Evolution and Immortality by Walter Spence 1900
When the evolutionary theory was first propounded it startled the world. It was welcomed by the atheist and the materialist as an ally. It was looked upon by the Church with suspicion and generally met with positive antagonism. It was feared that the doctrine if established would overthrow the very foundations of the Christian faith. But the hopes of the one and the fears of the other have for the most part been dispelled. Instead of antagonism between evolution and Christianity, there are now indications that evolution will prove an ally to the Church and a handmaid to true religion. The purpose of this paper is to consider the relation of evolution to the question of man's immortality. Does it deny immortality; or is it a dumb oracle with no word either of hope or of despair; or does it point with prophetic finger to a deathless life beyond the grave?
We may get a suggestion of the attitude of evolution toward immortality by considering the function of death in evolution. One of the most remarkable discoveries of recent years is that death did not enter the world with the first beginnings of life. The first living cells were deathless. At the very beginning and at the very bottom of organic life we find immortality. The lowest form of life on earth is the one-celled organism. This never dies a natural death; unless it meet a violent death it will live forever. Weismann says: "Natural death occurs only among many-celled beings; it is not found among one-celled organisms. . . . Death is not an essential attribute of living matter." Butschli remarks: "When we observe the history of the continual production of certain Protozoa we meet the most singular fact that in the life of these organisms death in the sense of the annihilation of organized matter, and from causes which are inherent in the organism, does not properly occur." Dr. Newman Smyth says: "The first one-celled organism does not exist for a season, produce another like itself, and then decay and totally disappear; it does nothing of the sort. The one thing that it does is not to die but to live on. It succeeds in living on and on by a very simple yet persistent process: for after awhile it divides itself into two cells, each like itself, and thus it continues to exist, living in these cells a double life." Now, this is a very significant fact; it shows that death is not a primary and necessary but a secondary and
incidental event in Nature.
If death is not a physical necessity, then it is a utility. This inference is confirmed by the further researches of the biologist. The field is comparatively new, and no very definite conclusions have yet been reached concerning the special utilities of death. But enough has been found to justify the general conclusion that death in the course of Nature is not to be regarded as a disaster — as a meaningless calamity —but as a means to an end; and that end is the advancement of the species. These researches show that sex and death were introduced in Nature at the same time, thus showing that they are cooperative and perhaps mutually dependent factors in the development of Nature. Again, heredity is recognized as an important factor in evolution, and we cannot conceive how heredity could do its work without the assistance of death. When one generation has pushed its way as far upward as its powers will permit, death takes the old away and leaves the new to take up the work and carry it still higher. Were it not for death the streams of life would become clogged up, the vigorous young life would be fettered and held back by the old, and heredity as a factor in evolution would be practically eliminated. The Darwinian factor of "natural selection" depends for its efficiency entirely on death; the "survival of the fittest" means the removal by death of the weaker individuals. The utility of death is well summed up by Dr. Smyth: "We find that death has many uses in the economy of Nature; that it is indeed so useful that life itself has to call upon death to help it forward on its endless way. We discover that natural death is only in appearance an enemy; that in reality it is a servant and help-meet of life.... In consequence of death, life develops, and the ministry of death is throughout a service for life. . . . The one regnant, radiant fact of Nature is life — and death enters and follows as a servant for life's sake."
But how shall we apply this truth of the utility of death in Nature to the question of man's immortality? If man is but a link in evolution's chain, then the only conclusion we can draw from this premise is that death will help to lift the race — will cooperate with the other factors of evolution in pushing upward this human link until it is merged into some link still higher in the series. But here we find two facts that force a different conclusion. In the first place man is not a mere link in the chain — he is the end of the chain. He is not one in a series of means — he is the end for which all the means have existed. Evolutionary science declares in emphatic language that man is the goal of evolution, and that so far as the physical man is concerned evolution has finished its work. "On the earth there will never be a higher creature than Man," says John Fiske. "It is a daring prophecy," says Henry Drummond, commenting on the above, "but every probability of science attests the likelihood of its fulfilment. The goal looked forward to from the beginning of time has been attained. Nature has succeeded in making a man. She can go no further: organic evolution has done its work." The accepted verdict of science is that there is no probability that a physical organization superior to man's body can be developed on earth. The second fact that confronts us here is that with the advent of man evolution changed almost immediately its field of operation. Hitherto it had bent its energies to the perfecting of the body; henceforth it leaves the now finished body and devotes its energies to mind. Hitherto it was mainly physical; henceforth it is almost entirely psychical. With the making of the human body, organic evolution practically finished its work and retired into the background — and psychic evolution entered into its kingdom. In view of these two facts, the conclusions we must draw as to the utility of death to man are evident: first, if man is the goal of evolution, then death, along with all evolutionary factors, must work to the perfecting of men for their own sake; and second, if the physical man be finished and evolution in man operates only in the psychic realm, then the utility of death as applied to man must be found in the development of the soul.
These considerations suggest and make probable the hypothesis that physical death is but a necessary process in the evolution of the soul. Death is but a crisis in the life of the soul by which it passes from one stage of development to another. Man, in his embryonic history, passes through several successive stages, each of which has a function to perform in his development. At first he exists in germ, in a spherule of protoplasm. He outgrows this, breaks the fetters, and enters into a higher life. But still he is inclosed in prison walls, bound by physical ties to the mother, receiving his blood through her veins. When this stage has done its work in the development of the man, he leaves his uterine home and is born into a higher life, where with individualized body, and with new environments and new conditions, he continues his evolution. Through the sensorium he acquires knowledge; the body becomes the instrument of his activity. Through the body and by the body the soul is molded and developed. But there comes a time when he outgrows this stage, as he did the preceding stages. The body has performed its function — it has helped forward the soul as far as Nature intended it should. Henceforth it would be no longer a help but a hindrance, and must be laid aside. So the body dies and the soul, the man himself, is born into a higher realm to continue his evolution under conditions of which we cannot conceive.
We find some beautiful and instructive analogies to this in Nature. In the vegetable kingdom we may take Paul's analogy of the wheat. The life-principle of the wheat is wrapped up in a material body, and there it remains until it can adapt itself to a higher and freer and more active life; then it lets go the infolding matter, which decays and becomes to the new plant no more than any other matter. There is an invisible, undiscoverable life-principle that survives the destruction of the grain and builds for itself a new body. The material grain is simply a stage in the life of the wheat, and the decay of the grain is the crisis wherein the life passes from a lower into a higher stage. The development of the wheatlife depends not on the continuance of the grain but on its destruction. Thus, in the wheat, death is a necessary process in the evolution of life. There is a still more beautiful analogy in the animal kingdom. Take the transformation of the worm into the butterfly, "Nature's gospel of the resurrection." At first a mere worm, creeping upon the earth, stupid and unattractive; and then from the dead body of the worm rises a winged creature of wondrous beauty, floating upon the air, feeding upon the flowers, bathing its glorious wings in the sunlight, moving with the rapidity of thought, as free as the zephyrs in which it sports. And yet the lowly worm and the glorious butterfly are the same individual, only in different stages of evolution. There is an identity between the two, not an identity of material body but of individualized life. Open the chrysalis at a certain stage and you will find the embryo of the butterfly — the butterfly-body inside the worm-body, fed through its agency but not identical with it. The worm-body is a necessary stage in the development of the butterfly. When this is no longer a help but becomes a hindrance, it dies, and the butterfly rises into a higher life and attains its perfect form. It is indeed a "resurrection from the dead" — the butterfly is raised up from the dead body of the worm. And thus it is a type of the death of the human body and the resurrection of the soul — the physical body performs its function in the evolution of the soul and dies, and the immortal spirit breaks the fetters of clay and mounts into the skies. As the shedding of the chrysalis is a necessary process in the evolution of the butterfly, so the death of the human body is a necessary process in the evolution of the soul.
Such is the significance of death to the Christian evolutionist. It is the wheat leaving behind its grain and rising into a more abundant life. It is the butterfly bursting forth from the chrysalis and soaring aloft. It is a new birth — the soul born from the womb of earth into the light of heaven. It is the bud opening its calyx and bursting into glorious blossom. Death is not a curse pronounced on the race because "Adam sinned," but a blessing decreed by the all-wise and loving Father. It is not a "penalty" man must pay for his sins, but a necessary means for the development of the soul. Death is not death at all — it is the beginning of life. As Browning puts it—
You never know what life means till you die.
Even throughout life, 'tis death that makes life live—
Gives it whatever the significance.
It is the open portal through which the soul may rise into the realms of immortal life and love.
Walter Spence - Kingfisher OK
When the evolutionary theory was first propounded it startled the world. It was welcomed by the atheist and the materialist as an ally. It was looked upon by the Church with suspicion and generally met with positive antagonism. It was feared that the doctrine if established would overthrow the very foundations of the Christian faith. But the hopes of the one and the fears of the other have for the most part been dispelled. Instead of antagonism between evolution and Christianity, there are now indications that evolution will prove an ally to the Church and a handmaid to true religion. The purpose of this paper is to consider the relation of evolution to the question of man's immortality. Does it deny immortality; or is it a dumb oracle with no word either of hope or of despair; or does it point with prophetic finger to a deathless life beyond the grave?
We may get a suggestion of the attitude of evolution toward immortality by considering the function of death in evolution. One of the most remarkable discoveries of recent years is that death did not enter the world with the first beginnings of life. The first living cells were deathless. At the very beginning and at the very bottom of organic life we find immortality. The lowest form of life on earth is the one-celled organism. This never dies a natural death; unless it meet a violent death it will live forever. Weismann says: "Natural death occurs only among many-celled beings; it is not found among one-celled organisms. . . . Death is not an essential attribute of living matter." Butschli remarks: "When we observe the history of the continual production of certain Protozoa we meet the most singular fact that in the life of these organisms death in the sense of the annihilation of organized matter, and from causes which are inherent in the organism, does not properly occur." Dr. Newman Smyth says: "The first one-celled organism does not exist for a season, produce another like itself, and then decay and totally disappear; it does nothing of the sort. The one thing that it does is not to die but to live on. It succeeds in living on and on by a very simple yet persistent process: for after awhile it divides itself into two cells, each like itself, and thus it continues to exist, living in these cells a double life." Now, this is a very significant fact; it shows that death is not a primary and necessary but a secondary and
incidental event in Nature.
If death is not a physical necessity, then it is a utility. This inference is confirmed by the further researches of the biologist. The field is comparatively new, and no very definite conclusions have yet been reached concerning the special utilities of death. But enough has been found to justify the general conclusion that death in the course of Nature is not to be regarded as a disaster — as a meaningless calamity —but as a means to an end; and that end is the advancement of the species. These researches show that sex and death were introduced in Nature at the same time, thus showing that they are cooperative and perhaps mutually dependent factors in the development of Nature. Again, heredity is recognized as an important factor in evolution, and we cannot conceive how heredity could do its work without the assistance of death. When one generation has pushed its way as far upward as its powers will permit, death takes the old away and leaves the new to take up the work and carry it still higher. Were it not for death the streams of life would become clogged up, the vigorous young life would be fettered and held back by the old, and heredity as a factor in evolution would be practically eliminated. The Darwinian factor of "natural selection" depends for its efficiency entirely on death; the "survival of the fittest" means the removal by death of the weaker individuals. The utility of death is well summed up by Dr. Smyth: "We find that death has many uses in the economy of Nature; that it is indeed so useful that life itself has to call upon death to help it forward on its endless way. We discover that natural death is only in appearance an enemy; that in reality it is a servant and help-meet of life.... In consequence of death, life develops, and the ministry of death is throughout a service for life. . . . The one regnant, radiant fact of Nature is life — and death enters and follows as a servant for life's sake."
But how shall we apply this truth of the utility of death in Nature to the question of man's immortality? If man is but a link in evolution's chain, then the only conclusion we can draw from this premise is that death will help to lift the race — will cooperate with the other factors of evolution in pushing upward this human link until it is merged into some link still higher in the series. But here we find two facts that force a different conclusion. In the first place man is not a mere link in the chain — he is the end of the chain. He is not one in a series of means — he is the end for which all the means have existed. Evolutionary science declares in emphatic language that man is the goal of evolution, and that so far as the physical man is concerned evolution has finished its work. "On the earth there will never be a higher creature than Man," says John Fiske. "It is a daring prophecy," says Henry Drummond, commenting on the above, "but every probability of science attests the likelihood of its fulfilment. The goal looked forward to from the beginning of time has been attained. Nature has succeeded in making a man. She can go no further: organic evolution has done its work." The accepted verdict of science is that there is no probability that a physical organization superior to man's body can be developed on earth. The second fact that confronts us here is that with the advent of man evolution changed almost immediately its field of operation. Hitherto it had bent its energies to the perfecting of the body; henceforth it leaves the now finished body and devotes its energies to mind. Hitherto it was mainly physical; henceforth it is almost entirely psychical. With the making of the human body, organic evolution practically finished its work and retired into the background — and psychic evolution entered into its kingdom. In view of these two facts, the conclusions we must draw as to the utility of death to man are evident: first, if man is the goal of evolution, then death, along with all evolutionary factors, must work to the perfecting of men for their own sake; and second, if the physical man be finished and evolution in man operates only in the psychic realm, then the utility of death as applied to man must be found in the development of the soul.
These considerations suggest and make probable the hypothesis that physical death is but a necessary process in the evolution of the soul. Death is but a crisis in the life of the soul by which it passes from one stage of development to another. Man, in his embryonic history, passes through several successive stages, each of which has a function to perform in his development. At first he exists in germ, in a spherule of protoplasm. He outgrows this, breaks the fetters, and enters into a higher life. But still he is inclosed in prison walls, bound by physical ties to the mother, receiving his blood through her veins. When this stage has done its work in the development of the man, he leaves his uterine home and is born into a higher life, where with individualized body, and with new environments and new conditions, he continues his evolution. Through the sensorium he acquires knowledge; the body becomes the instrument of his activity. Through the body and by the body the soul is molded and developed. But there comes a time when he outgrows this stage, as he did the preceding stages. The body has performed its function — it has helped forward the soul as far as Nature intended it should. Henceforth it would be no longer a help but a hindrance, and must be laid aside. So the body dies and the soul, the man himself, is born into a higher realm to continue his evolution under conditions of which we cannot conceive.
We find some beautiful and instructive analogies to this in Nature. In the vegetable kingdom we may take Paul's analogy of the wheat. The life-principle of the wheat is wrapped up in a material body, and there it remains until it can adapt itself to a higher and freer and more active life; then it lets go the infolding matter, which decays and becomes to the new plant no more than any other matter. There is an invisible, undiscoverable life-principle that survives the destruction of the grain and builds for itself a new body. The material grain is simply a stage in the life of the wheat, and the decay of the grain is the crisis wherein the life passes from a lower into a higher stage. The development of the wheatlife depends not on the continuance of the grain but on its destruction. Thus, in the wheat, death is a necessary process in the evolution of life. There is a still more beautiful analogy in the animal kingdom. Take the transformation of the worm into the butterfly, "Nature's gospel of the resurrection." At first a mere worm, creeping upon the earth, stupid and unattractive; and then from the dead body of the worm rises a winged creature of wondrous beauty, floating upon the air, feeding upon the flowers, bathing its glorious wings in the sunlight, moving with the rapidity of thought, as free as the zephyrs in which it sports. And yet the lowly worm and the glorious butterfly are the same individual, only in different stages of evolution. There is an identity between the two, not an identity of material body but of individualized life. Open the chrysalis at a certain stage and you will find the embryo of the butterfly — the butterfly-body inside the worm-body, fed through its agency but not identical with it. The worm-body is a necessary stage in the development of the butterfly. When this is no longer a help but becomes a hindrance, it dies, and the butterfly rises into a higher life and attains its perfect form. It is indeed a "resurrection from the dead" — the butterfly is raised up from the dead body of the worm. And thus it is a type of the death of the human body and the resurrection of the soul — the physical body performs its function in the evolution of the soul and dies, and the immortal spirit breaks the fetters of clay and mounts into the skies. As the shedding of the chrysalis is a necessary process in the evolution of the butterfly, so the death of the human body is a necessary process in the evolution of the soul.
Such is the significance of death to the Christian evolutionist. It is the wheat leaving behind its grain and rising into a more abundant life. It is the butterfly bursting forth from the chrysalis and soaring aloft. It is a new birth — the soul born from the womb of earth into the light of heaven. It is the bud opening its calyx and bursting into glorious blossom. Death is not a curse pronounced on the race because "Adam sinned," but a blessing decreed by the all-wise and loving Father. It is not a "penalty" man must pay for his sins, but a necessary means for the development of the soul. Death is not death at all — it is the beginning of life. As Browning puts it—
You never know what life means till you die.
Even throughout life, 'tis death that makes life live—
Gives it whatever the significance.
It is the open portal through which the soul may rise into the realms of immortal life and love.
Walter Spence - Kingfisher OK
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