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The errors of evolution, ed., with an intr., by H.L. Hastings
The errors of evolution ed with an intr by HL Hastings Author:Robert Patterson Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: is declared to be the origin of the human mind, and all our thoughts are asserted to be merely modes of motion. Thus Herbert Spencer expounds the development the... more »ory: "Those modes of the unknowable which we call motion, light, heat, chemical affinity, etc., are alike transformable into each other, and into those modes of the unknowable which we distinguish as sensation, emotion, thought; these, in their turn, being directly retransformable into the original shapes. That no idea arises, save as the result of some physical force expended in producing it, is fast becoming a commonplace of science; and whoever duly weighs the evidence will see that nothing but an overwhelming bias in favor of a preconceived theory can explain its non-acceptance." " The solar heat is the final source of the force manifested by society." Yet even supposing all the outrageous assumptions of the theory granted, the atheist has not proved the eternity of matter, nor got rid of the necessity for a Creator. His "solar heat" must come from some pre-existing Cause. Even Spencer is careful to admonish his disciples that "It remains only to point out that while the genesis of the solar system, and of countless other systems like it, is thus rendered comprehensible, the ultimate mystery continues as great as ever. The problem of existence is not soloed; it is simply removed further back. The nebular hypothesis throws no light on the origin of diffused matter; and diffused matter as much needs accounting for as concrete matter. The genesis of an atom is not easier to conceive than the genesis of a planet. Nay, indeed, so far from making the universe a less mystery than before, it makes it a greater mystery. Creation by manufacture is a much lower thing than creation by evolution. A man can put together a machin...« less