Views of a similar kind are voiced in many quarters. The Hamburg savant,
Edward Hoppe, has written a brochure, _Ist mit der Descendenz-Theorie
eine religiöse Vorstellung vereinbar?_ [Is the Theory of Evolution
reconcilable with the Religious Idea?] in which he takes issue, in the
name of religion, with the purely naturalistic type of Darwinian
thought. The most pronounced convert to anti-Darwinian views is
Professor Fleischmann, of Erlangen, who has not only discarded the
mechanical conception of the origin of being, but the whole Darwinian
theory. He recently delivered a course of lectures, entitled 'Die
Darwin'sche Theorie,' which have appeared in book form in Leipsic. He
comes to this conclusion: 'The Darwinian theory of descent has not a
single fact to confirm it in the realm of nature. It is not the result
of scientific research, but purely the product of the imagination.'
* * * * *
From another article in the same journal (p. 116), entitled 'A Study of
Creation,' the following paragraphs may be cited:
"The French have never been enthusiastic Darwinians. It is,
perhaps, not surprising, therefore, to find a French geologist, M.
Stanislas Meunier, arguing in the _Revue Scientifique_ (December
19) against all schools of transformism and stoutly maintaining
what is practically a doctrine of special creation. He admits that
living beings form a connected series; but the connexion, he
believes, is not one of physical descent, but inheres in something
outside of and pre-existent to the earth. He does not name it, but
he would probably not object to the inference that it is the mind
of a creator.
"M. Meunier gives at some length his reasons for rejecting
Darwin's, Lamarck's, and all other theories of transformism. All we
can be sure of, he thinks, is that, as in the case of the various
kinds of pottery, we have to do with an orderly development,
although he thinks it is not a development by descent. He closes,
thus:
"'Doubtless we cannot usefully risk any hypothesis on the mechanism
of the production of living things; but it is, perhaps, a step in
advance only to come to the conclusion that the cause of life and
its manifestations on the earth is exterior to the earth; that it
is anterior to our world, just as are doubtless the laws of physics
and chemistry, which govern the relations of matter and force
throughout space.
"'The philosophy of science can lose nothing by the admission of
points of view that, far from narrowing our subjects of study,
enlarge them beyond all limits; and this is, perhaps, the occasion
to show once more to persons who are turning toward metaphysics in
their thirst for mystery, that they will find in pure science that
wherewith they may satisfy their legitimate aspirations.'"
_C._ _Succession of Plant forms p. 220._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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