemporary with the first vertebrates. I have recently read an article in which it is said by an advocate of the Darwinian hypothesis, that man in his original condition was a cannibal, feasting, ordinarily, upon snails and worms. Now, it is claimed that millions of years have passed, and that millions of years inevitably destroy old species and introduce new ones; and yet here are the same old pesky snails and worms. If millions of years have passed the system is false. And if millions of years have not passed the system is false; so it is certainly false.

Hybrids are wonderfully in the way of the hypothesis. They can not be saved. All artificial varieties return to their simple form. Mr. Huxley recognizes this as an objection that can not be surmounted. He says, "While it remains Darwin's doctrine, must be content to remain a mere hypothesis;" that is, a mere guess.

In the latest productions of Agassiz we have this statement: "As a palæontologist I have from the beginning stood aloof from this new theory of transmutation, now so widely admitted; its doctrines, in fact, contradict what the animal forms buried in the rocky strata of our earth tell us of their own introduction and succession upon the surface of the globe."

The first vertebrates are sharks, ganoids and garpikes, which are the highest in structure of all known fishes. Darwin's hypothesis demands this order _reversed_.

When you ask an evolutionist for the links connecting new and old species, as he is pleased to denominate them, you receive the satisfactory (?) answer, "They are lost." A painter presented a man with a red canvass, claiming that it represented the children of Israel crossing the Red sea. The question was asked, "Where are the Israelites?" The painter answered, "They have crossed over." "But," said the man, "where are the Egyptians?" "O, my dear sir," said the artist, "they are under the sea." This is a very fine illustration of facts, if Darwinism may boast of facts, for the connecting links between species are "under the sea" of oblivion, never to be found, and the old species "have passed over." Mr. Darwin's apology is in these words: "Every one will admit that the geological record is imperfect; but very few can believe that it is so very imperfect as my theory demands." This is a grand concession. The "wild speculation" has no support from geology. The blanket of oblivion, which Mr. Darwin and his friends spread over the difficulty, is "millions of years." In that length of time the missing species, or links, would, of course, all pass out of sight. Is this true? No. In the geological record millions of specimens are fossilized and laid away in nature's great cabinet. Why not find a few of the missing links there? Just one. "One fact, gentlemen, if you please." Science is certain knowledge. Is there certain knowledge of missing links? Gentlemen, just bridge one gulf for us; the gulf lying between any _two species_ will do. We get impatient, standing and gazing. Look! Can you see across?

Mr. Darwin says, "Professor Haeckel, in his general Morphology and other works, has brought his great knowledge and abilities to bear on what he calls phylogeny or the lines of descent of all organic beings."--_Origin of Species, p. 381._

This author, Mr. Haeckel, has "lines of descent" which involves the idea of a plurality of beginnings in the history of organic being; that is, Mr. Haeckel claims a vertebrate series with a vertebrate lying at the base of the series, and an articulate series with an articulate lying at its base. So there must be A SPECIAL CREATION AT LAST. Hear him: "There appears, indeed, to be a limit given to the adaptability of every organism by the type of its tribe or phylum. Thus, for example, no vertebrate animal can acquire the ventral nerve chord of articulate animals instead of the characteristic spinal marrow of the vertebrate animals."--_History of Creation, vol. 1, p. 250._ So the vertebrate must forever remain a vertebrate, and the articulate forever an articulate. Were they both evolved from the same unit? We are anxious to know, how from a pulpy mass of flesh, from a moneron, a creature of one substance, _vertebrates_ were evolved. We would like to know, also, how a creature of more than one substance could be evolved from a creature of one substance without more being gotten out of the thing than there was in it. Here spontaneous generation passes into a wreck. Do you see? The pulpy mass of flesh, or moneron, from which so much has been "evolved" was the result of "the sun's rays falling upon the sea slime," and was and is a creature of one substance, homogeneous. "Natural selection" could not operate in the vertebrate type before it existed. It was "limited to the type or phylum." That is to say, natural selection could evolve new species without limitation from each type, but could never evolve a vertebrate from an articulate, nor an articulate from a vertebrate. Then, how are the two series from the same unit; or, if they are connected with two different units, how are those units the effect of the same unintelligent cause? How are we going to cross this chasm lying between the sun's rays and the sea slime upon the one hand, and the articulate and the vertebrate upon the other? Darwin says, "Judging from the past, we may safely infer that not one living species will transmit its unaltered likeness to a distant futurity." Well, how is it with the past? We are told that millions of years are the demand for the changes already brought about. Millions of years would certainly be enough to constitute a "distant futurity." How is it now? Is there not one species having its likeness represented by a species in the distant past? Yes; the genus lingula, the species appearing in all the ages, was "connected by an unbroken series of generations from the lowest Silurian stratum to the present day."--_Origin of Species, pp. 293, 294, 428._

Darwin's "theory" claims that the first forms of all life still exist, and are known and named. The ape, if it could talk like a man, would boast of a history reaching all the way back to time prior to the existence of the greater number of the mammals. To get rid of the difficulty of first forms still existing, Mr. Darwin cuts off his unit from the law of "the survival of the fittest," or "the inevitable destruction of the parent form." He says: "A very simple form, fitted for very simple conditions of life, might remain for indefinite ages unaltered, or unimproved; for what would it profit an infusorial animalcule, or an intestinal worm, to become highly organized?"--_Animals and Plants, vol. 1, p. 19._ "Under very simple conditions of life a higher organism would be of no service."--_Origin of Species, p. 100._

How are we to reconcile the conflicting ideas in this speculation? At one time we are taught that all forms of life were, originally, very simple forms, existing under very simple conditions. At another time we are taught that "new and improved forms _inevitably_ supplant and destroy parent forms." At another we are taught, at great length, the doctrine of the survival of the fittest.

At another we are taught that all things have worked, and do work, without designs upon the part of a present intelligence.

At another we are taught that very simple forms of life, under the very simple conditions of life, have continued to the present day, because of the fact that it would be of NO SERVICE for them to become highly organized. No service to whom? To what end?

Out of thine own mouth will I condemn thee. What! Is there an end in view that has governed in the great question of evolution of species, and the survival of the fittest? Darwin seems to think so. The wonderful "machine" that Strauss talked about in connection with the "smashing" and "crashing" that destroys parent forms did not smash the simplest forms of life. Why? The answer is, "It would be of no service for them to become highly organized." Then all the smashing and crashing known in the doctrine of "the survival of the fittest" and in "the destruction of the parent form" was under the supervision of some controlling power, having an end to accomplish.

* * * * *

If we see a member of the church of Christ living in obedience to the "law of Christ," we say he is a Christian, and speak of him as such; on the other hand, if we know he is in works denying Christ, being disobedient, we tacitly assume that he is not a Christian, yet a _mawkish charity_ keeps us, in too many instances, from speaking out in this matter, and also keeps us from earnestly trying to distinguish the true Christian; and this is one of the great sins of the church in our times, for thus the wicked are not put to shame, and others are caused to hesitate in their graces by the conduct of those whom, in mawk charity, are called Christians.

* * * * *

"Mouth-glue is made of pure glue, as parchment glue, or gelatine and coarse brown sugar. Take pure glue and add one-quarter or one-third of its weight of brown sugar. Put both into a sufficient quantity of water to boil and reduce the mass to a liquid, then cast into thin cakes on a flat surface _very slightly_ oiled, and, as it cools, cut up into pieces of a convenient size. When you wish to use it moisten one end in the mouth, and rub it on any substance you wish to join; a piece kept in the work-box is very convenient."--_Chambers._

* * * * *

The Christian's faith was not intended to sit him down in ease, but to stimulate him to the discharge of his duties. So the work of faith is a noble work, a life of labor.

MISCELLANEOUS.

The oft-repeated story that man had his beginning in a low state of barbarous cannibalism is a groundless assumption.

* * * * *

What is the difference between getting more out of a thing than there is in it and creating something out of nothing?

* * * * *

"If the religious foundations and sanctions of morality are to be given up, what is to be substituted for them?"--_Lord Selborne._

* * * * *

The Orang and Pongo monkeys, which are classed with those which make the nearest approach to man, have three vertebra fewer than man.

* * * * *

"Live while we may;" "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die," are natural corollaries from the teachings of modern as well as ancient infidels.

* * * * *

Finding human skeletons with the skeletons of extinct animals necessitates the bringing of those animals forward, for specimens have been found in modern times with the flesh upon their bones and food in their stomachs.

* * * * *

If all organized animal life was evolved from the moneron, a creature of one substance, homogeneous, how were creatures of more than one substance evolved without more being _evolved_ than was _involved_? Let some of our scientific "wise-acres" solve this problem.

* * * * *

Paul says, "Things which are seen were not made of things which do appear." Every negative has its affirmative. The affirmative of the above is this, "Things which are seen were made of unseen things." The Bible does not teach that anything was made of nothing.

* * * * *

The Chimpanzee has thirteen pair of movable thoracic ribs. Man has two. If man lived up in the bushes, like the Chimpanzee and other apes, he would need more movable ribs so that he might not be ruined by broken ribs every time he might happen to fall. Is there no evidence of design here?

* * * * *

All unbelievers who advocate the idea of spontaneous generation try to get more out of matter than there was in it, viz: life, sensation, intelligence and moral nature. Can you get more out of a thing than there is in it? Is there life without antecedent life, etc.? Unbeliever, are you mocking the Bible because somebody said the Lord created something of nothing, and at the same time advocating spontaneous generation, and thereby professing to get more _evolved_ than was _involved_?

* * * * *

The idea that stone implements are an index to man in the beginning of his existence is an unwarranted conceit; they may point to a degeneracy. The lost arts are indicative of that which might have been repeated many times. Stone implements might have been used, as we know they have been, in times of great civilization. They are an uncertain index of civilization among the tribes who used them, and no index of the civilization of other tribes who lived at the same time in other parts of the earth.

* * * * *

Professor Huxley says, "I understand and I respect the meaning of the word soul, as used by Pagan and Christian philosophers, for what they believe to be the imperishable seat of human personality, bearing throughout eternity its burden of woe, or its capacity for adoration and love. I confess that my dull moral sense does not enable me to see anything base or selfish in the desire for future life among the spirits of the just made perfect; or even among a few poor fallible souls as one has known here below."--_Modern Symposium, vol. 1, p. 82._