W. DENTON, DARWINISM, AND SPIRITUALISM.

BY EDWARD T. BENNETT.

It is somewhat singular to find a proposition as to the origin, not only of animal and vegetable life, but also of man himself, stated by one who calls himself a Spiritualist in terms which, so far as we can see, would be accepted by the most pronounced materialist of the German school. The writer of the volume before us* says in his introduction, that he took part in a public debate twenty-two years ago, in which he maintained the affirmative of the following proposition:-" Man, animals, and vegetables are the product of spontaneous generation and progressive development, and there is no evidence that there was any direct creative act on this planet." He informs us that nearly, or quite, every argument used in the twenty speeches made in that debate are given in the present volume, to which he says his opponent was utterly unable satisfactorily to reply, and to which he ventures to say neither he nor his friends can now reply.

The book is divided into two sections—(1) Man's Natural Origin; (2) Man's Spiritual Origin. The first division is an elaborate argument in support of the theory that all organic existences may be ascribed to the operation of natural law. We will pass over for the present the earlier stages of progress, and quote the author's exposition of what he conceives to be the origin of man, and so far as we understand his words, the origin of spirit also.

"Here is a green apple: we take out its undeveloped seeds, and plant them, but they die, and are resolved into dust. Here is a ripe apple: we take out the seeds and bury them; they do not die; sending rootlets downward and shoots upward, they grow into perfect trees. Between those seeds that did not grow, and those that do grow, there is an infinite difference, and yet what makes it? A little more sunshine, a longer connection with the tree and its vitalising sap, and life has obtained a hold on the seed that can bid defiance to the wet of the autumn, the cold of the winter, the wind of the spring, and even make helpers of these to enable the seed to develop into the tree. In like manner I can imagine a pair of anthropomorphous apes, somewhat superior to the gorilla, brutes, if you please, that would cease to exist at death, under favourable conditions giving birth to a being superior to themselves, with a more expanded front brain, born of necessity a brute, but

Is Darwin Right? or, The Origin of Man. By William Denton. Wellesley, Massachusetts, U.S.A.: Denton Publishing Company. 1881.

ripening into the man, so that at death his spirit bids defiance to the elements, and enters into the spirit realm, the first of earth's inhabitants to occupy the fair abode" (pp. 108, 109).

Reserving comments for a few moments, we will pass on to the second section of the book-" Man's Spiritual Origin." Pages 116 to 133 are devoted, under the title of "Manward progress of our planet," to a graphic sketch of the progress of the earth from the time when it was a "boundless furnace surrounded by a "smoky atmosphere" down to the time when it became inhabited by the most honoured of the human race. The result, we are told, is "only, however, in consequence of THAT CONTINUOUS TENDENCY which infinitely more than all else has made us what we are" (p. 131). Again we are told, in very explicit terms, "As the tadpole remains a tadpole, unless there is a sufficient light to give the stimulus necessary to push it on to the frog stage, the tendency to which lies within it, so it appears that living beings, WITHIN WHICH LAY THE TENDENCY TO ADVANCE TO HIGHER FORMS, have developed from age to age as rapidly as the surrounding conditions became sufficiently favourable for a forward step to be possible. Better conditions have laid the higher steps of the organic ladder from one age to another, enabling life to climb to the summit" (pp. 142, 143).

It is only fair to quote one more sentence in this connection, and which at first sight appears to convey teachings of another kind. The writer asks-"Why, then, this steady, continuous advance through the ages to man?" and continues in reply"Start an ant from Boston to the Mosque of Omar in Jerusalem, and the chances would be greater of its arriving there than of life arriving at man, from its first organic start, . . . without a guide" (p. 133).

What "guide" does our author mean? After careful reading and re-reading of his somewhat diffuse arguments and illustrations, we believe he means merely that which he elsewhere calls the "internal tendency." It is true, he says, speaking of successive horse-like animals—“The man who saw an artist making a statue could not be more certain that he was following an ideal, as the block became more and more like a man, than we can be that Nature was following an ideal as she brought into existence these successively more and more horse-like forms, till the animal appeared as he is known to us to-day. What caused these forms to approach nearer and nearer to the horse in a direct line for millions of years?" (pp. 134, 135). No explicit answer is given to this question, but we are left to infer that nothing more is implied than the "tendency within."

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VOL. III.

In direct reference to a Supreme Intelligent Spirit, our author does not say much; but what he does say is to the following effect:

"If by God is meant Nature, all that is, or the ever-present and operative spirit of the universe, then man was doubtless made by God, and made out of dust" (p. 98). "There is a spirit in the universe, and what, for want of a better word, we must call an intelligent spirit: without this it is inconceivable that we could have had this living growing intelligencepermeated planet. . . . If intelligence is necessary to build a house and to construct a watch, how much more to produce Infinite unseen intelligent spirit, life of our life, spirit of our spirit, to understand thee we need to be infinite as thou art. Nearer to thee' will be our prayer as the ages of the future bear us on" (pp. 109, 110).

a man!

We have endeavoured, with considerable pains, to present a concise but still adequate resumè of our author's philosophy, sufficient to enable us to give its principles and his reasoning fair and impartial consideration. It appears to us that in several of his arguments and illustrations there is so much defective analogy, and even sophistry, that their value is to a great extent destroyed. This, we think, can easily be shown by taking various points in the order in which they occur. Gravitation, crystallisation, organic life (including animal and vegetable), sensation, reason are given as steps in the same series, and it is stated that there appears to be no greater step from crystallisation to the simplest forms of life, than from amorphous matter to crystallisation (p. 12). This is brought forward in support of the spontaneous generation hypothesis, in connection with which a number of the well-known experiments of Bastian and others are quoted. We venture to remark that the argument as implied above seems to us to be very defective. As to crystallisation, we are able at will to change many kinds of matter from their amorphous to their crystalline form whenever we please, and in any quantity; but the alleged facts as to the production of life from dead matter are surrounded with obscurity, and the number of scientific men who have been convinced of their reality is very small. Again, it is a very significant fact that in all the alleged facts of spontaneous generation, the presence of previous organic matter (either animal or vegetable) is essential, and that it is not asserted that life is generated from the inorganic world.

Proceeding to the apple-seed illustration, we cannot but express surprise, that its extreme sophistry was not apparent to the writer. If the seed of the green apple had developed

or grown of itself, the argument would have had some force, but seeing that, so far as we know, the previous existence of a fully ripened seed was essential to the production of the green apple itself, the whole illustration falls to the ground. There is no evidence of advance. There is absolutely no foundation for the flight of "imagination" in the next sentence, in which it is supposed probable that a mortal brute ean give birth to a being possessed of a spirit, which shall survive the death of the body! Again, the illustration of the tadpole fails as that of the apple-seed did. We have no evidence of the possibility of the existence of the tadpole, except as the descendant of a fully developed frog. Again we are reminded of the circle, as an illustration of the true law of Being, rather than a line, either spiral or straight.

Notwithstanding a few expressions, which are intended to be more poetical and metaphorical than logical, we are forced to conclude that the writer we are considering believes in no intelligent spirit as having any influence in the progress of things save that which he also calls the "inward tendency." The only sentence in the whole volume which would lead us to suppose the contrary, is the one which we have quoted:— "If intelligence is necessary to build a house, and to construct a watch, how much more to produce a man!" We are, however, precluded from attaching much value to this sentence, or from accepting as the author's meaning that which it appears to convey, on account of the tenour of most of the book. A house is built and a watch is made by outside mechanical intelligence, not by "inward tendency"! Our author expressly ridicules such an idea in regard to man:- 'If by God is meant a mighty mechanic, who manipulates dust or mud, moulding it into a man, as a sculptor his clay model, there is no single fact in the history of the planet or of man that indicates the existence of any such being" (p. 98).

We think, therefore, that we are warranted in summing up William Denton's Philosophy of the Universe thus-Matter exists with an inward tendency to development, whence result life, sensation, reason-man in material life, man in spiritual life. Outside this there is no spiritual life or intelligence.

We are anxious to do justice, but this seems to us the only legitimate conclusion.

Is this "Spiritualism"? Is it "Spiritualism" in any sense in which we speak of "Spiritualism" as essentially distinct from "materialism"? We think not. But we do think, on the other hand, that the teaching of the writer in this book is essentially of that utter materialistic character with which personally we have no sympathy, and which has nothing

really in common with that Gospel of Spiritualism, which is, as we believe it to be, in its higher aspects, a message of glad tidings from the spiritual sphere to those who are still living in the material plane-a message from a higher life, an "Intimation of Immortality," intended to aid us, who are spirits, who came from a spiritual sphere, and who are passing through time, space, and matter, to return again, when, possibly after repeated trials, the intended lessons are learnt. We do not believe that we, that is, our spirits are children of clay. We have not adverted to the title of the book before us— "Is Darwin Right?" It has never seemed to us that what is usually called the Darwinian theory meets the difficulties of the case, inasmuch as among all the beautiful and interesting facts which Darwin has so carefully collected and arranged, he has given us no instance of the development of one species from another. Nature draws a distinctly marked line between two closely allied species, which does not exist among the greatest variety of individuals within the same species. And, so far as we know, the chasm from one species to another has never been bridged by development. But if Darwin is thus not "Right," or rather, we should say, if his theory does not offer a complete solution of the case, in no way does Denton do anything to supplement the deficiency. He does not supply any of the missing links, and he makes far larger demands on us than Darwin does.

The extent to which Professor Denton's works are read, especially on the other side of the Atlantic, and the influence which they presumably exercise, is our apology, if our readers think one is necessary, for the space we have devoted to an analysis of this his latest book. If it is thought that we have been somewhat severe, it is in no unfriendly spirit, but from a conviction of the inadequacy of the teaching, and from the regret we should feel at the widespread diffusion of such a soulless philosophy.

FACTS versus MATERIALISM.

Give materialistic sceptics some tangible evidence, bring it home to the evidence of their senses, let them feel assured that, contrary to their reasoning, it is a fact in the present day, that a hand belonging to mortal can present itself as in the days of Belshazzar, and write a sentence visible to all, and you at once tear away the film which has previously secluded them from seeing the truth, and you force an acknowledgment that, after all, the Bible may be a reliable history, and not the fiction which they have been accustomed to think it is.-BENJAMIN COLEMAN on Spiritualism in 1862.