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BADEN POWFXIi ON DEVELOPMENT. Essays on ...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Natural History Owes So Much To Clergyme...
student should have yet explored the flowery wilderness of Eastern Chronicles . He would find in the ancient annala of Persia ? , and in the still more accessible traditions of the Rajpoots , many striking illustrations of the true spirit , as well as of the outward forms of chivalry . And he would thence learn in what degree the material and social progress of the West is due to comm erce , in what degree to Christianity ; for , until the principles of commerce beg an to be understood and developed , the Christian nations of Europe never attained a higher order of knowledge and refinement than has prevailed among Hindoos and Mussulmans .
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Baden Powfxii On Development. Essays On ...
BADEN POWFXIi ON DEVELOPMENT . Essays on the Spirit of the Inductive Philosophy , the Unity of Worlds , and the Philosophy of Creation . By the Rev . Baden Powell . Longman and Co .
( THIRD ARTrCLB . ) The third and last Essay of this excellent work is devoted to the question of Development , which after its revival in the Vestiges of Creation , excited , and will for some time continue to excite , such profusion of bad temper and bad logic . Nowhere are the courage and sincerity of the Rev . Baden Powell shown more honourably than in this Essay . He uniformly argues with the temper and the clearness of a philosopher . He strains no point , indulges in no rhetoric , attempts no dogmatic brow-beating . He examines the arguments in a thoroughly candid spirit ; and brings forward several of his own which are of weight . Admitting that the names most eminent in Geology and Physiology are against the Hypothesis of Development , lie truly remarks that the question is one of general principles of reasoning rather than of precise scientific details ; and thus , without venturing to impugn the science of these authorities , he calls in question their logic . How he does so the reader will do well to seek in this Essay . We shall only touch it here and . there .
The Hypothesis , he rightly considers as an Hypothesis , one which seems supported by analogy and probability , helping the general conception of some great principle of orderly evolution , according to which the present as well as the past systems of existence have been produced out of the preceding order of things , and " at least conspiring with all truly philosophical considerations to disprove the necessity for appealing to any sudden interruptions of order , or operations of an unknown and mysterious kind , alien from all natural causes . " Let the Hypothesis be admissible or inadmissible , one thing is certain , that the cause of Truth can only be injured by the disgraceful tone usually adopted by the antagonists of this Hypothesis . Hear the Savilian Professor with mild yet firm reproof : —
Looking at the question in a perfectly dispassionate manner , there appears to me a one-sidedness in the censures , or at least , excessive cautions , often expressed , against so hazardous an hypothesis as that of transmutation , even by some eminent philosophers , more than is warranted by sober philosophical considerations ; and in which others display more zeal than can be explained by mere antagonism in a fair scientific controversy , while they sometimes appear to betray even a degree of alarm at the bare suspicion of a leaning towards the obnoxious theory of development , as if their whole scientific , or even personal reputation were at stake . Some , again , have taken up such questions in a more determined controversial spirit , and have maintained in a tone of polemical acrimony , little to have been expected on such a subject , that the phenomena of new species are absolutely impossible to be explained on any physical principles , or even by any physical conjectures ; and must be ascribed to sudden interruptions of the order of nature , connected with the convulsions and catastrophes which overwhelmed all the old species , and -were of a kind wholly beyond the domain of physical causes or the limits of philosophical
examination . Such imaginations easily find favour with those who have some other object in view than mere philosophical truth ; and if somewhat faulty in their foundation , their weakness in reason is abundantly compensated by loudness of dogmatism and a peremptory style of assertion that " species are real existences , " and that " transmutation-is impossible ; " all which has an imposing effect when supported by the aid of a kind of mystified eloquence , and seconding the more awful denunciations so authoritatively pronounced against the heterodox speculations of the developmental school . Again : — But still more injurious to the cause of religious truth is the course too often retuneNot
sorted to by the professed defenders of its cause , even in the present . always uuly alive to the actual spread of intelligence , they cringe to the loud but ignorant zeal of the few , and become followers in the train of prejudice rather thau its corro ( jtoTS and enlighteners . They havo too often yet to learn that , by continuing to insist on dogmas which the advance of knowledge has discredited , and literal interpretations which the discoveries of science havo sot aside , by adopting fallacious comproniisua , or by discouraging and denouncing those opon avowals which alone consist with , tho reality of truth , uud that frco inquiry whhh Christianity challenges— they are following ji course as unworthy in principle as it is short-sighted in policy ; they aro inflicting tho worst injury on their own cause , and are but strengthening tlio arms of that sceptical hostility which thej r so strenuously profess to oppose .
Now , we think our readers will agree with us in the importance we attach to a work like the present , issuing from Oxford , avowed by an Oxford Professor , whose character and position alike give authority to his language—a work which besides its positive merits * and those of an unusual order , has tho other merit of rescuing from theological sop hisms and bad temper a scientific Hypothesis , ingenious as an Hypothesis , useful as an aid towards forming general conceptions of nature , stringing facts upon a thread of interest , and leading the minds of men to consider some of tho profoundust problems of Uiology . People may be frightened away from this subject , as they were for bo many years frightened away from Geology . But in the end , the courage of investigators must prevail . Tins work will nut n little aid the progress of the timid . Tho author of tho Vestiges has had no ally ho potent 5 and the alliance is all tho more eflbctive , because Mr . Powell by no means takes up the position of a partisan , lie docs not declare in favour of Development ; but ho dochir . es in favour of iho Hypothesis as an Hypothesis . Tho examination of the evidence pro and con . afforded by (» oology is masterly . The remarks on epeoioa also deserve attention ; from thorn wo extract , the following : —¦
Miieh \ diacossion- ( as is well kajown ) hasarisen . on the question whether -the dtff & rent races -of men are varieties of-one species j or distinet species *; and it seems to be-ate present the prevailing opinion , ' that , they- are varieties- merel y * But the question ^ howy by- what : steps ¦ or processes , ' did such large and fundamental- differences arise ? entaHan more important consequences : than many in their zeal to maintain a single origin ; seem to perceive . It is clear that these differences are fully as great as those which in many other cases are allowed to constitute distinct species . If in the case of man they have occurred as transitional varieties , how cornea it that - they have become so inveterately permanent ? And if those changes have all occurred , within the lapse of a few thousand years of the received chronology , it cannot with
any reason be denied that similar changes might occur among inferior animals , and become just as permanent . And if so , changes to an indefinitely greater extent might occur in indefinite lapse of time . If these changes take place by the gradual operation of natural causes , it would be preposterous to deny the possibility of equal or greaterchanges by equally natural causes in other species in equal or greater periods of time .-The advocates of the fixity of species would argue that the single spot on a butterfly ' s wing , which constitutes a speoies , never has changed , and never can change , without a miracle ; and yet the vast differences between a European and a Negro or Australian are mere modifications of one parent stock by natural causes in the lapse of a few thousand years !
The peculiar characters of the Negro race are recorded as prominently marked , as at present , in the ancient Egyptian paintings , which may go back 3000 years or more . Here ,. then , is a variety which has been permanent for at least that long period ; a period , too , which has been expressly relied on by many to prove the permanence of species by appeal to these very monuments . And then we have to ask , How long must it have taken , at this rate of imperceptible progress , to have been developed out of the original stock ? Another instance has been much dwelt upon , the so-called " varieties" of the dog , presumed to be derived from a common stock ; but how long since , is undetermined . Yet in these varieties ( in which even the form of the cranium greatly differs ) it would be difficult to deny that the distinctive characters are permanent , at least under the continuance of the same external conditions ; and that each race , when preserved isolated under such conditions , -would remain permanently distinct .
Much stress has also been laid by some on the asserted sterility of hybrids ; though ^ in truth , it affects very little the general question ; while its very limited evidence dependent only on a few isolated facts , occurring in a state of domestication , is utterly insufiieient for the foundation of any general law . The cases commonly referred to should be regarded by an unprejudiced mind as probably exceptional , under peculiar conditions , and not to be dogmatised upon , as involving any real and necessary law of organised existence . As there are limits beyond which union will not take place , so within these there may very probably be certain limits of still nearer affinity , beyond which sterility in the offspring prevails , but which have not yet been determined . Therecurrence to the original type often observed , only proves that conditions are not favourable to the continuance of the variety . And of the very positive assertions so liberally made in these and the like cases , it is to be observed that they are , at bestmerely empirical conclusions , wholly unsupported by any wide analogies , or explained , by any known causes which can confer on them the character of real natural principles .
Yet the immutability of species , as something essential to their nature and inherent in it , has been upheld by a large section of naturalists—and still more strenuously by some who are not naturalists—in this countryj-with a degree of positiveness and even vehemence , which the mere negative character of the evidence could never justify , and which it would be difficult to account for ,. so far as any arguments of a philosophical nature may be supposed to influence the opinion . It is indeed difficult to say what extent of mysticism is not connected in the minds of some with the notion of the immutabilitj' of species . Even such sober naturalists as MM . Agassiz and Gould speak of it as dependent on an " immaterial principle " essential to animal life . But in other schools , especially on the Continent , opposite views are extensivelymaintained , and probably gaining ground . In the case of plants more particularly , it is simply as a question of facts that some eminent botanists view the matter . Thus one of the most distinguished foreign naturalists , Prof . Schleiden of Jena , after giving a variety of illustrative instances , thus sums up the state of the case : —
" We know that varieties once formed , when , they have continued to vegetate under the same conditions for several generations , pass into sub-species ; that is , into varieties which may be propagated with certainty by their seeds . How , then , if thesame influences which have called forth an aberration from the original form of the plant , continue to act in the same way , not for centuries or tens of centuries , but fon ton or a hundred thousand years , will not at last , as the variety thus becomes a subspecies , so also , this , become so permanent , that we shall and must describe it aa a One of the great arguments relied on by the adversaries of Development is , that " we havo no experience of the individuals of any snocicis being produced otherwise than from individuals of its own kind . " This argument , as Mr . Powell remarks , assumes the whole question at issue . And he adds :
On tho whole , then , comparing the limited extent and purely empirical nature , our knowledge of species iu the existing state of things , with the positive evidence of past changes , it Mould seem that tlie more correct statement of the general fact would be simply that species { within certain limits of deviation' ) are permanent during very Ioikj periods , but beyond those periods a change , in some sense , occurs ; and this bears soiiie relation to changes of oxtornal conditions . But under the samerohango of conditions one species may be highly susceptible of , and sensitive to , tho influence of that change , while another may be insensible to it . Thus one may remain permanent ^ while another may undergo change , or even bo exterminated . And the only quo . srion . is us to the . sense " in which such chiing * of species is to be understood;—whether individuals , naturally produced from parents , were modified by . suwes . sivo variations ol . parta , in any stage of early growth or rndimentnl development , until , in one or more generation * the wholo species U » mc in fact a different one j-or vrhother wooro to itnvlfwhileindependent of
believe that ! tho whole race perished without reproducing , , it , another m-w race , or other nenr individual , ( by whoever moans ) , cumo intocsistouco , of a nature closely allied to the Lust , ... id during otUm by the slightest shades yet unconnected Jh than , by decent ,- whether there was a con '' -atu » n and propagation of tho same principle ofvita / Uy ( in whatever gorm it may be , maginod to have boon conveyed ) , or whother a principle or germ originated independently of any preceding , out of its existing inorganic elements . And else where : — formation of coal . Yet in past epochs w « know We have « no exponent of _ tl . o < r n . » I _ ^ Hubm co it occurred , and it ih accounted for > < £ « » or _ companion of materials by of foro ^ -tho accumulation « . vx « c U hlo natUr , | ^ ^ . ^ superincumbent hhujhoh , Wh « thc , ^ h « I «^» ^ foj . < h ( j c . olwolldation . or uught occur within our oxpn ¦ to . icj or t * f . |] to 0 |> j | 1 ( h ( j () 9 SOutial 0 < m _ dU ^^ s ^ e . ^ hrnlnu ^ J : " ^^ - *» « d vast periods of pa 8 t timo , «* of this , undeniably , we can have » no experience .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), June 9, 1855, page 19, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_09061855/page/19/
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