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Show 256 DA.R WINIA.N A.. that it explains moral anomalies, and accounts for the mixture of good and evil in the world, as well as for the merely relative perfection of things; and, finally, that "the whole scheme which God has framed for man's existence, from the first that was created to all eternity, coUapses if the great law of evolution be suppressed." The second part of his book is occupied with a development of this line of argument. By this doctrine of evolution he does not mean the Darwinian hypothesis, although he accepts and includes this, looking upon natural selection as pJaying an important though not an unlimited part. He would be an evolutionist with !Evart and Owen and Argyll, even if he had not the vera causa which Darwin contributed to help him on. And, on rising to man, he takes ground with Wallace, saying: " I would wish to state distinctly that I do not at present see any evidence for believing in a gradual development of man from the lower animals by ordinary natural laws; that is, without some special interference, or, if it be preferred, some exceptional conditions which have thereby separated him from all other creatures, and placed hi:tn decidedly in advance of them all. On the other hand, it would be absurd to regard him as totally severed from them. It is the great degree of difference .r would insist upon, bodily, mental, and spiritual, which precludes the idea of his having been evolved by exactly the same processes, and with the same limitations, as, for example, the horse from the palreotherium." In ill~strating this view, he reproduces Wallace's well-known points, and adds one or two of his own. We need not follow up his lines of argument. The essay ' indeed' adds nothing material to the discussion . EVOLUTION A.ND THEOLOGY. 257 of evolution, although it states one side of the case moderately well, as far as .it goes. Dr. Hodge approaches the subject from the side of systematic theology, and considers it mainly in its bearing upon the origin and original state of man. Under each head he first lays down "the Scriptural doctrine," and then discusses " anti-Scriptural theories," which latter, under the :first head, are the heathen doctrine o£ spontaneous generation, the modern doctrine of spontaneous generation, theories of development, specially that of Darwin, the atheistic character of the theory, etc. Although he admits "that there is a theistic and an atheistic form of the nebu- · lar hypotllesis as to the origin of the universe, so there may be a theistic interpretation of the Darwinian theory," yet he contends that "the system is thoroughly atheistic," notwithstanding that the author " expressly acknowledges the existence of God." . Curiously enough, the atheistic form of evolutionary hypotheses,. or what he takes for such, is the only one which Dr. Hodge cares to examine. Even the "Reign of Law" theory, Owen's "purposive route of development and change .... by virtue of inher.ent tendencies theFeto," as well as other expositions of the general doctrine on a theistic basis, are barely mentioned without a word of comment, except, perhaps, a general "protest against the arraying of probabilities against the teachings of Scripture." · Now, all former experience shows that it is neither safe nor wise to pronounce a whole system " thorough- ly atheistic" which it is conceded may be held theistically, and which is likely to be largely held, if not |