Chapter 15 Chapter 8 Darwinism: Religious and Moral Issues-1

The debate between Huxley and Wilberforce at the Oxford conference organized by the British Association is often seen as a clash between Darwinism and religion.Disraeli's famous remark, which gives a chance to those who see man as an ape or as an angel, "is on the side of the angels," hits at the heart of the conservative mind's worst fears.The abundance of cartoons in popular literature has brought home the serious incongruity of viewing man as merely an improved ape.However, the problems caused by the concept of human evolutionary origin should be viewed from a broader perspective.Most people eventually accept evolution and the idea that humans evolved.This problem alone is not caused by the theory of evolution, because psychologists also tend to explain the function of the brain from a materialist perspective (Young, 1970a).Determining the place of human beings in nature has now become a central task (Young, 1973).The question of what humans are products of natural systems is more interesting than ever.How exactly do the laws that lead to the development of life work?Can such a law give hope of seeing the mind of man as the necessary end of the activities of nature?Combining the theory of evolution with traditional theology and concepts of divine design became a major aim of religious thinkers who tried to accept Darwin's theory.

Oddly enough for a world that has revived biblical fundamentalism today, few people objected to the theory that Darwinism challenged the biblical Genesis story. The great debates in geology and paleontology in the early nineteenth century had convinced almost everyone that Genesis needed to be understood religiously in order to imagine that the earth and the creatures on it had changed over a long period of time.The challenges posed by naturalistic science went much deeper than this and led to a more secular development of thought in the nineteenth century (Young, 1970b; see also Mandelbaum, 1971; Chadwick, 1975).Darwinism was debated at precisely a delicate time, when the Victorian church was facing a host of internal problems (Chadwick, 1966; Symondson, 1970).The evangelical movement called for a return to the religion of the heart, while the Oxford movement, led by John Henry Newman, was concerned with ancient traditions, at least with the restoration of Roman traditions.Even more troubling, the 1845 English translation of DF Strauss' "The Life of Jesus" provoked "high-level criticism".Many have found that the way out lies in viewing the Bible as a historical document rather than as the controversial Word of God.When Discourse and Review published some British views along these lines in 1860, it aroused fierce debate (Willy, 1956; Brock and MacLeod, 1976).Darwinism profited from the debate at the time as to whether the origin of God in theological textbooks warranted certain knowledge of spiritual truths to be accepted as truths.

At its most extreme, the challenge to conventional thinking was not due to the specifics of Darwin's theory, but a broader worldview that even some of the more radical thinkers embraced.Darwinism became the hallmark of a new set of values ​​that came more from the evolutionary philosophy of Herbert Spencer.General progress is regarded as the inevitable result of the mechanical operation of the laws of nature.Man is a product of the evolutionary process, and lacking any source of transformation of moral value, man has had to create a new ethic guided by nature itself (Greene, 1981).Increased confidence in the power of science to produce a complete explanation of the universe was an essential part of this new materialism, expressed by John Tyndall in his 1874 "Belfast Address" Views (reprinted in Tyndall, 1902).Of course, although some of Darwin's close followers were reluctant to accept this materialist program, Darwinian evolution played a role in boosting this confidence.Scientists, like many other thinkers, have generally found that if the natural theory of evolution were to be fully extended, it would cause problems for life (Turner, 1974).For example, Wallace later came to believe that the final stages of human evolution were guided by supernatural forces, and Huxley ended up being a fierce critic of evolutionary ethics.

The fact that not all scientists share this new materialism reminds us of the need to adopt a flexible attitude when studying the relationship between Darwinism and religion.This complication is often blurred by zealots from both sides of science and religion, who insist that science and religion must collide.There is indeed a radical materialist group that attempts to fully explore the anti-religious implications of Darwinism, but this is an extreme position that does not represent the views of many scientists and theologians (Greene, 1961; Moore, 1979; Durant, 1985 ).Just as biologists differ in the degree to which naturalistic worldviews they are willing to accept, so theologians differ in the degree to which they are willing to incorporate evolution in their thinking.There are only a few who stubbornly persist in not compromising with a new theory.Believing in the absolute immutability of species created by magical forces, they cling to the traditional notion of divinely determined truths that only the human mind can perceive.A handful of ultraconservative biologists, including Louis Agassiz and JW Dawson, have persisted in this view (OBrien, 1971; Cornell, 1983).Paradoxically, a few devout Kelvinists were willing to fully embrace Darwin's theories, including the theory of natural selection (Moore, 1979).For them, a theory whose implications may be confusing—that progress is not assured under the strict action of laws—can be compared with the Christian man as a fallen creature whose salvation depends on powers outside the world. Viewpoints match.

Most scientists and theologians have tried to find a middle way, modifying the structure of Darwinism so that evolution can be seen as an essentially progressive process.Darwin's own theory arose out of the utilitarian theology of Paley and Malthus, according to which even evil contributes to ultimate good in a way God designed.At this time, Darwin himself found it difficult to reconcile natural selection with the idea of ​​God's design, and most people found the mechanism of natural selection too cruel and selfish to be considered as the choice of a benevolent God in creation. Way.Evolution can only be accepted as a mechanism of creation if selection is replaced by progress that embodies the Creator's intentions.In the early debates about phylogeny, many scientists and theologians chose a compromising position, arguing that evolution, guided by some supernatural force, led to adaptation and progress.However, this theistic conception of evolution is not good for science because it still prevents biologists from fully natural explanations of natural phenomena.

In the 19th century, as time went on, Lamarckian mechanisms of acquired inheritance, according to which selection in individual animals could determine the adaptive goals of an entire species, were increasingly used as a solution to this problem.For many religious thinkers, a universal evolutionary system, with life directing its own development, seemed the best way to save the God-design argument.This romantic view of evolution has been called "Darwinism" to distinguish it from "Darwinism" which closely follows the spirit of natural selection (Peckham, 1959).Darwin's name is indeed often associated with any form of evolution, but the term is so vague that most Lamarckian scientists clearly recognize that they have significant differences with Darwinists.Theistic evolution and Lamarckism may aptly represent a coherent phase with the emergence of a consciously anti-Darwinian philosophy whose intention was to preserve the role of divine will in nature.In many ways this philosophy is a direct continuation of the developmental perspective already outlined in Chambers' Traces of the History of Natural Creation.

The confusion about the extent of Darwin's influence arises because both materialists and their opponents have revised Darwin's theory of evolution in the same way, albeit with different intentions.Almost all influential Victorian thinkers could only tolerate evolution as an essentially progressive system: evolution must have a purpose, of which the emergence of man played a key role, whether or not that purpose could be traced to the supernatural the Creator there.Many radical thinkers, such as Spencer, denied that moral values ​​had any a priori origin, insisting instead that one should obey the laws of nature itself.This would assure not only the happiness of the individual, but the progress of the race; progress being secured by the fact that natural evolution itself is progressive.Huxley criticized Spencer's evolutionary ethics mainly because, in Huxley's view, progress is not guaranteed in a truly Darwinian universe, so there is no need to propose ways to obey the cruelty of nature.Spencer amply represented the worst aspects of Victorian capitalism by advocating a system of free competition in which the individual must look after his own interests.Huxley proposed that moral value must be determined by human consciousness rather than by nature. His thinking is closer to the traditional ethics, although he cannot be sure whether human consciousness reflects God's moral guidance.

Liberal Christians, on the other hand, do not insist that moral values ​​must have a priori sources, but propose that the progressive nature of the material world is part of God's careful plan to teach us how to act.They may not agree with Spencer's ethics, but they want to reassure themselves of seeing their own values ​​supported by nature (Moor e, 1985a, 1985b; Livingstone, 1987).Some have attempted to revive traditional values ​​by arguing that evolution itself is not driven by struggle but by cooperation among organisms.Anti-Darwinists often adopt values ​​that do not differ much from Spencer's.The Lamarckian view that the active requirements of individual organisms determine the successful path of evolution is very similar to Spencer's view, but this idea is not too inconsistent with Spencer's own acquired inheritance as the main mechanism of evolution Thought.Most Lamarckians do not believe in the ruthless morality of free competition, they choose the mercy of a controlled state; but they are flippant in describing the "inferior" races as groups unable to advance in nature (Chapter 10).Both the Lamarckians and Spencer saw their own values ​​in the natural world, and then both thought that their self-created cosmology would ensure that those values ​​were solid.The parallelism between materialist and liberal theologians may only make some Christians more afraid of those theologians who have betrayed true religion.

Although the debate about the influence of evolution on religion is fierce, we should also see that, in fact, the basic view of natural development has influenced many aspects of Western culture from the beginning (Himmelfarb, 1959; Russett, 1976; Oldroyd and Langham, 1983).Novelists, in particular, were quick to absorb the implications of this new science, and many modern scholars cite their work to demonstrate the impact of evolution on Victorian life.Initially, many fictional writers described the advent of Darwinism as a source of tension in their societies, though this attitude has, of course, become increasingly rare as the concept of progressive evolution has grown in popularity (Henkin, 1963) .Thus, the handful of novelists who became barometers recorded how, in the late nineteenth century, the theory of evolution absorbed the optimism of general progress.More creative writers have exploited the tension created by evolution in different ways (Beer, 1983; Morton, 1984).George Eliot's novels show a clear recognition of Darwin's imagining of nature as a complex, unpredictable system, while Thomas Hardy's pessimism about biology governing human destiny.Samuel Butler also recognized the brutal aspects of the Darwinian worldview, and he ended up writing publicly in support of Neo-Lamarckism.

design problem According to traditional creationism, it is God who introduces new species, and it is God who designs all the traits of species.At this time, many naturalists began to agree that it seemed impossible that a large number of such creations could have any prospect of development.Chambers has already proposed in "Traces of the History of Natural Creation" that as long as we imagine that God created life through the process of law, we can arrive at a noble concept of God.Baden-Powell (1855) also believed that the power of God can be more clearly demonstrated through the continuous operation of laws than through isolated miracles.By this time, the theory of evolution had gained wide acceptance, and the more liberal followers of natural theology were ready to accept the view that laws governed creation.Chambers' theory of evolution made use of the concept of design, which had been refuted in the 1840s, when Traces of Natural Creation was published, as the only way to connect God and nature.

Is a particular law linked to Darwin's mechanism of natural selection that allows man to perpetuate the concept of God's design?Most religious thinkers argue that the concept of natural selection shakes up all aspects of the God's design argument, and they explore other types of evolution.But at least one important effort has been made to suggest that atheism is not necessary to continue Darwin's work.Darwin's ideas certainly destroyed the logic of Paley's original view that adaptation proved God's design; but since the evolutionary process was thought to have a purpose, one could still argue that a benevolent creator set it in motion.Although it is no longer possible to 〖HTH〗to prove that all adaptations of 〖HTSS〗 are due to God, but it is still possible to 〖HTH〗believe that 〖HTSS〗God is the indirect cause.Leading figures in their efforts to reconcile Darwinism with theology, such as the American botanist Asa Gray, took this position.Although Gray was a Darwinian leader in the United States, he was a deeply religious man who felt compelled to show that although he accepted the theory of evolution, it did not affect his beliefs.He published a series of articles defending Darwinism without invoking atheism, later published in 1876 under the title Darwinism (Gray, reprinted 1963; see Dupree, 1959, for a general discussion of theological responses in America, see Persons, 1956). Gray argues that Darwin's theory was no more atheistic than Newton's physics: Darwin's theory merely showed how the universe works, and was neutral about whether it was initiated by God.The theist can keep his beliefs even if he accepts the theory.Scientists only describe the rules of nature, but religious thinkers can explore the explanation of such rules from the perspective of God's purpose.For example, in the case of natural selection, the laws of nature control the process, which is purposeful, allowing organisms to adapt to changing environments, and continuously promote the development of organisms towards higher states.This view certainly fits with the belief that the universe has a Creator-given purpose.One might argue that the Almighty Creator is able to foresee all events resulting from his laws and, therefore, anthropomorphically controls the occurrence of these events.Gray compared evolution to the game of pool and asked whether the trajectory of the ball was determined by necessity or by design.It is obviously determined by both: when a billiard player hits a pool ball, he has determined the hitting plan in his mind according to the laws of physics.Likewise, the Creator may have used the laws of nature in determining the ultimate purpose. Gray seems to be implying that the existence of any mechanism for maintaining adaptation is evidence of God's design.But it is difficult to think the same with natural selection, which has put to the test a whole part of nature.Paley had tried to minimize the extent to which small animals suffered, but many had come to believe that these evils could not be easily overlooked, and people began to doubt the benevolence of the Creator.Trying to get a vantage point, Gray proposed that natural selection at least explained the purpose of all this suffering.In essence, only by eliminating the unsuitable can the evolution of creatures be ensured and God's purpose realized.Suffering is not the primary basis of natural activity, but an excusable by-product of a process governed by laws that a rational Creator has made his designs subject to. Darwin himself was inclined to this line of thinking (Gillespie, 1979).He reduces the degree of suffering caused by the struggle for existence by comparing it to the happiness of a species that is naturally well adapted to it.But there are still people who ask poor questions.Why should there be a process of elimination?The Creator is very cautious, can't he design a more humane evolutionary mechanism?And is the whole direction of evolution as purposeful as Gray suggests?The existence of parasites that make other living beings miserable shows that selfishness is the only force guiding adaptation, and that there is no moral purpose.Darwin doubted that theologians could attribute this dismal phenomenon to a process directly manipulated by God.Even acknowledging that the universe was created by a purposeful Creator, it is best to believe that the Creator has no way of predestining or controlling the details of the realization of his ultimate design. Finally, Gray clearly concedes that it is impossible to justify the existence of a benevolent God in terms of the selfish and costly mechanism of natural selection.In one of his articles, he referred to Darwin's failure to account for the origin of variation, and suggested that it may be that the Creator directed the emergence of new traits on principles beneficial to the species.Darwin insisted in many of his letters, in the concluding section of his Variations of Animals and Plants under Domestication (Darwin, 1868), that Gray had gone too far.If variation proceeds along favorable lines, selection is superfluous; variation itself directs the course of evolution.In some cases, we can find that most of the variation is nonsense.Did God give pigeon breeders a mutation that would lead to the fantail?To put it this way is to use reductio absurdum to solve the problem designed by God.Given enough variation, selection can lead to evolution without any additional help.To propose "directed" variation merely re-admits the possibility of supernatural interference, and deprives the naturalist once again of a truly scientific theory of evolution. Gray, in effect, turned to a theistic or God-designed theory of evolution by proposing that God somehow influenced the process of variation.Other scientists concerned with maintaining God's connection to nature have more clearly followed the same path.Charles Lyell eventually turned to the theory of evolution, but he did not subscribe to the theory of natural selection, instead arguing that divine forces must be controlling the process of evolution (Lyell, 1863).The anatomist Richard Owen has long been skeptical of miracles, and, although he wrote a vicious review (Owen, reprinted in Hull, 1973b), in his Vertebrate Anatomy ( Owen, 1866-1868) also put forward the theory of evolution, he believed that evolution is the realization of God's plan.Elgar's study of popular publications at the time (Ellegörd, 1958) revealed that there were many people outside the scientific community who supported the theory of evolution. By defending the doctrine of natural selection, Gray emphasizes that adaptation results from divine forces influencing evolution by espousing a utilitarian view of nature.But those who would actively replace the mechanism of natural selection with a theistic view of evolution bluntly claim that using mechanisms based on adaptation alone cannot explain all aspects of nature.As a result, they revived the spiritualist view that there is a divine design argument, that is, they believed that there could be no natural explanation for the picture or harmony in the world, but an invocation of the will of the Creator (Bowler, 1977a, 1983) .St. George Jackson Mivart declared (chapter 7) that there is no natural explanation for the similarities exhibited by the various branches of evolution (Mivart, 1871; Gruber, 1960).Mivart insisted that this parallel development must be due to the fact that the Creator determined in advance that living things evolve in a certain direction.Physiologist William Benjamin Carpenter attempted to support this belief on a smaller scale through the regular pattern of evolution of the shells of the plus-tiny marine organisms foraminifera (Carpenter, 1888).One of the most popular writers in this field, the Duke of Argyll, argued in his The Authority of Laws (Argyll, 1867) that the beauty exhibited by some animals cannot be explained by purely natural causes.For example, some hummingbirds display colors that are not useful even for finding a mate.Argyle insisted that the Creator had beauty in mind, and that he expressed it intentionally in his control of evolution. Mivart proposed that evolution occurs through a series of sudden mutations, each of which prompts a species to take a distinct step forward along a predetermined path.The same idea is the basis of Owen's "derivative" theory (Owen, 1866-1868, vol. III).In favor of this supposed mutation, some have argued that the day-to-day variation studied by Darwinists has nothing to do with the real process of evolution.Perhaps these variations are due to accidental causes; but they may be of another kind, discontinuous, and following a predetermined path, only when pressure requires the species to enter another stage of its development. in order to show it.This point of view also favors naturalists who retain their traditional notion that their species are true entities, each a stage in a path designed by the Creator. But how did God impose his will on the evolutionary process?Is it possible to come up with a theory in which the idea of ​​God's design is preserved and still be a scientific theory?Early theistic views of evolution, such as those expressed by Chambers in Traces of the History of Natural Creation, confused things by suggesting that "laws governed creation" because laws governed creation only implicitly A series of miracles, post-Darwinian debates show that it is impossible to shed light on this issue.An obvious research direction is to explore the idealistic view of causality.Argyll suggested that the concepts of law and causality must be understood on two levels.Using an empirical approach, scientists equate cause and effect with a fixed connection between an event and its outcome.At the philosophical level, however, it must be supplemented by the idealist view that change requires the force of the will.Argyle is clearly suggesting that if the laws of nature depend on God's will, then we can see how he directs the process of evolution.But even if we admit that the laws express the will of God, the laws still work in a purely deterministic way, and scientists can still study the laws.In order to integrate the thought of God's design into the cognition that meets Argyll's requirements, the laws must be able to predict future goals and guide nature to develop towards these goals, so some things are difficult to conform to the cause and effect of scientists based on experience It is based on the idea that the past controls the present. The idea of ​​foretelling the future posed a problem from the start.Argyle believed that evolution could predict the future needs of a species and guide the generation of variation appropriately.How, he asks, can we know that vestigial organs are vestiges of once useful structures?Perhaps they are actually the initial stages of an organ that is about to be used in the future.This is a major hurdle preventing science from earning respect in the scientific community.Experience shows that the development of nature works in such a way that the past controls the present, and that the goals of the future cannot be determined from the present;When Wallace issued the challenge, Argyle insisted that he had not reintroduced supernatural control; the Creator only worked by law, not by miracles.However, the idea that future goals are included and that such goals are chosen by the Creator makes little scientific sense, since such goals can only be explained from a supernatural perspective. The only alternative is to think that design is not due to God's constant action, but is due to the pre-injection of God's design into life at the beginning of life's creation.Gray held this line of thinking. He believed that God used the laws of nature to accomplish his plan, just as a billiard player uses the laws of motion to play billiard balls.How can one believe that enough information was contained in the first life forms to produce every change in the millions of years of evolutionary history that followed?However, any attempt to attribute the details of evolution to a divine plan inevitably raises the question of the Creator's fault for the emergence of parasites and other unpleasant forms of life.Theistic evolutionists attempt to trivialize this aspect of nature, but it is this very perception that alienates the scientific community from theistic evolution. Ultimately, scientists, with these concerns in mind, became convinced that theistic evolution was a meaningless compromise.By the end of the 19th century, only a few conservatives, such as Argyll, were still advocating this approach.Professional scientists have at least realized that it is not their job to look for evidence of God's design, and that any attempt to reintroduce teleology would hinder the acceptance of their theories.However, the moral problems posed by the theory of selection remain the same, and many alternative theories of the scientific past have been proposed so that purpose in evolution can be seen.The most promising is Lamarck's mechanism of acquired inheritance.This mechanism avoids the cruel meaning in natural selection, because according to the acquired genetic mechanism, it can be considered that each individual will adapt himself to the new environment through his own efforts, and there is no need to eliminate the unfit.Lamarckism can be thought of as the mechanism by which the choice of a benevolent God ensures the existence of suitable life in a changing world.At the same time, it can be considered that the necessity to react to change necessarily activates the mental faculties that ensure overall progress.American naturalists were ahead in using Lamarckism to combine evolution and religion (Pfeifer, 1965; see also Moore, 1979, and Chapter 9).A similar view was expressed by Butler in England, and it became widely popular at the end of the nineteenth century. Lamarckism, emphasized by the American paleontologist Edward Drinker Cope, is the part that allows life to determine its own destiny.Organisms are not mechanical puppets that survive their environment. Rather, organisms are able to respond to any challenge by choosing to adapt to new ways of life.In this way, the elements selected by the external God in the traditional concept are transformed into the vitality injected by God into the natural world.According to popular science, consciousness itself is the driving force of evolution, and this force constantly elevates creatures to new heights by exercising their ability to select.However, the actual acquired genetic mechanism, that is, the adaptation of the biological body to the new way of life, seems to meet the requirements of scientific naturalism, so as to reconcile science and theology.For naturalists like Cope, the new form of Christian evolution is based on the belief that life is universally driven by itself toward a goal intended by its Creator. In general, Lamarckians reject Spencer's view that human behavior is regulated by free competition.They, too, hoped that the future of humanity was one of progress, but believed that this was best achieved through a cooperating political system in which the best ideals of civilized man could be transmitted to each generation through state-controlled education.People should be responsible for their own future development, instead of blindly following the guidance of nature.The Lamarckian view of progress differs from Spencer's (who himself biologically subscribed to Lamarckian) view of progress only in that Lamarckian view of human consciousness can discover the true nature of the goals of evolutionary development.Spencer chose the view of free competition mainly because he believed that it was impossible to achieve this goal due to too rapid human intervention, that is, the process of social development is complicated and it is best to follow the slow process of nature conduct.In contrast, some Lamarckians, such as Cope, believe that human consciousness has reached a new level of awareness where one can recognize what a Creator directed evolution to achieve.Therefore, human beings can artificially guide the traits of future generations through education, so as to control evolution and accelerate the realization of this goal. The collaboration emphasized by Lamarckism is not just a political program aimed at opposing the brutality of free competitive capitalism.Emphasizing cooperation can also be directly linked to biological evolution by removing the reliance of natural selection on struggle and making cooperation the real driver of progress.In this way, our precious moral values ​​are transferred to nature, thereby making it possible for humans to reinforce this value as an inevitable consequence of evolution.Animals that cooperate with each other are generally more successful in surviving, and the instinctive cooperation is reinforced until it is imprinted in the human consciousness.The American John Fiske advocated this view in his Outlines of the Philosophy of the Universe (Fiske, 1874).The writing of this book was greatly influenced by Spencer, and the book puts forward a view of cosmic progress similar to Spencer's view for many years.However, Fiske made a major revision of the original view by suggesting that altruism is a prominent feature of human evolution.In his view, altruism, the willingness to sacrifice oneself for the sake of others, is the most successful evolutionary strategy of the species and fundamentally motivates the development of human civilization.Henry Drummond, in his very popular work The Rise of Man (Drummond, 1894), drew a distinctly religious message from the altruism argument, arguing that the willingness to engage with other human beings for the good of all This form of cooperation is the driving force of all evolution (Moore, 1958b).Thus, the emergence of genuine altruistic behavior in humans is not contrary to the laws of nature, but is a direct result of the laws of nature determining the development of our species in promoting the development of every component in all life.Peter Kropotkin, in a series of articles based on his observations of wildlife (later collected in 1906 and published under the title Mutual Aid), demonstrated that the signs of struggle in nature do not many.Animals generally improve their chances of survival by cooperating with other animals, so it is reasonable to claim that evolution actually proceeds by increasing the level of cooperation with each generation.Significantly, Kropotkin also wrote in favor of Lamarckism, arguing that traits successfully developed in groups of animals can be passed on to offspring and strengthened in them.Seen in this way, the theory becomes a form of Darwinism, which holds that in the struggle for existence, groups that are successful will weed out groups that are less cooperative. evolution and man Darwin knew that the insights about human beings embedded in his theory would be the most controversial.He was convinced that the theory must include humans and other animals, thus challenging the basic assumptions of Christianity.The reaction to Chambers's Traces of Nature's Creation History has confirmed that the public is deeply sensual on the subject and that people are aware of the materialistic implications of the theory of human evolution.Darwin decided not to involve a human being in order to avoid an obvious confrontation, but he felt it would be disingenuous to conceal his beliefs.He took an eclectic approach, adding: This will help clarify the origin of man.Thus, even if Darwin did not discuss the issue until his Descent of Man (Darwin, 1871), it was enough to make the question of humanity as a whole one of the issues of debate from the very beginning. The central question is the nature of the human mind and moral attributes.According to the traditional view, the spiritual world is regarded as the characteristic of the soul, and the soul and the body are only temporarily united.Unlike other religions, Christianity has always emphasized that other animals do not have spiritual characteristics.If biological evolution is accepted, the boundaries between humans and animals will be eliminated, and all the characteristics of humans will become part of the natural world.为了维护我们人类的独特地位，我们既要否定进化的发生，又要提出在通向人类的进化分支中发生过一些特殊的事情。如果没有了与造物主的独特关系，就必须重新评价人类的状态，而且要从我们位于进化的前头这一点中来认识我们存在的意义。从本质上说，达尔文及其他进化论者所面临的问题是，要提出一种文化上可以被人接受的观点，来解释自然是如何产生出人类心灵所具有的高贵特性（RJRichards，1987）。 对于我们人类只不过是高等的猿这一观点，保守的思想家从一开始就感到害怕。从两个达尔文最密切的支持者赖尔和华莱士不赞同对于人类的起源作机械论解释这个事实，可以看出在这个问题上情感上的浓厚色彩。虽然赖尔最先在他的地质学中提出了物种起源的问题，但是他对于将来有可能将人类贬斥的与动物之间联系起来感到烦恼（Bartholomew，1973）。赖尔至少在他的《远古的人类》（Lyell，1863）一书接受了进步论者的化石记录观，并且承认了达尔文的理论是合理的，但是他坚持认为人类的起源需要发生突然的跳跃，从而使生命上升到一个全新的台阶。达尔文曾经写道，赖尔书中的这种观点使他感到不快。他看不出来使一般性的联系进化规律出现例外的理由，除非是为了捍卫传统的人类独特性观点。然而，赖尔依然对这个问题感到苦闷，后来他赞同了华莱士所宣称的人类的创生需要超自然的因素干涉进化过程的观点。 华莱士早期的人类进化观符合达尔文的理论，但是在19世纪60年代，他开始怀疑单凭自然选择就能导致一定性状的出现。有意义的是，这种情况发生在他开始对唯灵论感兴趣的时候，唯灵论致使他提出我们人类具有独立于身体的灵魂能力（Smith，1972；Kottler，1974；Turner，1974）。他在题为“自然选择在说明人类时的局限性”一文中表达了他的疑虑（见Wallace，1870）。他相信，即使我们的一些体质特征，比如缺少体毛，并没有什么生物学上的优势，而且不可能是由于选择发展而来的。许多心智特性同样是没有什么用途的，我们尤其会想到我们的早期人类所具有的一些原始文化状态。例如，具有音乐感或能够进行抽象的数学计算有什么用？选择论者除非可以表明这种特性在原始野蛮人中的用途，否则他就得承认不能自然地解释这些特性的起源。华莱士与许多他的同代人不同，他相信现代的原始人在心智上与白种人是一样的，但是，他却坚持认为，现代原始人不会使用他们已经具备的较高能力。如果他们的生活方式是从更早期的人类文化中继承下来的，那么我们的祖先同样不会从获得这种能力中获益。因为自然选择不能发展出不是一直使用的能力，所以华莱士得出结论，在人类的进化中，一定是某些超自然的因素控制了关键的阶段。 华莱士的观点表明，不止是保守的思想家不愿面对人类起源的自然论解释中的含义。不过，到了19世纪末期，他们这种不情愿便逐渐克服了。正如我们即将看到的那样，之所以可能发生这样的事情，是因为人们强调了自然发展中的进步特性，这样的话就可以将人类的种族看成是具有道德目的的必然终产物。随着人们普遍接受了这种前提下的人类进化观，有必要确立一种科学的观点将人类与动物界联系起来。自从18世纪以来，人们愈加清楚地认识到，在体质上与我们最接近的是大型的猿（第四章），而这时进化论者当然对于强调这种联系的密切性感兴趣了。最有力的证据就是能够显示出从猿到人直接联系的化石。如果还没有得到这种“缺失的环节”，进化论者就可能从比较现代的猿与人之间的异同入手。 第一次从进化论的角度论述这个问题的是T·H·赫胥黎的《人在自然中的位置》（1863，重印于Huxley，1893-94，vol.VII）。赫胥黎已经与欧文就人类与猿的相似性问题上发生了争议。欧文捍卫居维叶将人和猿分成两个不同目的做法，即分成二手类和四手类。之所以认为猿是“四手”，是因为它们脚的功能很像人类的手。欧文还宣称，人脑中的有些部分在猿的脑中根本就没有。赫胥黎在这一点上不同意欧文的观点，他在《人在自然中的位置》一书中继续阐释了他的看法。他表明，居维叶和欧文都夸大了猿中脚和手的相似性。而且欧文未能发现猿脑中的某种特定结构，这主要是他依赖于人工保存的样品。总而言之，赫胥黎提出，人类的体质特征决定了他显然是和大型猿这种动物属于同一个目，今天人们将这个目叫做灵长目。 密切的体质上的相似昭示了进化上的联系，但是对此仅用化石记录还无法证实。于是赫胥黎转而利用古代的人类标本，以期发现人们所称的“缺失的环节”。他当然知道人类不可能来自现存的大型猿类。达尔文的理论只是预测人与猿有共同的祖先，该祖先可能具有一般的似猿特征；但是该祖先与任何现代的猿都不一样，因为现代的猿已经经历了适应森林生活的特化。早期人类的形态中保留了他们动物祖先性状的痕迹吗？直到最近，甚至像赖尔这样激进的地质学家都坚持认为不存在真正的古代人类化石。而这时赫胥黎至少可以利用两个化石——恩吉斯人头盖骨和尼安德特人头盖骨——进行研究，以了解人类的进化（Eiseley，1958；Leakey and Goodall，1969；Reader，1981；关于原始人资料的收集，见Leakey an d Prost，1971）。自从1833年起，就已经知道了恩吉斯人头盖骨，但是他们的真实年代有待识别。对于赫胥黎的目标不利的是，恩吉斯人头盖骨显然与现代人的头盖骨没有什么差别。他认识到，如果还是无法揭示出人类进化的真实故事，那么就得将我们的祖先追溯到更久远的年代。 初看起来，尼安德特人的头盖骨似乎更像我们祖先的头盖骨。这个头盖骨是1856年在德国发现的，很像大型猿。它有厚厚的眉弓，与猿的眉弓很相似。有些博物学家认为这是一个病理的标本，是一种变形的生物，或者是白痴，或者是野人。还有一些人则坚持认为，即使利用这个标本，也有助于阐明人类的起源，因为这种变形类型可能是返祖现象，即回复到人类历史的早期阶段。赫胥黎不承认这个标本是病理标本，后来发现的许多类似的遗迹，证实了他的观点。他发现，正是眉弓使尼安德特人的头盖骨成为他所见过的最似猿的人类头盖骨，不过他是被迫承认尼安德特人〖HTH〗已经是〖HTSS〗完全的人了。像任何现代人头盖骨一样的脑容表明，尼安德特人的脑和我们的脑一样大。他可能并不是人类与人们所假定的小脑袋动物祖先之间的联系环节；他们这些曾经生活过的种族，的确与现代人的平均特征有区别。