Evolution and Natural Selection in the Light of the New Church
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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EVOLUTION AND NATURAL SELECTION IN THE LIGHT OF THE NEW CHURCH.
BY EDMUND SWIFT, JR.
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During many years' microscopical examination of the lower and minute forms of life the writer, while observing the beauty and variety of their external form, their wonderfully intricate interior organization, and the perfect adaptation of every part of each tiny organism to accomplish its own special work, has frequently been led to inquire into the truth of the widely accepted Darwinian theories of Evolution and Natural Selection. Believing, as he does, after very careful consideration, their entire failure to account for the existence of the numerous distinct species of plants and animals in the world around us, he ventures, on the basis of New Church philosophy, to lay before the reader a few thoughts on the subject. The information contained in the Writings of Swedenborg of the Divine method and plan of Creation is of a far loftier and more interior character than anything contained in the theories and speculations of our modern scientists, even admitting the undoubtedly great value of their essentially scientific investigations, that is, their observations of and reasonings from proven facts, in which true science consists.
The theory of Evolution as taught by Darwin and his disciples is, that some thing or some power created, from material substances, a living germ, and from it, by some law or force inherent in those substances, all other material forms were evolved or developed without any definite plan or without any necessary sentient all-controlling power. The theory, in a condensed form, has been expressed in the following terms: "That the earliest organisms were the natural product of the interactions of ordinary inorganic matter and force. That all the forms of animal and vegetable life were successively developed from the earliest and simplest organisms. That man is only a higher animal and the lineal descendant of apes."
The doctrine of Creation as taught by the system of New Church philosophy may briefly be defined as follows: All substances and forces in the material world are, in and of themselves, inert or dead, but they are continually vivified by the creative life or vital force within; this life being, primarily, in and from God the Creator, who is Life Itself. All vital forces exist in the spiritual world, which is as a living soul within though distinct from the material world; even as the soul of man is within though distinct from his material body; or as the "cause" is within though distinct from the "effect." All substances and forces in the material world are "effects" of substances existing, and of forces operating in the spiritual world—the world of "causes;" spiritual things being media whereby the animating life from God is conveyed to inanimate material things. During the process of Creation, as each succeeding form was created in the spiritual world, or, in other words, evolved from the Divine Mind, so they were clothed with, or embodied in, corresponding material substances and forms; all created things, from lowest to highest, being distinct but progressive links in the Divine method and plan of Creation. Thus, though there undoubtedly was in Creation a progressive development from the earliest and simplest to the latest and highest forms, yet this progression was from within outwards, and not from without inwards; that is, from internal to external, and not from external to internal. All things are created and continually controlled by the Love and Wisdom of God, according to a Divinely perfect plan and fixed laws, and for a Divine end, this end being the creation of man, and the formation of the human race into an angelic heaven.
In the former case it is as if a child with its play-box of bricks, or an ignorant mason without any knowledge of architecture, were to lay brick upon brick, and, by some chance or law inherent in the bricks, they succeeded in constructing—evolving or developing—a magnificent cathedral. In the latter case it is as if a clever architect resolves to build a cathedral, and, by a process of spiritual and mental affection and thought, he first builds in his mind the entire structure; then, according to a definite plan and fixed laws, he directs the masons, and, brick by brick, stone by stone, evolves the finished structure, with its sculptured arches, its traceried windows, and its graceful spire.
The Darwinian theory involves the assertion, that man is but a sentient automaton—the mechanical combination, crystallization, or interaction and affinity of certain inorganuc elements, such as oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, etc. Thus it supposes that the power of progressive development resides entirely in the inert material substances, and, therefore, that mind is but a development—a form and combination of matter and force. (A believer in the Darwinian theory once said to the writer that a grape which he was then eating might become the germ of a future thought.) Therefore this theory does not, and indeed cannot, define how or why "matter," and the "laws" which pervade and control matter, first came into existence. It does not explain the origin or primary cause of that "life" which aniinates each organized form. It does not account for the varied modifications of external form and interior structure, nor for the perfect adaptation of every part of each organism to accomplish its own special work in the economy of Creation. And it in no way accounts for the existence of those spiritual and mental faculties and aspirations which distinguish man from all other created things. Neither conscience, freedom, with its moral responsibility, the immortality of the human soul, trust in the Divine Providence, nor belief in God as our Heavenly Father find any place in its cold and heartless philosophy. Successful struggle for existence and "survival of the fittest" is therefore, according to this theory, the only end of man's automatic and irresponsible actions.
The New Church philosophy asserts that all things are continually sustained by an all-loving, all-wise Creator—preservation being perpetual creation: the external form and interior structure of each created thing being so constituted as to be fitting recipients of that life which unceasingly proceeds from God. This inflowing life is modified in its manifestation according to its recipient forms, and according to the specific use for which they are created; thus it is that every part of each organism is perfectly adapted to accomplish its own special work. Man is not a merely automatic recipient of life from God; but, different from all other created forms, he is endowed by his Creator with rationality, liberty, and immortality; therefore he is a responsible being, having within him all the faculties necessary to his endless progression in spiritual as well as in natural things, and having duties to perform towards God and his neighbor as well as to himself.
To suppose that a germ was created, or, as the Darwinian theory supposes, by some unknown process came into existence, containing the inherent power to develop into the numberless forms of use and beauty in the world around us, would be to suppose that such a germ was in itself a microcosm—a little world; and even that such germ had within it the power and attributes of a Creator. The various forms of creation, prior to man, were all prophetic and typical of the coming human race; but man alone, as the New Church teaches, is the microcosm—the epitome of the macrocosm, or the great world.
The New Church teaches that each created form in the world of nature has its distinctive spiritual essence, which is its animating formative soul; and that both the essence and form are intimately connected by a spiritual law—the law of Analogy or Correspondence, that is, the mutual relation of form to essence, of essence to form. Granting, for the sake of argument, that the first material human body was conceived in the womb of a female ape, from whence did the human essence or soul—the seat of spiritual and mental consciousness and intelligence—first come? Surely it is too gross a thought to suppose that the first human soul, with all its possibilities and capabilities of unending progress and development, its rationality and liberty, its conscience and aspirations after immortality, had an ape essence, an ape father (for the New Church teaches that the soul is from God mediately through the father). Even supposing that God, without the agency of a male ape, used the womb of a female ape (or of any other animal) merely as a matrix for the first human germ, the "evolution" of man through such a medium involved as great or even a greater miracle than his "creation," without any such ape medium, in God's own "image."
Admitting, as all believers in New Church philosophy are supposed to do, the existence of an all-loving, all-wise Creator, surely it is not more difficult to believe that distinct and successive species were created from distinct and succcssive spiritual causes, than it is to believe that a germ could be created capable of evolution or development into all other forms, including man; the latter would certainly be the greater miracle. Man alone, of all created forms, possesses the capability or possibility of containing within his nature all those spiritual affections and thoughts of which the varied forms of life are the representative types and patterns; all these created forms being types of something in man's soul, and, in the case of good and orderly forms, primarily, of something Divine in God.
Another argument against the Darwinian theory of Evolution is, that it is not founded upon proven scientific facts; that is, science has not yet discovered (and the writer believes mere natural science never can discover) the exact process or law whereby inorganic elements become organized into vegetable and animal forms. Neither does this theory of Evolution explain why vegetable and animal forms always remain such, the vegetable never developing into the animal, or the animal into the vegetable. Doubtless it is difficult to discover the exact difference between vegetable and animal protoplasm (or bioplasm).[1] It is also difficult in the lowest forms of life to discern between vegetable and animal organisms; and even the animal consciousness which is called instinct is, in some cases, scarcely distinguishable from the unconscious vitality of the vegetable. But, admitting this difficulty, it only shows our want of further knowledge; and there is no reliable scientific evidence whatever that vegetable forms ever were or can be developed into animal forms, or vice versâ, merely by a varied arrangement or combination of their component inorganic elements. This, together with the entire absence of scientific evidence that any vegetable or animal species ever developed into a distinctly higher species, are powerful arguments in favor of the doctrine that each distinct species, from lowest to highest, had a distinct spiritual origin. It is true that chemical and microscopical analyses demonstrate that similar inorganic elements enter into each of the three kingdoms of nature; but the life or vital force and the all-pervading laws which operate to produce, from similar elements, the distinct and varied mineral, vegetable, and animal forms are beyond the reach of such analyses. The operation of this living force and of these laws is so undeviating that it is in appearance automatic, similar effects always resulting from similar conditions; hence it has been erroneously concluded that the life is inherent in the inorganic elements themselves, and that the varied forms of use and beauty are merely the result of a varied combination, interaction, and affinity of those elements. Therefore the Darwinian theory of Evolution, with all deductions drawn therefrom, being based upon these external appearances, rather than upon a knowledge of the interior laws whereby the creative life operates, must necessarily be untrustworthy and fallacious.
The real truth is, that life is spiritual; all organized material forms being visible manifestations and ultimate embodiments of that spiritual life. It is a something in the life and in its varied method or law of operation which constitutes the actual difference between the inorganic and organic, between the vegetable and animal, and, most of all, between the merely animal and man. Creative Life is always intelligently operating according to a definite plan and fixed laws; the working out of that plan, in all its wonderful manifestations, attesting the existence of one Personal Divine Being whom we call God,—the infinite Source of all Life, Intelligence, Substance, and Law, and who has revealed Himself to us as the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,—the visible God in whom is the invisible. The fact that God always acts according to a definite plan and fixed laws, in no degree involves any limitation of His Power. Law implies Intelligence, and therefore the manifestation of law in all the works of Creation incontestably proves that God's Power acts intelligently and according to the wisest method that His infinite Love and Wisdom can devise. Without Intelligence there can be no Law, without Law there can be no Order, and without Order no good or useful work can ever be accomplished.
This subject would be incomplete without some notice of development in its higher aspect, as effected in each human being during the process of regeneration. In the work of regeneration, that is, the new birth of the human soul into a true and perfect man, there is a process of mental and spiritual development, each succeeding and higher affection in the perfecting soul being a progressive development, not from, but still dependent upon, each preceding affection; even as each succeeding and higher material form in the work of creation was a progressive development, not from, but still dependent upon, previously existing forms. But each material form in the process of creation, and each spiritual affection in the process of regeneration, are only distinct steps in the Divine plan of progress; and the writer can no more believe that the first and lowest material form contained the power, inherent in itself, to develop. into a sheep or tiger, a dove or eagle, a monkey or a man, than he can believe that the first and lowest affection in the human mind has the inherent power to develop itself into a perfect man, free from all impurity and sin.
The theory of Natural Selection, that is, the variations of structural form resulting from change in surrounding conditions, and the consequent increased use or disuse of certain organs, which, to some extent, forms part of the Darwinian theory of evolution, may be, and no doubt is, in a limited degree, true. The same is true, also, in a limited degree, spiritually as well as naturally, the various affections and aspirations in each individual being capable of adaptation to the ever-varying conditions by which he is surrounded. But this process of adaptation or natural selection is not essentially progressive, being limited within the same species; and, similarly, new and successively higher affections must be formed before regeneration is complete, even as new and successively higher species were formed in the process of creation.
Both creation and regeneration require the unceasing exercise, supervision, and creative power of the Love and Wisdom of God, without which all created things would cease to exist. But man, unlike all other created forms, and by virtue of his endowments of liberty and rationality, has the power either to resist the loving efforts of his Creator, and so remain in his carnal or unregenerate state, or to co-operate with his Creator, and develop or progress into a perfect man—the "likeness" as well as the "image" of God. All reason, experience, and revelation prove, to the unbiassed rational mind, that man is not evolved from any lower animal; he differs from them all fundamentally,—physically, mentally, spiritually,—and therefore the origin and end of his existence differ from theirs also. Man, the noblest work of the Divine Architect of the Universe, is human because God is Divinely Human; that is, he is man because God is Essential Man, or God-Man.
Such, in brief, and in the writer's opinion, is the only doctrine of Creation consistent with the beautiful system of New Church philosophy, and he earnestly recommends all who are interested in this, at the present time, most important subject, to study carefully and impartially Swedenborg's magnificent work entitled "Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom;" for in its pages, and not in the writings of Darwin or his disciples, will be found the true Key to the mysteries of Creation. This information is chiefly contained in the section which treats of the two suns,—one spiritual and living, and the other natural and inert or dead,—and in the section which explains the doctrine of Degrees.[2] The philosophy contained in this work also teaches that all things in the material world—mineral, vegetable, and animal, with their wonderful and beautiful variations of form and structure—are created by God for man's use, and that through the orderly use of all things by man there is conjunction between God and man, and thence with even the least things of creation. The monad, fish, bird, and other animals, the wondrous flower and majestic tree, the everlasting mountains and hills, the mighty ocean and mysterious firmament, may all exist spiritually in each human soul; and if each affection and thought, to which these things correspond, be kept in their proper place by a loving and active obedience to the Lord's commandments, all things, under the Lord's Divine Providence, will be adapted to each man's use in the process of his regeneration, until he stand forth a finished structure—a perfect man. Only by this spiritual system of progression or development can man attain unto the "fulness of God," unto the "measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ."
APPENDIX.
CREATION.
A BRIEF OUTLINE OF ITS PHILOSOPHY AS TAUGHT IN SWEDENBORG'S THEOLOGICAL WRITINGS.
God is not a mere formless all-pervading ethereal essence, without body, parts, or passions; but He is an infinitely glorious Divine Man—our Heavenly Father,—whose essential attributes are Love, Wisdom, and Life or Power. God is the one self-existent Personal Being,—the I AM,—above and independent of all space and time—Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnipresent. God is Divincly Human, and the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is the manifestation and embodiment of the substance of the invisible God, who, prior to His Incarnation, was called Jehovah. God is the only self-subsisting Life and Substance—the First Creative Cause of all things. God creates all things from His own Life and Substance;[3] but He so creates them that they form no part of His own Life and Substance. All orderly things first exist subjectively in the mind of God; then, by their actual creation, though they are still unceasingly sustained by Him, they exist objectively out of Him. In God all things are uncreate and infinite; by creation they become limited and finite. Divine Life and Substance, in their first descent from God, become life and substance such as exist in the spiritual world; and in their further descent become life and substance such as exist in the natural or material world. Thus there is the Divine, the spiritual, and the natural or material,—God, spirit, and matter,—which are to each other as end, cause, and effect. The end or purpose of Creation exists in the mind of God; the spiritual world is the mediate creative cause through which God operates; and the effect is the created material universe. All things exist after this order of Degrees. The material world exists from the spiritual world, as an effect from its cause, and both the spiritual and material worlds, with all their varied forms of life, exist from God their Creator.
The spiritual world—the world in which all spiritual substances and vital forces exist, and in which a man's soul or spirit lives forever after its separation from the dead material body—is a real, substantial, habitable world; in it there are atmospheres, waters, earths, and all things needful for the sustenance and happiness of its inhabitants. These things are not natural or material, as is the world of nature, but they are spiritually-substantial. All things derive their existence from the united operation of heat and light; and the spiritual world has its sun, the heat and light of which are media whereby life and substance from God are conveyed to all things in that world, and thence, through the medium of the natural sun, to all things in the natural world. The sun of the spiritual world is not God, but is the Divine Sphere which emanates immediately from God; its heat being the effluence of His Divine Love, and its light being the effluence of His Divine Wisdom. From its heat, man, as to his soul or spiritual being, mediately derives from God his love or affection, and from its light he mediately derives from God his wisdom or intelligence. The united love and wisdom thus received constitute the spiritual life of his soul, even as the united heat and light proceeding from the natural sun constitute the mediate source of life from God to man's natural body. The spiritual world does not form any part of the material universe; nor is it at some infinite distance from man; his soul or spirit even during his earthly life being intimately connected with it, and, indeed, although unconsciously, in it. The place called heaven is in the spiritual world, and is the permanent abode of angels, who are the "spirits of just men made perfect;" whereas the material world is the temporary abode of men who are created to become angels. The place called hell is also in the spiritual world; it is the abode provided for all those who, by a life of continued and wilful sin, have voluntarily become confirmed in the love of evil, and thus have entirely destroyed Conscience within themselves.[4]
"God is Love," and because it is of the very essence of pure love to desire that what is its own may become another's, therefore God creates man, and endows him with rationality, freedom, and immortality to the end that He may forever have beings to love, who can freely and intelligently reciprocate His love. Man is endowed by God with two faculties—the Will and the Understanding; these, though distinct from each other, are so created as to form a one, called the Mind. Into his Will the Love of God so flows that it becomes human love—the source of the affections. Into his Understanding the Wisdom of God so flows that it becomes human wisdom—the source of the thoughts and intelligence; and thereby man is enabled intelligently to love and serve God, and to love, think, live, and perform uses as a human being. Freedom and love are inseparable, that is, freedom is inherent in love; and man being created to find his supreme happiness in the Voluntary exercise of his love or affections, he is, of necessity, endowed by his Creator with freedom of Will, or freedom of choice between good and evil; in other words, between the love of serving God and his neighbor, and the inordinate love of himself. Hence it is that man, through the abuse of that freedom with which he is endowed by God, to the end that he may be truly happy, has the power so to pervert his nature that, if he choose, it may become the very opposite of God's nature; that is, instead of being loving, wise, and useful he may become entirely evil. And it is solely from man's wilful perversion and abuse of his freedom that "sin," with all its attendant miseries, originated and still exists.
Man is so created, that, during his life in the world of nature, he is in reality an inhabitant of both the material and spiritual worlds—consciously of the former, unconsciously of the latter. He has a soul or spirit, which is an organized spiritually-substantial human form, composed of such substances as exist in the spiritual world; and he has a body organized and composed of such substances as exist in the material world. The material body in and of itself is dead and without sensation, it being merely a receptacle animated or vitalized by the soul. Thus the body exists from the soul, and both soul and body exist from God their Creator. After what is called death, that is, after the final separation of the immortal soul from the dead material body, man comes into the full consciousness and activity of his internal or spiritual life, and he then possesses senses and faculties perfectly adapted to the spiritual world, even as during his earthly life he possesses senses and faculties perfectly adapted to the material world. Man is born into the material world that, during a life of active and unselfish usefulness, he may prepare for an eternity of usefulness and happiness in the spiritual world. By this means, after the termination of his earthly life, he becomes an angel, and lives with God in heaven forever, thus realizing the "end" for which he is created.
PHILADELPHIA:
AMERICAN NEW CHURCH TRACT AND PUBLICATION SOCIETY,
Twenty-Second and Chestnut Streets.
E. H. SWINNEY, AGENT, No. 20 COOPER UNION, NEW YORK.
Printed by J. B. Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia.
- ↑ Protoplasm, otherwise called bioplasm,—living matter,—is the scientific term given to the first extremely minute visible forms of life, in the process whereby inorganic elements become organized into vegetable and animal tissues. Both vegetable and animal bioplasts live, move, grow, multiply, and change dead matter into living matter; but in one case the result is a leaf, a flower, a fruit, a seed, or some vitalized structure having relation to a complete vegetable form, and in the other case the result is a nerve, a muscle, a tendon, a bone, or some animated piece of mechanism having relation to a complete animal form. The cause of all structural organization is the sentient spiritual "life" within; this it is which not only organizes the tiny vegetable and animal bioplasts, but it unceasingly animates and guides their marvellous operations, constructing and sustaining, through their unconscious agency, all the complex living machinery in the vegetable and animal kingdoms, including the material body of man.
- ↑ These subjects are briefly explained in the Appendix.
- ↑ This statement must not be understood in a Pantheistic sense; no theory differs from the teaching of the New Church more widely than Pantheism. The deification of nature, that is, the worship of the visible material universe as the only God, is not only an absolute denial of God as a conscious and intelligent Personal Creator,—a loving and wise Heavenly father,—but it is destructive of all true religion and worship, and of belief in a future state of existence. It is written, "God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth."
- ↑ Heaven is not a place of eternal reward for good actions done during this life, nor is hell a place of eternal punishment for sins committed during this life; but, primarily and fundamentally, they are states and conditions of the human mind and character, voluntarily acquired and confirmed—in the former case by the orderly use, and in the latter case by the continued wilful perversion and abuse, of the faculties with which man is endowed by God. The happiness of heaven is inherent in the love of doing good from the unselfish desire to serve others; and the misery of hell is inherent in the confirmed love of doing evil from the unrestrained love of self.