The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1897-10-09
THE PLACE OF DEATH IN EVOLU
TI0N,

The Place OF Death in Evolution"
Charles Scribner's Sons), by Newman
Smyth, is an interesting book, though
1t IS not easy to see what evolution
in the strict sense of Darwinism has
to do with the theme. The word is
used to describe the organic processes
OF change which fit animals in the
course of time and after many I'M
fortunate generations for a new
environment. 1t involves the infer
ence now held for a certainty by the
majority of scientific observers that
these organic changes produce all
the differences of species. But every
where these changes imply resistance
to death; that is, to breaking up of
the organs; and they point back
alphabetically to time when death
was not, because life was confined to
organism that could not be dissolved
except of their own motion. They
must point forward also to the same
sort Of Immortality in the cells of the
disintegrated organs which have been
worn out in the service of composite
living creature. But they give of
themselves no hint of an inorganic
existence.
The soul is absolutely unknown to
evolution. All that can be said is
that the soul and Immortality are
not contradicted by the evolutionary
theory. DIR. Smyth can use modern
biology only by way of analogy. The
continuity of nature leads to the
legitimate inference that the pre-
cesses of life are not completed in
mortal man. But, on the other han,
the inference that evolution is a
movement toward perfection seems
questionable. Is this so invariably
true that it can be used as an axiom
1t certainly seems to require proof
from somewhere outside of the eyolu-
tionary theory. II that is the case,
then the whole theory of better life
after what is called death rests on
evidence of which evolution has no
knowledge. The author, indeed,
points out a striking coincidence
between the teaching of biology that
sex and death come into the world
together as prerequisites of the rise
of life to higher order of beings
and the teaching of the New Testa-
ment that both will be unknown to
the world to come.
Fission, which corresponds in cell
life to both birth and death among
the higher animals, is not reckoned
by biologists as an interruption of
life. Yetthe cell, after it has divided
into two new cells, is not the same
that it was. If there were such a
thing as a conscious cell, could it be
imagined as enduring the rupture of
its parts without the complete death
of its consciousness? 1t must seem
that the biologists in coupling sex
with death have yielded to poetic
ideas of symmetry, while, on the
other hand, the doctrine of the New
Testament is simply that the future
life will be inconeeivably different
from the life that now is. Practically
the latter puts negative upon all
analogies, and DIR. Smyth, the mo-
ment he really sets about imagining
what the future life must be, does
the same thing.
Evolution in this world is process
of differentiation. 1t takes advan-
tage of all variations either to destroy
or to build up the species in the in
dividual. 1t might be thought that
the same process would continue in
the next world. But DIR. Smyth in
sists that it will not, and he maintains
that the fxity already attained by