Just a Few Words on Evolution

just a Few Words on Evolution | A reoenl article in the Em by Elder Joseph Fielding Smith has brought forth some remarks on the suhject by a correspondent in New York, from whose letter we quote the following as worthy of note. Editors.] If we start with a definition of the word "evolution," we will discover that it is the antonym of the word, "involution." That is to say, it signifies, in all common connection, the "work- ing out" of an involved, or potential inwardness. Thus, the production of a perfect bird, within the time of a very few weeks, from the (apparently) homogeneous mass of the egg yolk is to be attributed to the fact that the developed, com- pleted, hetrogeneous creature, the bird in esse always really ex- isted, as philosophers say, in posse, in the form of the numeric- ally conceivable equivalents concealed in the primal germ. This condition of existence in posse of an animal or veg- etable organism is comparable, and in a way analogous, to the very real existence of the musical composition on the "record" of the phonograph or graphophone. Of course, armed even with a powerful microscope, you or I could discern on this "rec- ord" no more than irregular scratches, etc., whose irregularity may be graphically expressed by the use of some delicate instru- ment capable of inscribing a smoked card, or guiding a pen, after the manner familiar in the automatic recording barom- eters, so familiar in weather stations, or scientific laboratories. That potential existence — for this world — may mean actual ex- istence for some other conceivable world, is an idea that has ap- peared throughout the history of thought, and which is embodied in the most exact speculations of advanced modern scientists (see, for example, the calculations of Prof. Ernstein, etc). In fact, sci- ence leads direct, not to say, immediately, right away, inevitably, to the conclusion that the things apparent in this world, and this world itself, are a very small portion of the total universe. Thus, for example, I, as an individual man, know myself as existing in the forms of this world and thinking and acting according to its terms, and within its limitations, yet my mind, constrained as it is to accept the logical doctrine of cause and effect, is bound to recognize that the being called "myself," which is now a man, must have existed in posse — whatever you may miderstand by that term as applied to a human being — from all eternity. If I am the finished product of a long line of causation, the string of causes which have, for this world, at least, culminated in pro-

JUST A FEW WORDS ON EVOLUTION 35 ducing "me" must, if I am consistently observant of logical ne- cessities, have reached back to so immensely indefinite a past that I cannot conceive of a logical alternative to the proposi- tion that my present existence has always been involved in the constitution of creation. Thus God who "alone inhabits eter- nity," as we are told, sees the real in every potential, and knows each of us, as he said to the ancient prophet before any of us was yet in utero or even in ovo. Just as in the material thing, the phonograph record, the sound effect, the musical composi- tion, awaits only the proper conditions (that is within the instru- ment) to appear in the world of sound, so the potential actuali- ties that are involved in the causation of all creation contain the sufficient potency to produce every material effect, each in its own order. Advocates of the "evolution hypothesis" are misled by the fact that, as seems fairly evident on observation, there is a nearly unlimited possibility — even actuality — of variation in organic forms. None of them is entirely permanent, and all may be modified through a wide range, as is to be seen in the researches of biologists and in the achievements of Mr. Burbank and others. The advocates of the theory of descent argue, there- fore, that, admitting the unlimited (apparently) possibility of variation of form, we have a fact that argues direct to the no- tion that all forms come, by the process of natural descent, from original proto-primal, simple organisms, in the universal sense through a process analogous to the development of the com- plete bird from the yolk of the egg. In making this generaliza- tion, however, they ignore three very pertinent conditions that are unescapably evident to any candid and informed mind, in- terested to assess facts for their evidential value, and not to force them into evidence for support of a preassumed hypoth- esis. These facts are (1) that virtually all the data that go to create a presumption of variation of form in nature consist pre- cisely in apparent atrophies or hypertrophies of previously existent structures, for no very intelligible end in utility, and, if eventuating through natural descent, by the activity of causes entirely obscure to our reason, and most, if not all of them, without significance to any assumed process by which the pri- mordial "homogeneous" passes into the present "heterogene- ous," according to the definition of Herbert Spencer. Thus, if we assume that the present one-toed horse is descended from an ancient five-toes ancestor; that the large-horned Dinotherium de- scended from apparently hornless, hog-like forebears, or that the elephant with his trunk and tusks descended from a primal parent having only a very rudimentary suggestion of either

3o IMPROVEMENT ERA structure, we have admitted these facts, and no more. We have no logical clue to any theory to account for the original appear- and, or use, of any of the structures, either atrophied or hyper- trophic! in descent, nor any clue to an analogy for the varia- tion by either atrophy or hypertrophy of more vital and typi- cal organs and structures. Evolution theorists forget also (2) that, while very many such apparent structures as those noted above eventuated, ac- cording to the terms of their hypothesis, for no assignable, often, also, for no intelligible, reason, there are others that seem to be due, if "evolution" is a true explanation, or, rather, if they are to be accounted for on the hypothesis of variations, in order to adapt an organism to new and insistent modes of life, or new ad- ventitious environments. Thus, as is claimed, ancient plesio- saurs and icthyosaurs, related, apparently, to land-dwelling rep- tile forms, later became aquatic, or pelagic, in habit, and took in pisciform bodies, with modifications of other organs and limbs. But, if such pisciform reptiles are to be regarded as products of variation in the line of natural descent, the varia- tions which they embody evidences mere potentiality to adjust- ment, and lend no clue, except by remote analogies, to the devel- opment of one distinct type from another. Thus, although we may admit, if only "for the sake of argument," that these ancient reptiles, and some other forms apparently adapted to new en- vironments, by taking on new forms, suggestive of creatures of entirely distinct character, the modification is only apparent and superficial. No pisciform reptile has ever gone further than the mere outward form to an approximation to the essen- tial and distinctive characteristics of true fishes. The hypothe- sis of descent involves, according to its advocates, that all animal forms, terrestrial as well as aquatic, have been derived from fish-ancestors. They attempt to bolster their supposition by citing the fact that certain eccentric types of fishes have the fac- ulty of crawling on shore by using their air-bladders as a means of respiration on land, thus suggesting a method by which true air-breathing lungs must have been originated through natural descent. They may be right for all that I can say to the contrary, but I can assert most positively that they have furnished no evi- dence that they are right, except on the bases of the most re- mote analogies, leading to a consideration of what, conceivably, if other things are equal, "might have taken place." This is not evidence. It is merely the citation of a few facts of the most "circumstantial" bearing, leading to the contemplation of an ap- parent possibility. We may even admit that certain originally water-breathing creatures might, for all that we can say to the contrary, have contracted a tendency to land-dwelling, and that they might, for all that we can say to the contrary, have devel-

JUST A FEW WORDS ON EVOLUTION 37 oped true lungs from air-bladders, in the course of a long series of changes wrought in the process of natural descent. What of it? We have no notion whatever of the intermediate, but high- ly necessary, steps in the process; no intelligible conception of a reason or explanation for the origination of so important and radical a change in life habits; no evidence, apart from a few extremely sporadic and eccentric types, familiar to biologists, that there ever was any such tendency, or that it could ever go further than to allow an air-bladder to discharge a temporary and quite secondary function, which is impossible to all but a hopelessly few real water-dwellers; and no evidence, apart from remotest possible analogy, enforced by suppositions of ingenious minds, that any such variations, modifications or changes ever took place on earth. The hypothesis of descent demands, as its advocates conceive it, that such a transition in life and habit must have occurred. Consequently, the few sporadic cases of crawling fish assume, for their minds, the significance of rele- vant evidence- Evolution advocates further ignore the fact (3) that, while, as may be admitted, there are numerous fairly good presump- tive evidences of very great variations in nature, such as in the case of horses, dinotheres, elephants, etc., as noted above, all such variations are variations of specific forms merely, and that there is no evidence whatever for any transmutations between types of living things. Thus, they elaborate their claims for the derivation of land-dwellers from water-dwellers, utterly oblivious of the fact that the necessary changes to adapt the one to the life of the other must have been immensely more radical than the mere transformation of function in an air-bladder. Similarly, when they attempt to trace the "genealogy" of reptiles from amphibia, or of mammals from reptiles, they deliberately ig- nore— or, in their purblind enthusiasm, commit the logical blunder of a crass amateur in logic, of forgetting considerations as important as those which they remember — the fact that, in order to postulate the derivation of either type from its assumed antecedent, they must consider modifications far more important than the mere outward form and appearance. As you may readily learn from works on anatomy and biology, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals differ among them- selves, not only in appearance, but in anatomical and physi- ological details immensely more important. They differ mu- tually in their breathing, digestive, assimilative, nervous and reproductive functions far more than in their outward ap- pearances. If we are to establish a presumption for the ac- curacy of the evolution "explanation," we must make some ef- fort to account for the transformations, radical ones also, be- tween the types of function as manifested in these really en-

38 IMPROVEMENT ERA lirrlv disassociated orders of creatures. Nothing of the kind has as yet been furnished us. Consequently, the entire hypothesis fails, in its ability to create even a presumption that it can ex- plain the gaps between the great orders of life. Personally, I am not inclined to attempt dogmatizing my- self. I do not feel qualified to attempt to decide the matter at all. I know, however, that the "evolution" explanation, as for- mulated by its foremost advocates, at any rate, does not explain the facts with which it attempts to deal. With all their vast array of data, carefully and laboriously compiled, they can do no more than dogmatize, when dealing with the real problems of their pet hypothesis or obsession. I am convinced, also, that the old-time theory of direct creation, however we may suppose in our imaginations that it operated, explains the facts far more readily, and far more logically, than these notions of a mech- anical universe, controlled as supposed by "infrangible laws" which every tyro in biology can perfectly discern and under- stand. I am willing to accept any conclusion that cannot be over- thrown, or discredited, upon careful examination, even though complete demonstration may still be impossible, but I will not accept anything until I have exhausted every expedient of logic and analysis to find flaws and defects in its armor. Thus, when a man says to me that life itself is merely a manifestation of chemical and electrical activities, I am willing to take the matter up with him, and discuss it on its merits. I am even willing to assume that he might, imaginably, be right, although I will not assume even that until he can offer something better than a tot- tering fragment of a feeble faculty of imagination to support a conclusion that is only logically intelligible, when supported by facts that argue direct to his assumption. Of course, in this par- ticular point, the intelligent mind must recognize that living or- ganisms express and involve many typical electrical and chem- ical phenomena, but, if such a mind is also entirely candid with itself, it cannot fail to see that, above and behind all such phen- omena is a substratum that is not evidently chemically or elec- trically explainable. The advocate of the mechanical universe may be assumed (if only for the sake of argument) to be right, but he does not know that he is right, and cannot prove that he is right, either by appealing to facts, or using the methods of logic. They cheerfully admit the intelligent agency of the en- gineer who designed or built a human machine, but grow skep- tical, even sarcastic, when one attempts to indicate that the uni- verse machine must have a Designer and Contriver also. But, with all their vain professions of wisdom, in which, as the scrip- ture says, "they become fools," they tacitly assume the very thing which they assume to deny. For they ascribe to creation

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JUST A FEW WORDS ON EVOLUTION 39

the self-sufficiency which belongs properly to the Creator, find- ing in the work the qualities of the Worker of it all. And their atheism even, is merely an example of the universal human tendency to reach out after the Ultimate. Their work reminds one forcibly of the words of Emerson's poem, Brahma (a poet- ization of old Indian philosophical thinking)

""They reckon ill who leave me out. When me they fly, I am the wings. I am the doubter and the doubt; And I, the hymn the Brahmin sings."