Darwiniana : Essays — Volume 02Huxley, Thomas Henry
Science
Darwiniana : Essays — Volume 02
Huxley, Thomas Henry
Darwin, Charles, 1809-1882; Evolution (Biology)
The fact that it did not so come into being stands upon as sound a basis as
any fact of history whatever. It is not true that existing plants and
animals came into being within three days of the creation of the earth out
of nothing, for it is certain that innumerable generations of other plants
and animals lived upon the earth before its present population. And when,
Sunday after Sunday, men who profess to be our instructors in righteousness
read out the statement, "In six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the
sea, and all that in them is," in innumerable churches, they are either
propagating what they may easily know, and, therefore, are bound to know,
to be falsities; or, if they use the words in some non-natural sense, they
fall below the moral standard of the much-abused Jesuit.
Thus far the contradiction between Catholic verity and Scientific verity is
complete and absolute, quite independently of the truth or falsehood of the
doctrine of evolution. But, for those who hold the doctrine of evolution,
all the Catholic verities about the creation of living beings must be no
less false. For them, the assertion that the progenitors of all existing
plants were made on the third day, of animals on the fifth and sixth days,
in the forms they now present, is simply false. Nor can they admit that man
was made suddenly out of the dust of the earth; while it would be an insult
to ask an evolutionist whether he credits the preposterous fable respecting
the fabrication of woman to which Suarez pins his faith. If Suarez has
rightly stated Catholic doctrine, then is evolution utter heresy. And such
I believe it to be. In addition to the truth of the doctrine of evolution,
indeed, one of its greatest merits in my eyes, is the fact that it occupies
a position of complete and irreconcilable antagonism to that vigorous and
consistent enemy of the highest intellectual, moral, and social life of
mankind--the Catholic Church. No doubt, Mr. Mivart, like other putters of
new wine into old bottles, is actuated by motives which are worthy of
respect, and even of sympathy; but his attempt has met with the fate which
the Scripture prophesies for all such.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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