NATURE 



441 



THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 1891. 



AN E VOL UTIONA RY CAS TIG A TION. 



Science or Romance? By the Rev. John Gerard, SJ. 

 (London: Catholic Truth Society, 1891.) 



THAT the doctrine of evolution should not be as 

 sweet savour in the nostrils of the writer of this 

 little book is in no way surprising, but that he should 

 attack evolutionists and their ways with the weapons of 

 flippancy and ridicule is an encouraging indication that 

 the said doctrine has penetrated into quarters from which 

 the author evidently thinks it high time to eject this 

 modern heresy. Having seized the scourge, Father 

 Gerard accordingly proceeds to lay out all round, de- 

 livering his blows with vigour, if not with discrimination, 

 and occasionally throwing such force into his strokes that 

 the lash recoils and strikes the striker. In happy un- 

 consciousness that he hits himself quite as often as he 

 does his adversaries, the author goes on with his flagella- 

 tion through six essays occupying 136 pages of somewhat 

 close print. Although, as we have said, the attitude 

 taken by the author will cause no astonishment, it is very 

 much to be regretted that he has so far put himself out of 

 harmony with the spirit of modern biological thought as 

 to confuse the opinions, speculations, and working hypo- 

 theses of individual exponents of evolution with the broad 

 principles of that doctrine. For, however distasteful it 

 may be to Father Gerard, it is an indisputable fact that 

 the acceptance of that doctrine is well-nigh universal, 

 and the question whether evolution is or is not a modtis 

 operandi in nature, has passed beyond the phase of dis- 

 cussion among scientific thinkers and workers. So far 

 as the author's attacks are directed against evolution as 

 a principle, his weapon is as a bladder of air against the 

 hide of a hippopotamus. It is satisfactory to find, how- 

 ever, that amidst the whizzing of h.is Jlagellum the author 

 discerns the still small voice of reason : — 



" The one fact given us, is the existence of evidence to 

 show that various species of plants and animals have 

 probably, or possibly, been developed one from another. 

 This, so far as it goes, is matter for scientific treatment ; 

 and the theory of evolution, within the limits thus afforded, 

 has a right to be called a scientific hypothesis." 



We are grateful for small mercies, and it would be 

 ungracious to inquire too closely into the origin of this 

 concession, but to those who read between the lines it 

 will be apparent that the thirty years' campaign carried 

 on by evolutionists has not been without result, even in 

 the most unpromising fields. 



The antagonist whom evolutionists in general and 

 Darwinians in particular have found in the author of the 

 work under consideration is a foeman not altogether un- 

 worthy of their steel. He brings into the arena a certain 

 amount of knowledge of living things which indicates 

 that he is an observer of nature in the field. Moreover, 

 he shows some understanding of his subject, and does 

 not fall into the error of substituting blundering miscon- 

 ceptions for the statements of fact or theory which he is 

 combating. Added to this there is a certain keenness of 

 satire running through his essays which adds to their 

 piquancy. The name of Father Gerard on the title-page 

 NO. I 141, VOL. 44] 



is a sufficient indication that evolutionists will find death 

 and no quarter in his pages, and the reader will not be 

 disappointed if he turns to these essays with the special 

 object of finding the weaknesses of the modern school 

 exposed. But while the purely destructive attacks of the 

 reverend critic may give satisfaction to those who belong 

 to his school, the impartial reader will derive only amuse- 

 ment, and the man of science will soon perceive that the 

 weapons of attack are not the legitimate implements of 

 scientific warfare, but the tricks of disputation concealed 

 under a somewhat alluring literary cloak, embellished here 

 and there with a few flowers of the author's own culling. 



Having arrived at this general estimate of the work, 

 it will not be necessary to do more than take a passing 

 glance at its contents. The first essay, entitled "A 

 Tangled Tale," opens with an attack on natural selection ; 

 the author will have none of it ; he objects to the term 

 and he denies its efficiency : — 



" It would, in fact, be vastly more likely that we should 

 cast aces three hundred times running, with a pair ot 

 unloaded dice, or toss ' tails ' two thousand times with aa 

 honest coin, than that a development should be handed 

 down by natural selection through ten generations, even 

 if we start with "so favourable a supposition as that 

 one-half of the offspring tend to vary in the required 

 direction." 



This conclusion is based on a calculation in which the 

 whole principle of selection is ignored ! 



The central idea of this essay is, that evolutionists 

 have reduced the operations of Nature to " chance," 

 "accident," and so forth. We are told, at the very 

 outset : — 



" The cardinal point of the doctrine they proclaim is, 

 that no purpose operates in Nature, and that the ex- 

 planation of everything we see is to be found in the 

 mechanical forces of matter." 



In order that there may be no misunderstanding as to 

 what the author means by chance, he defines it as " the 

 coincidence of independent phenomena— that is, of phe- 

 nomena not co-ordinated to an end." By what criterion, 

 may we ask, are " chance " phenomena, as thus defined, 

 to be distinguished from " pre-determined " phenomena ? 

 Prof. Huxley's example, quoted from Darwin's " Life and 

 Letters," is critically dealt with, and the author tells us 

 that this is " utterly wide of the mark. The phenomena 

 here described [a storm at sea] end with themselves, they 

 lead to nothing else ; nothing follows from them. They 

 are mere effects, and not, so far as we know, a means to 

 obtain a result beyond." The insight which the author 

 appears to have gained into the motive, or want of motive, 

 in nature is really most enviable ; the man of science 

 who must perforce arrive at his conclusions by the cir- 

 cuitous roads of observation and experiment can only 

 look with admiring wonder upon a method which is so 

 completely foreign to his philosophy. 



This same dummy, chance, is well belaboured through- 

 out ; among the slain, after this first tilt, we find not only 

 Prof. Huxley, but Andrew Wilson, Oscar Schmidt, and, 

 above all, Mr. Grant Allen, whose form is so terribly 

 hacked that he appears to have been in the very centre 

 of the fray, if not the chief object of attack. 



Tilt the second is headed " Missing Links," and the 

 onslaught begins upon Mr. Wallace, whose work on 



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