THE TEACHING OF EVOLUTION.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 12248, 11 January 1902, Page 10

THE TEACHING OF EVOLUTION.

CAPTAIN' lIUTTON'S ADDRESS. Wo take the [oHinving extracts from the iCi'oml j.art of Iho presidential address (if Captain Hutton at the nice tins of Uie Asrelation (or the Advancement of Science il Holiart. 'flic portion referred to occupies ive and a-half columns in the Christclnirch l'rr«s: — ORCAXrC KVOLUTIOX. When, during (lie course of physical evoln.ion, the ocean lias become sufficiently cool or the MciFteuce of protoplasm, rainiito iving organisms appeared on its Kiirfacc. riio3o ineieascd in size, varied in many lirections. and, in time, discovered the iKitloin of the sea, on whii'li they established ihem-'clvt'-, changing from swimming to ■rawling creatures. Gradually these orgaiwiis iKiiuuscil to live in safely among the rough w;\tcr* of the pea i-'iast. and then [hey spread over the land. First the plants Hid (lien the animal?, which came to feed in the plant*. Once established on land and breathing lir, improvement* in Iho circulaloi'v sybtem :if the higher animals became po-tiblc The purified blood was kept rpparato from the impure blood, and increased rapidity of physiological prccwes heated Iho budy, su lliat in the birds and mammals iv stream of pure, worm blood was poured upon the brain. Thus stimulated, thn brain developed rapidly, av.d the physiological evolution liuK inaugurated has rcaohe.d such, n height in man e.s to place him menially apart from the rest of tire animal kingdom. Iliological evolution differs from physical evolution in being brought about by the lransmis?ion of licdily variations from one generation to anoflier. Hut in psychological pvolution mind is not transmitted from pirnit to offspring, only Hip organ in which it is to be manifested, Intelligence depends not only on ths> structure of this iirgan, but on early associations and education, by which means the wisdom of one generation is handed down to the next. Psychological pvolution consists cf two parto. The first is intellectual, and is found in all the higher animals, as well as in man. The second is ethical, and is exclusively Tiiitfllecturil evolution, like biological pvolution, is due to competition botwe.cn different individuals, and the action of selection. We probably roc the first germs of p.tliieal evolution in parental affection, whii'ii, among gregarious animals of sufficient inteHinniicp. widened into .wial sympathy, uiid this, in man. gave vies to (he'social w civic virtues. This ndvar.ee niso appears lo hnvi! been—or, at any rale, may' liaiV been—dun to selection, and Hie result was the. »..nit.r3cn-B of what is called utilitarian morality. Morality in the strict s-iiifo of the term—lhat is, formal mnr.ility-also appears to have arisen from sympathy, but not by means of-election. The lo:i» and constant use In- man of formal morality ha; made it irslructivc, and lias thus given rfe» to the cnuseiflnec, _ How sympathy gave rise, to the conscience 15 il difticult problem nlimit which we know very little at profit; for few people have taken up the study of. ethics from nu ob-er-vational bans. Hut the prcer,s, as described by Darwin, evidently implies a considerable intellectual capacity, and, what is still more important, the exercise of frce-u-ill: for no one could regret following ,1 loner impulse unless ho felt that he had the power to choose a higher one. Ethical development, therefore, could only commence at a slage far above the highest apes, r.'.ul, probably, above the earlier forms of man. Meantime, while this growth of nymijalliy was takin;; place, the evolution of religion—?,! ,:!ready described—would have bren going en anil t!io priest would have asrumed a of cvoat importance. It is lie w'no would draw up the standard of right and wrong, and iiius morality would be reinforced and stimulated by Iho religious fcelins. It therefore appears that ethical and religious development were at first separate, but quickly coalesced, until, in Chviitian countries, they are. completely blended. lint this mutual dependence is not so pronounced everywhere. It is not jios-iliV lo give even the slightest outline of ethical evolution without questioning the religion? element. The important point to remember is that ethical development is duo to a conllict of wishes in the individual himself, and is possiblo only because man has the power of choosing one of these wishes and acting u]Km it; that is, to the exercise of free-will. Now, we cannot think that the evolutionary process, of which I have, given you a mere sketch, i,i confined to the oarth alone. Wo must, suppose that, whatever may be the object- for which the rokv system was called into existence, it is for the Fame purpow that tlie various stellar systems exist: and, in all probability, long after lh« mid is cold ami dark, other stellar systems, each in its turn, will take up the development of life and mi-id. But tltcy uk.n in time will become, cold and lifeless, until, at last, the process, fo far as it is connected with the material universe, will bo over. But is it not possible that evolution may still go on after life. lum perished? This is a point to which I will return presently. DESIGN IX XATUTtK. Evolution is evidently due to the action of mind. Thcro are tome who still maintain an opposite view, but. I think that their numbers are fast diminishing. It seems, to me that no one who has a competent knowledge of biology and paleontology can possibly accept the doctrifle that living uranisms are t-ho outcome of chance. Darwin distinctly-repudiated the idea, and thought lhat variation in animal-, and plant* could be c-xnlninc.d by a mcr'ir.'.iical theory of the univrnc. Tn order lo make the meaning clear, Captain Hutlon elaborated this point at some length, contending that we have in the composition, size, and position of the. cavtli overwhelming evidence of design. And an wo can provo that carbon existed in the Arehaen era bpfore life appeared, and that gold, iron, and copper existed long before man, we lmift also allow that the results of evolution hod been foreseen and provided for. He then proceeded to examine, the principal concatenation of circumstances which led up to the production of civilised mnn. The human hand and foot were developed from organs adapted for climbing trees, and il was necessary that,the, early primates fiiouUl take to trees at once, before their limbs became specialised for terrestrial life. To induce them to climb trees, fruit and bird? must have been in existence, for succulent fruit-s have been developed through the agency of birds. So (hat the previous existence of birds and flowering plants, which alone form succulent fruits, were necessary for the developments of the hand. Again, man could not have attained civilisation if lie bod not boen able to domesticate animals and to cultivate food plantp. Kumiuant mammalia were, therefore, require;!, and these can only exist in large flocks, through the peculiar growth of the leave? of grasses on which th<T feed. Most leave:-) grow very rapidly after the bursting of the bud, and then cfase to grow altogether. The consequence, is that if the leaves of one of these plan's are continuously cut or pulled off. they are not reproduced, and (he plant dies. lUil in the grasses and thiir allies, the leaves continue to grow at their bases all through life, so long as the temperature and moisture, of the. soil are favourable, and cutting or biting (if? their ends does the plant good ir«!cnd of harm, for it exiioses the newly-grown parts of the leaves to the sun. Thus large herds of iiniinals are enabled to live together without destroying llio vegetation; and it was this that tempted primeval man to leave the for.-st. and live on Ike open laud. Now, hoofed mammals require:! a.lonp; timo for their development, r.ml if they had not been a very early branch of the Eutherian stock they would not have been ready for man to domesticate at the close of the pleistocene period. We have thus no le?s than five different groups of plants and animals, which must precede man in a certain order, to allow the possibility of human civilisation. Phanerogamous trees and birds must precede the earliest primates. Grasses and ruminants must follow, yet they also must precede man. Nov. , , we find that this is just the order in which they did Phanerogamous trees are known first in the carboniferous period. Mammals in the lower Jurassic. Birds in the nppsr Jurassic, The primates and primitive hoofed mammals in the lower eocene. Brasses in the oligocenc. Ruminants in the mioceno. And man in the pliocene. The mesozoie mammals were nil quite small, and we do not know the structure of their feet, so we cannot say whether they were arboreal or not; but, with this possible exception, we find that the different cljis.es came into existence just when they were wanted. We must remember that these gioups of plains and «»>imals form widely separated branc-nes of the tree of life, and that the necessary correlations of which we have been speaking lie outside the jurisdiction of natural selection, which, although it regulates the development of crch branch, has no power of co-ordination between tive ljrancbes unless one forms the food or the oth;r. So that thero is no reason at all why they should have been developed in the particular order in which they appear. For example, the origin of birds depends chiefly on the development of highly complex papillte in the skin, from which the feathers .-.re formed. If Iheso had not been developed in the naked skin of a reptile, flying' birds would never have come into existence. And if there had been no birds, or even if the origin of birds had been delayed until the miocene period, there woulc

lave been no monkeys nor man. So also, f no ruminants had been developed, this) could not lisvn prevented the appearance if apes or even in:'.n, but man would have ■emaincil in t!iv of a hunter all his lays, and could not have lived in large comnvnitics. ' Now, if there had been only two of there i ;ronps one might reasonably have f-aiil that j t v.'iis by mere chance that the one was j Icvelopcd before the other. But when we j ce that thorn worn more than two highly- ! •ompio: combination!", Ml of which hap-1 lonc'd in the particular order required for lrogress, it is evident that the probabilities ire" in favour of this particular chain of ■■vents having breri brought about inten- j ionaliy, either by guidance or by preirrangoiTicnt. I sec no escape from this con- j ' '" 10,1 ' SECONDARY CAUSES. ! But granted, what perhaps no one scrimsly disputes, that evolution is din to ineliigent design, the difficult question arises, .las all been brought about by unalterable secondary laws imposed on matter at the ligation of the univ.-rsc? Or can we reco;;iUn any evidence of guidance in a particuar direction without which the design would lave failed? When we think of the whole work that ins linen accomplished, by evolution we are ivrrwhclmod by its vost'uess. The results if organic evolution, particularly, are so narvv'llotis that, lo our limited intcllisep.ee, he forces to which they are due seem to lave been constantly directed in their •nur?e. The human mind is_ more disio«i>d to aeei.pt the idea o? guidance than !iat of predetermination, as it seems to >.-, to lie the less impossible of the two, and 1w uioiv easy to understand. Captain Hutcm thinks tfir.t until some explanation ran v given, it is not- only permissible but •nasonable, to view the origin of life as due o some guiding action outside of natural aw. EFFECTS OF THE NEW TEACHING. This new doctrine of evolution has •lunged the whole aspect of natural philo:ophy. We are now compelled to assume is' fir.=t cause a power outside of Nature vithout which the material could lover have come into existence. For, in ho first place, if this universe has in its*'f 10 newer of rejuvenescence it and its 'veatov ranuot be one and the same. The nind which moves the universe cannot have •one into existence with it; nor can they )?rish together. And, secondly, while the irhins of life and free will on the earth remain as evidence of discontinuity it is im)o<sible to believe that the evolutionary irocoss is duo to an uninterrupted original impulse, such as we must support! would result from an effort in Nature to evolve itself. Anil we must further believe that :he mind which originated the gradual doI'clopmimt of inrttcr from the simple to the :omplox must be sufficiently powerful to [lireet the Etupeudons forces of JSature; sufficiently intelligent to foresee their results ivhen set'in motion: and sufficiently_moral [o have conceived the moral evolution of man. It is true, as Pantheists urge, that our only experience of mind is in connection with matter. But, fo far as we know, mind is connected only with one kind of matter, palled protoplasm, which cannot possibly pxist Hiroußliout the universe. Consequently mind must either bo absent from iar"o portion? of matter, or it must be associated with that matter in some way which quite transcends our experience. So that wo have no more experience of mind universally distributed through matter than we have of mind distinct from matter, and Hie argument for Pantheism breaks down. CaptaSn Hutton then discusses at length the purpose of evolution. Ik feels consi rained to believe that psychological evolution may continue after the death of the body in which the mind is temporarily pneascd. If evolution was gradually leading to a state of perfect happiness on earth—if we might suppose that a millennium was approsehinpr, then we might possibly helicvo that this millcnium was the final purpose of terrestrial evolution, however inadequate it may appear. But there is no evidence of a millennium, even in the very far distance. So long as man exists ethical ind intellectual will both he going nn'. and they will always bo in nntneonism. The struggle for wealth and power will now cease, and while it continues there can bo no millennium. Tiie wolf will live as long us the lamb, nml the two will iwver lie down together. So wo must look elsewhere for tho object of evolution. Indeed, psychological evolution is not making towards happiness. Birds and other animals aro as happy as man. Civilised man cannot boost that ho is happier than a savage. The greatest happiness of the greatest number may he the ideal of the politician, bill it has never been the- ideal of the moralist. With him happiness may eomo as an adjunct, hut it cannot be a, prime motive for action. His ideal is duty. Consequently ethical evolution seem 3 to bo loading up to something which is not displayed on the earth, and which we can only conceive as a further development of psychilogieal evolution, when mind is freed from matter. Tt will be objected that wo cannot even imagine a spiritual life unconnected with any material substance. That is quite true; hut it proves nothing. As I have just said, we know that physical cvoluticr prepared the way for life, and that biological evolution prepared the way for tho development of mind. I» each case the evolution had a prospective purpose, which could not have been predicted by an intelligent onlooker. Indeed, the intelligent onlooker might have been sufficiently self-confident to affirm at each srsge that no further evolution was possible. And it eccms to mo highly probable that psychological evolution on the earth may also have a prospective purpose. That it also will lead to a- further evolution, which we cannot even imagine, but which must be connected with a spiritual existence beyond t'e.e grave. And thus, at the dawn of tho twentieth century, we come back to the old belief, held by the rmle men who inhabited Europe in tho neolithic aRo, that man's spirit doee not die with his body. But we none that we have surer grounds for that belief than had our ancient ancestors, who, as I have already pointed out, founded their opinion solely on their dreams. SUMMARY. I will now, in conclusion, shortly summarise what I have said. Wo have seen

mar natural philosophy wa% at first, polytheistic, and then became dormant for many centuries. After the revival of tho study (it Nature, scientific teaching was decidedly pantheistic, but it has now como round to Tliciam: and this last change was brought about by the establishment of tho doctrine of evolution. It appears highly probable that the material universe is not Eternal, but will in timo come to au end. fiie earth, and consequently the sun, h probably not much more than 100 millions of years old; and as the sun is one of the oldest of the stars, it is probaßle that the origin of the universe does not date back for 200 millions of years. Wlret went before and what will come aflcr we can never blow; but we in?y believe, with some confidence, that there is no natural process 3i" vejuvpiieiirHien, no possibility of the present universe coming back again to its original starting point. Now, for anyone who believes that mind ias been the organiser of energy, there •an only bo two competing theories of tho .imverse-Panlheisin, now usually called Monism, and Theism, now often called Dualism. ]',ut cither tlioro is some process of •L'jnvencsconco which has not yet been dia:overed. or Pantheism is impossible. Ai casonablo men and women, wo must follow ■■ho best available evidence, and I do not ■ee how it is possible for anyone to bejevo in Patheisni so long as the orwins of ilo and free will remain unexplained." Conemiontly Theism is left as the only posible theory of the universe. AnS I have I lope, shown that there is sufficient evidence if design in Xuturo to convince us that volution lias not been due to haphazard (Tort, but to ddikrate action leading up to ome ulterior purpose, which it is the great I'isli of man to fathom. We know that the sun is in its old age, nd Hint in a few more millions of years it all cease to have any vitalising effect on ts planets. Also, we know that biological volution has nearly run its course on the arth. race for life is over, and man ;\5 won. Xo oilier animal can ever arise to ompete with him, for he could destroy t long before it became formidable. Psyhnlojriral evolution* alone is in the ascendnt, and this has yet much to do especilly in the domain of morals. Ethical volution—founded on free will, which hanged (he human mind into the human mil—is Ihe highest and last form of evoluion possible on tho Garth, and consequently, s far as terrestrial evolution is concerned, lie development nf the human soul must, 0 the object for which wo arc seeking, and ' this is so, there ought to be no difficulty 1 believing that everything which, cither ircctly or indirectly, has been instrumental i this development was designed for that urposo. But if all has been planned for the deelopment of the human soul, there must eve been Fome reason for planning it. 'here must be fomc further purposn which i hidden from us. Wo caanot believe that lie ultimate object was the happiness of ian on Hid earth, for there ia no evidence iat psychological evolution has increased is happiness. It, is not tho pursuit of leasuro. but the feeling tliat duty comes efore pleasure, which is tho moving force i ethical evolution. So we come to reeogisc that the ultimate purposes of evolution liwot be fulfilled on the earth; and wo are ius led to believe that our spirit will not erish with the body, but will, in tome way r other, load a new existence. And as we now that on t!io earth better has constantly icceedod better, ho we may hope it will s in the spiritual world. Such seems to me to jc tho teaching of ic modern doctrine of evolution. It is a hiloFophy which does not como to a close i this earth, but points forward, ?,ncl dimly lows us, from a study of the past, what c may expect in tho future. Without any aubt it teaches m that min has been in'oduied on to the earth for some special urpose, and it appears that that purpose in only be attained by the cxerci=e of his ee will. This being so, wo infer that iman beings have been formed to educate liml cjd fit it for a future spiritual exi=tico unconnected with the material earth. No doubt we are at present merely at io commencement of our researches in ittiral philosophy, and during tho coming intury wo may look forward to great adinces in knowledge. But, io my opinion, o can never know more than we do now lout the future immaterial life, and with at knowledge wo must bo content.