696 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



INTELLIGENCE AND THE BELIEF IN 



EVOLUTION. 

 Editor Popular Science, Monthly : 



SIR: Two sentences in your Editor's Ta- 

 ble of the January (1892) number excite 

 my surprise. They are these : " Every man 

 within certain limits is an evolutionist, and 

 we have little hesitation in saying that the 

 limits within which each man is an evolu- 

 tionist are the real limits of his intelli- 

 gence " ; and " we believe — and when we 

 say ' we ' we mean all persons with any pre- 

 tensions to education or intelligence — in evo- 

 lution as applied to the physical history of 

 our globe." Are these statements consistent 

 with that judicial fairness which all seekers 

 for truth, such as you certainly mean to be, 

 should preserve ? 



There are many of us who have been 

 diligent students of the works of evolution- 

 ists from the appearance of Herbert Spen- 

 cer's First Principles in 1865. We have 

 read Darwin's vohimes carefully, and Hux- 

 ley's and Tyndall's. We have followed Prof. 

 Gray's beautiful essays. But we are as yet 

 unconvinced "of evolution as applied to the 

 physical history of our globe." There are 

 gaps in the chain which, to our mind, are not 

 filled, nor are in promise of being filled, in 

 material evolution, as at the beginning of 

 life. We accept the statement of the au- 

 thors of The Unseen Universe : " It is against 

 all true scientific experience that life can ap- 

 pear without the intervention of a living an- 

 tecedent." Also at the appearance of new 

 organs, as Prof. Samuel Harris says, after 

 giving Prof. Tyndall's description of the de- 

 velopment of the eye : " This certainly is not 

 science ; no fact sustains a single one of the 

 assumptions. It is a figment of fancy." 

 Then there is the gap between the brute and 

 rational man, where we see no approach to a 

 bridge. 



Besides this, it seems to us there is much 

 sophistical reasoning among evolutionists, as 

 pointed out by Rudolph Schmid, by S. Wain- 

 wright, and especially by Prof. Samuel Harris, 

 in his Scientific Basis of Theism. 



There is, too, an initial difficulty in the 

 getting the heterogeneous out of the homo- 

 geneous, without a force from without, impul- 

 sive and directive. 



Clerk Jfaxwell states the difficulty in the 

 way of evolution from molecular science : " No 

 theory of evolution can be formed to account 

 for the similarity of molecules throughout 

 all time, and throughout the whole region of 

 the stellar universe, for evolution necessa- 

 rily implies a continuous change, and the 

 molecule is incapable of growth or decay, of 

 preservation or destruction. . . . Therefore, 

 for the interaction of molecules, there must 

 be a power from without impelling and di- 



recting." Maxwell adds words which we ac- 

 cept: "These molecules continue this day as 

 they were created, perfect in number, meas- 

 ure, and weight ; and from the ineffaceable 

 characters impressed on them we may learn 

 that those aspirations after truth in state- 

 ment and justice in action, which we reckon 

 among our noblest attributes as men, are 

 ours because they are the essential constitu- 

 ents of the image of Him who, in the begin- 

 ning, created not only the heaven and the 

 earth, but the material of which the heaven 

 and the earth consist." 



We would not deny an evolution in the 

 physical work which Prof. Harris calls " sci- 

 entic," but we would consider it with Prof. 

 Leotze " as a gradual unfolding of a creative 

 spiritual principle," and would recognize, 

 with him and Uhici, "in the evolution both 

 a mechanical and a icJcological process, im- 

 plying both an energizing and a directing 

 agency." 



Now, if in not accepting evolution as or- 

 dinarily understood, in holding E'arwinism 

 nou -proven, we show a limit of our intelli- 

 gence and are excluded from the company 

 of " all persons with any pretensions to edu- 

 cation or intelligence," it positively is not 

 from lack of study of what evolutionists 

 have said, and certainly we have some very 

 good company in our limitation and our ex- 

 clusion ; many of them are men who seem to 

 be thoroughly conversant with all that has 

 been said for evolution, and they seem to be 

 able to grapple with the arguments. 



Do not statements such as you make 

 create a prejudice against evolution among 

 many fair-minded men, and hinder their ac- 

 ceptance of its arguments ? 



Evolutionists repel with indignation the 

 assertion that they are actuated by a desire 

 to be rid of God and of moral obligation. 

 Need they be surprised if men who have 

 studied diligently what they say, and are 

 yet unconvinced, do repel with equal indig- 

 nation the assertion of their Umitalion of in- 

 telligence ? 



Is not the true way to grant each other 

 the fair assumption of honistg and honor- 

 ableness of motive and of intelligence ? Is 

 not this the only true way for those who 

 would help one another in the search for the 

 one supreme reality — Truth ? 



John R. Thueston. 

 WuiTiNSVix-LE, Mass., Vccemher 22, 1S91. 



THE EARTHQUAKE OF OCTOBER, 1£91, IN 



JAPAN. 

 Editor Popular Science Monthly : 



Sir: In 1855, on the 11th of November, 

 Japan was shaken by a terrible earthquake. 

 At that time the center of the seismic dis- 

 turbance was somewhere in the vicinity of 



