The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and MoralitySchmid, Rudolf
Religion
The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality
Schmid, Rudolf
Evolution; Religion and science
It is true, we could rank Darwin still more readily among the scientists
who are at peace with all the claims of religion, did he not in his
"Descent of Man," when enumerating the "excellent naturalists and
philosophers" who with him reduce the pedigree of man to lower forms,
mention names of men who in their works firmly unite Darwinism and monistic
naturalism or even materialism, and expressly protest against a separation
of their naturo-historical results and their philosophic points of view. We
mean Buechner and Haeckel. The latter's "Natural History of Creation," he
especially praises: "If this work had appeared before my essay had been
written, I should probably never have completed it. Almost all the
conclusions at which I have {220} arrived I find confirmed by this
naturalist," etc. The entire silence in regard to the anti-Christian
results which these two authors derive from their naturo-historical
premises, makes Darwin's own position in reference to religion again very
uncertain. It seems that Darwin in his theology is not only inclined to
theism, but, following the traditions of his countrymen of the last
century, to a quite cool and superficial deism, and that he permits himself
to be too much impressed by the anti-teleological deductions of many of his
followers, and to be induced to separate in his later publications the
Creator and his work more widely than he has done in the beginning. For
while in his "Origin of the Species," and in his "Descent of Man" he
nowhere contests a teleological view of nature, and rejects the idea of
single creations only under the erroneous supposition that the idea of the
creation of the single also excludes the action of intervening agencies, we
find, on the other hand, in "The Expression of the Emotions in Man and
Animals" a passage which, though in a reserved way, seems to give just as
much support to the adversaries of teleology as to its advocates, if,
indeed, not more. He says (page 338): "The belief that blushing was
_specially_ designed by the Creator is opposed to the general theory of
evolution, which is now so largely accepted; but it forms no part of my
duty here to argue on the general question. Those who believe in design
will find it difficult to account for shyness being the most frequent and
efficient of all the causes of blushing," etc. This inconsistency in his
utterances has its origin in the fact that the strength of this naturalist
does not seem to lie in logical philosophic thought. {221}
A. R. Wallace, the independent and contemporaneous co-originator of the
Darwinian theory, still more evidently and more decidedly expresses himself
favorably as to the position of this theory in reference to religion. In
his "Natural Selection," he says on page 368: "It does not seem an
improbable conclusion that all force may be will-force; and thus, that the
whole universe is not merely dependent on, but actually is, the WILL of
higher intelligences or of one Supreme Intelligence."
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