But Darwin's doctrine is even more destructive. His heart rebels against
the "hard reason" upon which his heartless hypothesis is built. He says:
"The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly the
result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as a
part of the social instincts, but subsequently rendered in the manner
indicated, more tender and more widely diffused. Nor could we check our
sympathy even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in
the noblest part of our nature. The surgeon may harden himself while
performing an operation, for he knows he is acting for the good of
his patient; but if we were to intentionally neglect the weak and the
helpless, it could be only for a contingent benefit, with overwhelming
present evil. We must therefore bear the undoubted bad effects of the
weak surviving and propagating their kind."
The moral nature which, according to Darwin, is also developed by
natural selection and sexual selection, repudiates the brutal law
to which, if his reasoning is correct, it owes its origin. Can that
doctrine be accepted as scientific when its author admits that we cannot
apply it "without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature"? On
the contrary, civilization is measured by the moral revolt against the
cruel doctrine developed by Darwin.
Darwin rightly decided to suspend his doctrine, even at the risk of
impairing the race. But some of his followers are more hardened. A few
years ago I read a book in which the author defended the use of alcohol
on the ground that it rendered a service to society by killing off the
degenerates. And this argument was advanced by a scientist in the fall
of 1920 at a congress against alcohol.
The language which I have quoted proves that Darwinism is directly
antagonistic to Christianity, which boasts of its eleemosynary
institutions and of the care it bestows on the weak and the helpless.
Darwin, by putting man on a brute basis and ignoring spiritual values,
attacks the very foundations of Christianity.
Those who accept Darwin's views are in the habit of saying that it need
not lessen their reverence for God to believe that the Creator fashioned
a germ of life and endowed it with power to develop into what we see
to-day. It is true that a God who could make man as he is, could have
made him by the long-drawn-out process suggested by Darwin. To do either
would require infinite power, beyond the ability of man to comprehend.
But what is the _natural tendency_ of Darwin's doctrine?
Will man's attitude toward Darwin's God be the same as it would be
toward the God of Moses? Will the believer in Darwin's God be as
conscious of God's presence in his daily life? Will he be as sensitive
to God's will and as anxious to find out what God wants him to do?
Will the believer in Darwin's God be as fervent in prayer and as open to
the reception of divine suggestions?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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