Recent advances in natural science in their relation to the Christian faith : a paper read at the Reading Church Congress, October, 1883 / by Professor Flower.

  • Flower, William Henry, 1831-1899.
Date:
[1883]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Recent advances in natural science in their relation to the Christian faith : a paper read at the Reading Church Congress, October, 1883 / by Professor Flower. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    stray individual or fragment of an individual here and there being first preserved and afterwards discovered to give any indication of the ex- istence of the race. Those who object to the new view, complain sometimes of the frequency with which its advocates take refuge, as they call it, in the imperfection of the geological record. I think, on the contrary, the difficulty is always to allow sufficiently for this imperfection. When we contrast the present knowledge of palaeon- tology with what it was fifty, or even ten years ago ; when we see by what mere accident as it were, a railway driven through a new country, a quarry worked for commercial purposes, a city newly fortified, all the most important discoveries of extinct animals have been made, we must be convinced that all arguments drawn from the absence of the required links are utterly valueless. The study of palaeontology is as yet in its merest infancy, the wonder is that it has already furnished so much, not so little, corroboration of the doctrine of transmutation of species. Direct proof is, then, equally absent from both theories. For the old view it may be said that it has been held for a very long time by persons whose knowledge of the facts of nature which bear upon it was extremely limited. On the other hand, the new view is continually receiving more support as that knowledge increases, and furnishes a key to a vast number of otherwise inexplicable facts in every branch of natural history, in geological and geographical distribution, in the habits of animals, in their development and growth, and especially in their structure. Allow me to take one instance from the last named— the anatomy of the whale. How is it possible, upon any other supposi- tion than that it is the descendant of some land animal, with completely developed limbs and teeth, which has become gradually modified to suit an aquatic mode of existence, to explain the presence of the numerous rudimentary, and to their present possessors absolutely useless structures foi'-nd in its body. Amongst others, a complete set of teeth, existing only in embryonic life, entirely disappearing even before birth, and rudimentary hind legs, with their various bones, joints, and muscles, of which no trace is seen externally. It may be asserted that the whale was originally created so, as it was asserted, and long maintained, that fossil shells and bones were originally created as such in the rocks in which they are found. It took more than two centuries of continuous and most acrimonious discussion to convince the world, especially the theological world, that these were the actual remains of animals which had once lived in a former period of the earth's history. Their evidence is now, however, universally admitted as supplying knowledge of the changed conditions of the surface of the earth, and with equal clearness do these rudimentary organs, hidden in the secret recesses of the whale's body, furnish, to those who enquire, indications that the animal has passed through phases of existence unlike those in which we now see it. I do not for a moment assert that the new view explains everything that we students of nature are longing to know, or that we do not everywhere meet with obscure problems and perplexing difficulties, facts that we cannot account for, and breaks in the chain of evidence. As to the details and mode of operation of the secondary laws by which variation and modification have been brought about, we are far from