On Darwinism and Mystery
On Darwinism and Mystery
by G. K. Chesterton, Illustrated London News August 21, 1920
(Source: G. K. Chesterton, Collected Works, Volume xxxii, The Illustrated London News 1920-1922, Ignatius Press, 1989, pp. 74-77)
Mr. Edward Clodd [Footnote 1], the distinguished student of Folklore, has asked me a question touching a passage which appeared in this paper. He was writing with reference to the larger question of Darwinism, to which I may return more fully at some other time. But as the sentence he quoted from these columns stands somewhat separate it may be proper to treat it separately. The words he wishes more fully explained are: “Even the Evolutionist is now shy of explaining Evolution. To-day the scientific temper is… scientific doubt of science, not scientific doubt of religion.” He especially wishes to know what I mean by the phrase “scientific doubt of religion.”
Now I take it that my negative statement at least is evident enough; I mean that the most recent revolutionary scientific suggestions do not happen to throw any doubt on any religion. The Book of Genesis does not say that God formed the substance of the world out of atoms, and therefore a scientist cannot be rebuked as a Bible-smasher if he says it is formed not of atoms, but of electrons. The Council of the Church which laid down the dogma of the Co-eternity of Father and Son did not lay down any dogma on the Conservation of Energy. Therefore Mme. Curie [Footnote 2] could not be burned as a heretic even if, as some said, her discovery disturbed our ideas about the Conservation of Energy. The Athanasian Creed does not say that parallel straight lines never meet, so it would be unaffected by Professor Einstein saying, if he does really say, that they are not parallel or even straight. The prophets did not prophesy that a man would never fly, and are, therefore, not discredited when he does fly. The saints certainly never said there was no such thing as wordless talking, and therefore have nothing to retract if there is such a thing as wireless telegraphy. In many ways it would be far easier to maintain that the modern inventions have verified the ancient miracles. Now in these technical and utilitarian examples it is still true to say that, if they do not disturb religious doctrines, they also do not disturb scientific doctrines. But the former class of more theoretic discoveries do disturb scientific doctrines. It is the doctrines about gravity and energy, about atoms and ether, about the very foundations of the purely scientific universe, that have been affected or threatened by purely scientific research.
Hence I was led to say that the scientific men are pulling to pieces their own scientific universe. It was something relative to this that I said they were not primarily concerned now with doubt about religion. The phrase (in a positive as distinct from a relative sense) refers, of course, to various spiritual and teleological ideas that were supposed, rightly or wrongly, to be disturbed by an earlier phase of science. Some seem to suppose that I am here arguing for these doctrines; but that is a complete mistake. Of the pre-Darwinian doctrines of the popular Protestantism in England, there are some that I believe and some that I heartily disbelieve; but none that I have made the basis of my remarks on Darwinism. They are based on the inconsistencies and illogicalities of the Darwinians themselves. Many sincere critics seems to find it very difficult to believe this. One of them asked me quite sharply why the wing of the bat had not been divinely designed with feathers like the wings of the owl—almost as if I myself had culpably neglected to provide the animal with proper plumage. All this is to miss my whole purpose in this particular discussion. If I do personally believe in design, it is for somewhat deeper reasons which have nothing to do with the wings of bats; and certainly I never dreamed of demonstrating it from the wings of bats. I never professed to trace the causes of these things at all. I have not written a book called “The Origin of Species.” I have not conducted detailed researches or proclaimed dogmatic conclusions. I do not know the true reason for a bat not having feathers; I only know that Darwin gave a false reason for its having wings. And the more the Darwinians explain, the more certain I become that Darwinism was wrong. All their explanations ignore the fact that Darwinism supposes an animal feature to appear first, not merely in an incomplete stage, but in an almost imperceptible stage. The member of a sort of mouse family, destined to found the bat family, could only have differed from his brother mice by some minute trace of membrane; and why should that enable him to escape out of a natural massacre of mice? Or even if we suppose it did serve some other purpose, it could only be by a coincidence; and this is to imagine a million coincidences accounting for every creature. A special providence watching over a bat would be a far more realistic notion than such a run of luck as that.
But as for the positive conclusions to be drawn, I am perfectly content to accept Mr. Clodd’s basis of “an area of the unknowne where, as he quotes from George Eliot, “men grow blind, though angels know the rest.” But I still think that the Darwinians, being men, were blind leaders of the blind. There must have been a real greatness about Darwin’s science, of the detailed accumulations of which I should not claim to judge. There certainly was a real greatness about Huxley’s literature, of which I can judge rather better. Nobody says that either was not a great man, but merely that he made a great mistake. And as to what remains when that mistake is admitted, I repeat that I am content with Mr. Clodd’s phrase. It is not my theology, or the old Puritan theology any more than the old Darwinian biology. What remains is mystery—an unfathomed and perhaps unfathomable mystery. What remains after Darwin is exactly what existed before Darwin— a darkness which I, for quite other reasons, believe to be divine. But whether or no it is divine, it is certainly dark. What is the real truth, what really happened in the variations of creatures, must have been something which has not yet suggested itself to the imagination of man. I for one should be very much surprised if that truth, when discovered, did not contain at least a large element of evolution. But even that surprise is possible where everything is possible, except what has been proven to be impossible.
For the first time, in short, the agnostics will become agnostic. That is the point of my reply to Mr. Clodd’s question about the “scientific doubt of religion.” The doubt to-day is a real doubt; before it was an inference from some dogma like Darwinism. The Victorian agnostics were not really agnostics. At the back of their minds was a materialistic, or at least a monistic, universe. But that monistic universe is in its turn becoming mystical, or at least very mysterious. The next time of transition will probably be one of real agnosticism, or of more or less exciting ignorance. And Mr. Clodd and I can than agree about the borderland in which men are blind and angels know the rest, though he may be more content to rest in the blindness of men, and I in the knowledge of the angels. But I never advanced this argument as a way of being on the side of angels. I am so far merely on the side of men; of the great mass of reverent and reasonable human beings, who would rather admit that they are blind in the dark than be burdened in the dark with old-fashioned scientific spectacles, and told by a quack that they can see.
[Footnote 1: Edward Clodd (1840-1930) was the author of a number of books on primitive religions, myth, comparative religion, folklore, and philosophy. He also wrote several books on science and evolution.]
[Footnote 2: Marie Sklodowska Curie (1867-1934) was a Polish scientist who won two Nobel prizes, one in 1903 for her discovery of radioactivity and one for her discovery of radium and polonium.]
On Darwinism and Mystery
On Darwinism and Mystery
by G. K. Chesterton, Illustrated London News August 21, 1920
(Source: G. K. Chesterton, Collected Works, Volume xxxii, The Illustrated London News 1920-1922, Ignatius Press, 1989, pp. 74-77)
Mr. Edward Clodd [Footnote 1], the distinguished student of Folklore, has asked me a question touching a passage which appeared in this paper. He was writing with reference to the larger question of Darwinism, to which I may return more fully at some other time. But as the sentence he quoted from these columns stands somewhat separate it may be proper to treat it separately. The words he wishes more fully explained are: “Even the Evolutionist is now shy of explaining Evolution. To-day the scientific temper is… scientific doubt of science, not scientific doubt of religion.” He especially wishes to know what I mean by the phrase “scientific doubt of religion.”
Now I take it that my negative statement at least is evident enough; I mean that the most recent revolutionary scientific suggestions do not happen to throw any doubt on any religion. The Book of Genesis does not say that God formed the substance of the world out of atoms, and therefore a scientist cannot be rebuked as a Bible-smasher if he says it is formed not of atoms, but of electrons. The Council of the Church which laid down the dogma of the Co-eternity of Father and Son did not lay down any dogma on the Conservation of Energy. Therefore Mme. Curie [Footnote 2] could not be burned as a heretic even if, as some said, her discovery disturbed our ideas about the Conservation of Energy. The Athanasian Creed does not say that parallel straight lines never meet, so it would be unaffected by Professor Einstein saying, if he does really say, that they are not parallel or even straight. The prophets did not prophesy that a man would never fly, and are, therefore, not discredited when he does fly. The saints certainly never said there was no such thing as wordless talking, and therefore have nothing to retract if there is such a thing as wireless telegraphy. In many ways it would be far easier to maintain that the modern inventions have verified the ancient miracles. Now in these technical and utilitarian examples it is still true to say that, if they do not disturb religious doctrines, they also do not disturb scientific doctrines. But the former class of more theoretic discoveries do disturb scientific doctrines. It is the doctrines about gravity and energy, about atoms and ether, about the very foundations of the purely scientific universe, that have been affected or threatened by purely scientific research.
Hence I was led to say that the scientific men are pulling to pieces their own scientific universe. It was something relative to this that I said they were not primarily concerned now with doubt about religion. The phrase (in a positive as distinct from a relative sense) refers, of course, to various spiritual and teleological ideas that were supposed, rightly or wrongly, to be disturbed by an earlier phase of science. Some seem to suppose that I am here arguing for these doctrines; but that is a complete mistake. Of the pre-Darwinian doctrines of the popular Protestantism in England, there are some that I believe and some that I heartily disbelieve; but none that I have made the basis of my remarks on Darwinism. They are based on the inconsistencies and illogicalities of the Darwinians themselves. Many sincere critics seems to find it very difficult to believe this. One of them asked me quite sharply why the wing of the bat had not been divinely designed with feathers like the wings of the owl—almost as if I myself had culpably neglected to provide the animal with proper plumage. All this is to miss my whole purpose in this particular discussion. If I do personally believe in design, it is for somewhat deeper reasons which have nothing to do with the wings of bats; and certainly I never dreamed of demonstrating it from the wings of bats. I never professed to trace the causes of these things at all. I have not written a book called “The Origin of Species.” I have not conducted detailed researches or proclaimed dogmatic conclusions. I do not know the true reason for a bat not having feathers; I only know that Darwin gave a false reason for its having wings. And the more the Darwinians explain, the more certain I become that Darwinism was wrong. All their explanations ignore the fact that Darwinism supposes an animal feature to appear first, not merely in an incomplete stage, but in an almost imperceptible stage. The member of a sort of mouse family, destined to found the bat family, could only have differed from his brother mice by some minute trace of membrane; and why should that enable him to escape out of a natural massacre of mice? Or even if we suppose it did serve some other purpose, it could only be by a coincidence; and this is to imagine a million coincidences accounting for every creature. A special providence watching over a bat would be a far more realistic notion than such a run of luck as that.
Sul darwinismo e il mistero
Sul darwinismo e il mistero
di G. K. Chesterton, Illustrated London News 21 agosto 1920
(Fonte: G. K. Chesterton, Collected Works, Volume xxxii, The Illustrated London News 1920-1922, Ignatius Press, 1989, pp. 74-77)
Il signor Edward Clodd [Nota 1], illustre studioso di folklore, mi ha posto una domanda a proposito di un passo apparso su questo giornale. Egli scriveva riferendosi alla più ampia questione del darwinismo, alla quale potrò tornare più diffusamente in qualche altro momento. Ma poiché la frase che egli ha citato da queste colonne è alquanto a sé stante, può essere opportuno trattarla separatamente. Le parole che egli desidera veder spiegate più a fondo sono: “Persino l’evoluzionista è ormai timido nello spiegare l’Evoluzione. Oggi il temperamento scientifico è… dubbio scientifico della scienza, non dubbio scientifico della religione.” In particolare desidera sapere che cosa io intenda con la frase “dubbio scientifico della religione.”
Ora, ritengo che la mia affermazione negativa sia almeno abbastanza evidente; intendo che i più recenti suggerimenti scientifici rivoluzionari non gettano per caso alcun dubbio su alcuna religione. Il Libro della Genesi non dice che Dio formò la sostanza del mondo a partire dagli atomi, e perciò uno scienziato non può essere rimproverato come demolitore della Bibbia se dice che essa è formata non di atomi, ma di elettroni. Il Concilio della Chiesa che stabilì il dogma della coeternità del Padre e del Figlio non stabilì alcun dogma sulla Conservazione dell’Energia. Perciò la signora Curie [Nota 2] non potrebbe essere arsa come eretica anche se, come alcuni dissero, la sua scoperta turbasse le nostre idee sulla Conservazione dell’Energia. Il Credo atanasiano non dice che le rette parallele non s’incontrano mai, sicché non ne sarebbe intaccato se il professor Einstein dicesse, ammesso che lo dica davvero, che esse non sono parallele né tantomeno rette. I profeti non profetizzarono che l’uomo non avrebbe mai volato, e non sono, perciò, screditati quando egli vola davvero. I santi certamente non dissero mai che non esistesse cosa alcuna come il parlare senza parole, e perciò non hanno nulla da ritrattare se esiste una cosa come la telegrafia senza fili. Per molti versi sarebbe assai più facile sostenere che le invenzioni moderne hanno verificato gli antichi miracoli. Ora, in questi esempi tecnici e utilitari resta pur sempre vero dire che, se essi non turbano le dottrine religiose, non turbano nemmeno le dottrine scientifiche. Ma la classe precedente di scoperte più teoriche turba invece le dottrine scientifiche. Sono le dottrine sulla gravità e sull’energia, sugli atomi e sull’etere, sui fondamenti stessi dell’universo puramente scientifico, a essere state intaccate o minacciate dalla ricerca puramente scientifica.
Di qui fui indotto a dire che gli uomini di scienza stanno smontando pezzo per pezzo il loro stesso universo scientifico. Fu in rapporto a questo che dissi come essi non fossero ora primariamente occupati del dubbio sulla religione. La frase (in senso positivo, distinto da quello relativo) si riferisce, s’intende, a varie idee spirituali e teleologiche che si supponeva, a torto o a ragione, fossero turbate da una fase precedente della scienza. Alcuni sembrano supporre che io stia qui argomentando in favore di queste dottrine; ma è un completo equivoco. Delle dottrine pre-darwiniane del protestantesimo popolare in Inghilterra, ve ne sono alcune che credo e alcune che di tutto cuore non credo; ma nessuna di cui abbia fatto la base delle mie osservazioni sul darwinismo. Esse si fondano sulle incongruenze e le illogicità degli stessi darwinisti. Molti critici sinceri sembrano trovare assai difficile crederlo. Uno di loro mi chiese in modo alquanto brusco perché l’ala del pipistrello non fosse stata divinamente disegnata con le penne come le ali del gufo—quasi che io stesso avessi colpevolmente trascurato di provvedere l’animale del giusto piumaggio. Tutto ciò significa mancare completamente il mio scopo in questa particolare discussione. Se io personalmente credo nel disegno, è per ragioni alquanto più profonde, che nulla hanno a che fare con le ali dei pipistrelli; e di certo non mi sognai mai di dimostrarlo dalle ali dei pipistrelli. Non ho mai preteso di rintracciare affatto le cause di queste cose. Non ho scritto un libro intitolato “L’origine delle specie.” Non ho condotto ricerche minuziose né proclamato conclusioni dogmatiche. Non conosco la vera ragione per cui un pipistrello non ha penne; so soltanto che Darwin ha dato una falsa ragione del suo avere ali. E più i darwinisti spiegano, più divento certo che il darwinismo era errato. Tutte le loro spiegazioni ignorano il fatto che il darwinismo suppone che un tratto animale compaia dapprima non semplicemente in uno stadio incompleto, ma in uno stadio quasi impercettibile. Il membro di una sorta di famiglia di topi, destinato a fondare la famiglia dei pipistrelli, avrebbe potuto differire dai suoi fratelli topi soltanto per qualche minuscola traccia di membrana; e perché mai ciò dovrebbe averlo messo in grado di sfuggire a un naturale massacro di topi? O anche ammettendo che servisse a qualche altro scopo, ciò potrebbe essere solo per una coincidenza; e questo significa immaginare un milione di coincidenze a render conto di ogni creatura. Una speciale provvidenza che vegliasse su un pipistrello sarebbe una nozione assai più realistica di una simile serie di fortune.
But as for the positive conclusions to be drawn, I am perfectly content to accept Mr. Clodd’s basis of “an area of the unknowne where, as he quotes from George Eliot, “men grow blind, though angels know the rest.” But I still think that the Darwinians, being men, were blind leaders of the blind. There must have been a real greatness about Darwin’s science, of the detailed accumulations of which I should not claim to judge. There certainly was a real greatness about Huxley’s literature, of which I can judge rather better. Nobody says that either was not a great man, but merely that he made a great mistake. And as to what remains when that mistake is admitted, I repeat that I am content with Mr. Clodd’s phrase. It is not my theology, or the old Puritan theology any more than the old Darwinian biology. What remains is mystery—an unfathomed and perhaps unfathomable mystery. What remains after Darwin is exactly what existed before Darwin— a darkness which I, for quite other reasons, believe to be divine. But whether or no it is divine, it is certainly dark. What is the real truth, what really happened in the variations of creatures, must have been something which has not yet suggested itself to the imagination of man. I for one should be very much surprised if that truth, when discovered, did not contain at least a large element of evolution. But even that surprise is possible where everything is possible, except what has been proven to be impossible.
For the first time, in short, the agnostics will become agnostic. That is the point of my reply to Mr. Clodd’s question about the “scientific doubt of religion.” The doubt to-day is a real doubt; before it was an inference from some dogma like Darwinism. The Victorian agnostics were not really agnostics. At the back of their minds was a materialistic, or at least a monistic, universe. But that monistic universe is in its turn becoming mystical, or at least very mysterious. The next time of transition will probably be one of real agnosticism, or of more or less exciting ignorance. And Mr. Clodd and I can than agree about the borderland in which men are blind and angels know the rest, though he may be more content to rest in the blindness of men, and I in the knowledge of the angels. But I never advanced this argument as a way of being on the side of angels. I am so far merely on the side of men; of the great mass of reverent and reasonable human beings, who would rather admit that they are blind in the dark than be burdened in the dark with old-fashioned scientific spectacles, and told by a quack that they can see.
[Footnote 1: Edward Clodd (1840-1930) was the author of a number of books on primitive religions, myth, comparative religion, folklore, and philosophy. He also wrote several books on science and evolution.]
[Footnote 2: Marie Sklodowska Curie (1867-1934) was a Polish scientist who won two Nobel prizes, one in 1903 for her discovery of radioactivity and one for her discovery of radium and polonium.]
Ma quanto alle conclusioni positive da trarne, sono perfettamente contento di accettare la premessa del signor Clodd di “un’area dell’ignoto dove, come egli cita da George Eliot, “gli uomini divengono ciechi, benché gli angeli ne sappiano il resto.” Ma continuo a pensare che i darwiniani, essendo uomini, furono ciechi guide di ciechi. Ci deve essere stata una vera grandezza nella scienza di Darwin, delle cui minute accumulazioni non pretenderei di giudicare. Ci fu certamente una vera grandezza nella letteratura di Huxley, della quale posso giudicare un po’ meglio. Nessuno dice che l’uno o l’altro non fosse un grand’uomo, ma soltanto che commise un grande errore. E quanto a ciò che rimane, una volta ammesso quell’errore, ripeto che mi accontento della frase del signor Clodd. Non è la mia teologia, né la vecchia teologia puritana, più di quanto sia la vecchia biologia darwiniana. Ciò che rimane è mistero: un mistero insondato e forse insondabile. Ciò che rimane dopo Darwin è esattamente ciò che esisteva prima di Darwin: una tenebra che io, per tutt’altre ragioni, credo essere divina. Ma sia essa divina o no, è di certo tenebra. Quale sia la vera verità, che cosa davvero accadde nelle variazioni delle creature, dev’essere stato qualcosa che non si è ancora affacciato all’immaginazione dell’uomo. Da parte mia sarei assai sorpreso se quella verità, una volta scoperta, non contenesse almeno un largo elemento di evoluzione. Ma perfino quella sorpresa è possibile là dove tutto è possibile, tranne ciò che si è dimostrato impossibile.
Per la prima volta, insomma, gli agnostici diverranno agnostici. Questo è il punto della mia risposta alla domanda del signor Clodd sul il dubbio scientifico della religione.” Il dubbio d’oggi è un vero dubbio; prima era un’inferenza tratta da qualche dogma come il darwinismo. Gli agnostici vittoriani non erano davvero agnostici. In fondo alla loro mente c’era un universo materialista, o almeno monista. Ma quell’universo monista sta a sua volta divenendo mistico, o almeno assai misterioso. La prossima epoca di transizione sarà probabilmente una di vero agnosticismo, o di un’ignoranza più o meno eccitante. E il signor Clodd e io potremo allora accordarci sulla terra di confine in cui gli uomini sono ciechi e gli angeli ne sanno il resto, benché egli possa esser più contento di riposare nella cecità degli uomini, e io nella conoscenza degli angeli. Ma non ho mai addotto questo argomento come modo di stare dalla parte degli angeli. Sto finora soltanto dalla parte degli uomini; della grande massa di esseri umani riverenti e ragionevoli, che preferirebbero ammettere di essere ciechi nel buio piuttosto che essere gravati nel buio di antiquati occhiali scientifici, e sentirsi dire da un ciarlatano che ci vedono.
[Footnote 1: Edward Clodd (1840-1930) fu autore di numerosi libri sulle religioni primitive, sul mito, sulla religione comparata, sul folklore e sulla filosofia. Scrisse anche vari libri sulla scienza e sull’evoluzione.]
[Footnote 2: Marie Sklodowska Curie (1867-1934) fu una scienziata polacca che vinse due premi Nobel, uno nel 1903 per la sua scoperta della radioattività e uno per la sua scoperta del radio e del polonio.]