The Fundamentals - 1910: Vol.8

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The Fundamentals parts preserved. Natural death is the means of destruction; and generation, of preservation. The “favorable” always prove the stronger, the “injurious” the weaker. Although sweetest graces and most resplendent virtues of the highest type of man are products of natural selection, they are con- ditioned promiscuously on killing the other fellow and pro- creating one’s kind. The killing is done “by acts of God”, as express companies phrase it, and by hatred, envy, anger, avarice, selfishness. In the struggle for existence the stronger gloat over the slain while poverty of spirit, meekness, mercy and peace die unhonored and unsung. By these means every kind of organic being will eventually gain the summit of finitude. I t is immoral. Professor Huxley makes a notable concession to truth and sanity when he says: “I t is quite conceivable that every species tends to pro- duce varieties of a limited number and kind, and that the effect of natural selection is to favor the development of some of these, while it opposes the development of others along their predetermined lines of modification.” (Britan- nica. Evolution .) Taking the Professor’s language as ac- curate, he surrenders natural selection. We were taught that it was as reliable as gravitation, but if we get the notion that some species improve, some are stationary and some deteriorate, agreeably with heredity and environment, we have no further use for it. To sum up the case for natural selection: (1) It is poor morals. A theory of nature must be ideal to be true. Natural selection is a scheme for the sur- vival of the passionate and the violent, the destruction of the weak and defenseless. To be true, black must be white, and wrong must be right, and God an Ivan the terrible. (2) Its assumptions are false. It is false that unlimited attenuation of the steps of the process, and unlimited time for the accomplishment of it, assure us that it might have been

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