Clodd's Primer of Evolution

Excerpt from the essay Evolution and Design, appearing in the collection Evolutionary Philosophy and Common Sense, Catholic Truth Society, 1904, pg. 89--95. Abridged.

It is not to be supposed that considerations such as these will have any weight with the more zealous propagators of evolutionary doctrines, for manifestly it is not on the side of reason or cogency of argument that it enlists their sympathies. As in their mind the one essential feature of the creed is denial of a personal and intelligent ruler of the world, so undoubtedly its great merit is for them the elimination of such morality as a law superior to any of man's making can alone impose.

That this is so, we have sufficient evidence in Mr. Edward Clodd's Primer of Evolution, a little book specially intended for the instruction of the young -- one which those into whose hands it will commonly fall must naturally suppose to be what it professes, a manual wherein they may find in convenient and compendious form the teaching which science guarantees.

But the Primer is nothing of the kind. Scientifically considered it is a worthless production, a party tract composed on the principle that the end justifies the means. Its object is to instil into its readers the crudest and baldest materialism, to convince them that a man, a mushroom, and a boulder-stone are but different forms of the same thing; that, consequently, religion is a fable and morality a mistake. This object it endeavours to attain by a sketch of the history of the world which is grossly unscientific, for not only is it hopelessly inaccurate, representing what are mere hypotheses as established facts, but it abounds in grave errors upon fundamental points, showing that the author is ignorant of much which is essential to his subject.

Nevertheless, the Primer deserves attention. In the first place it was originally dedicated, by permission, to the late Professor Huxley. We are frequently told that it is unfair to attribute to real men of science, who are also evolutionists, the extravagances of popular writers like Mr. Clodd and Mr. Grant Allen, who are evolutionists only, and cannot claim to speak with authority. But if such men are permitted or encouraged to place themselves beneath the aegis of greater names, the owners of those names must take the consequences. Moreover, in his dedication Mr. Clodd pronounces the supreme merit of Professor Huxley to lie, not so much in his "luminous treatment of the varied materials with which it is the province of science to deal," as in his "application of those materials to the construction of an all-embracing philosophy of life." Now, Professor Huxley loudly proclaimed himself an "Agnostic," and the essence of Agnosticism, as he explained it, is a confession of blank ignorance as to all which can furnish an ultimate basis of philosophy. At the same time, however, he habitually assumed that what he did not know could have no real existence, and as he chose likewise to assume that knowledge could be gained only through the methods of physical science, while repudiating the title of a materialist, he spoke and wrote as though there could be nothing in the universe but matter, -- no soul within man and no God above. This is enough for Mr. Clodd, and constitutes for him an all-embracing philosophy. It was, we must also presume, the supreme importance of this fundamental negation that reconciled Professor Huxley to the connexion of his name with a work which, had it dealt with any other subject than evolutionary philosophy, must have received as little toleration from any man of science as do those devoted to the squaring of the circle, or demonstrations that the earth is flat.

For Mr. Clodd's purpose it is necessary to show that the material world is a machine containing within itself the principle of perpetual motion, a self-winding clock which needed no other power than its own to set it agoing, and which will continue for ever to evolve new combinations of its elements, and new forms of life. As, however, by the testimony, amongst others, of Professor Huxley himself, science teaches the exact opposite, -- that the world we know must have had a beginning, and must have an end, it becomes necessary to construct a new system of physics, which he gravely sets forth as though it were the accepted teaching of men of science; whereas, as Professor Lodge pronounced when the same system appeared previously in a slightly different form, it is an audacious attempt to reconstruct the laws of Nature as established by Newton, being replete with blunders and misstatements, and an emanation of mental fog.

Such would be hard match for inaccuracy and confusion. We are given to understand that motion moves matter, that it is an "agent" which "works" -- in plain English, a force. "Motion," however, is nothing but an abstraction. There is no such thing, apart from moving matter, any more than there is "solidity" apart from solid bodies. Motion is not a force, but the result of force -- that is to say, force must be exerted to make a body move, or to produce motion. To talk of motion being the cause of movement, is like saying that flight makes birds fly.

Mr. Clodd proceeds to make statements still more wonderful. After telling us that the "pulling" forces, which draw matter together, are gravitation, cohesion, and chemical affinity, he thus continues:

Therefore, a stone lying on a roof, or a seam of coal, represents "passive motion," and that sort of motion which pushes matter apart. What sort of idea will such a statement convey to the class of readers who make use of Primers? No doubt, Mr. Clodd is thinking of the doctrine of kinetic and potential energy, according to which, in the above instances, there are forces at work to keep the stone from falling in the one case, and the constituents of the coal from combining with oxygen in the other thus counteracting gravitation or chemical affinity. But what has this to do with "passive motion"? And wherefore assume that all the energy thus held in abeyance is of the "pulling" order, and all the forces which check it of the "pushing"? The case of gunpowder is precisely similar to that of coal; will any one say that the forces liberated when powder explodes tend to draw things together? Or again, a balloon tethered to the ground and straining at the ropes exactly resembles the stone on a roof or mountain side, or for the matter of that, on the ground -- are we to say that the ropes push the balloon and earth apart, while the particular form of motion which tends to move it, namely, the buoyancy which buoys it up, is bent on pulling them together?

These, and other statements of like character, are not mere points of detail on which the writer has expressed himself unscientifically. The doctrine underlying this confused verbiage is that already indicated as essential to his whole system, for it is on the exact balance of these attractive and repulsive, or "pulling" and "pushing," forces that he depends for the machinery which he wishes his readers to believe will keep things going eternally.

It is needless further to examine his qualifications as an exponent of scientific teaching, or to inquire what weight may be supposed to attach to his dicta concerning an all-embracing philosophy of life, as, for instance, that "the origin of life is not a more stupendous problem to solve than the origin of water"; or that, "all that is, from fire-fused rock to the genius of man, was wrapped up in primordial matter"; or again, that "creeds are born and die, remaining only curious relics of illusions over which men wrangled and fought."

A sample must, however, be given on Mr. Clodd's mode of argumentation. To the objection that no intermediate forms have been discovered linking man with the lower animals, he thus rejoins:

What sense can these words be imagined to convey? If a link has never been found, it is missing. Where is the parade of ignorance in saying so? And assuredly no link, whether in a direct line or collaterally, has ever been found, nor any single specimen of the common ancestry, wherefrom, as Mr. Clodd pronounces, both descend. How, again, is the existence of missing links between man and ape made more probable by the fact that other links are missing too? Mr. Clodd might indeed have added that all the links on which evolutionists so confidently reckon are missing throughout Nature. No single one has yet been discovered.

But, upon one point Mr. Clodd is perfectly explicit and clear -- that there is no such thing as morality, no distinction between right and wrong, beyond such as the conventions of society have agreed to recognize. As he tells us,

It is true, he contradicts himself by speaking of some impulses of our nature as "higher," and others as "lower," and saying that indulgence of the latter entails remorse, which he tells us signifies "after-bite"; but his main contention is perfectly plain, far too plain to escape the young folk for whom be writes -- namely, that they may give free scope to their passions, so long as they do not shock the ideas of those amongst whom they live.

Here is the slime of the serpent, which experience teaches us to expect in evolutionary works of this stamp. So constantly does it appear as to suggest that such writers take up Evolution so hotly, not on any scientific grounds, for these they manifestly do not even understand, but as the readiest engine for propagating the doctrine dear to their heart -- that man is a beast, and should be at liberty to behave as one. The common-sense of mankind, however, revolts against such teaching wherefore, instead of practising their own principles and adopting the rules laid down by their fellows, they set themselves to convert their less enlightened countrymen, though they usually find it expedient to veil the grossness of their meaning in a mist of words. But, on occasion, they can be bolder and less circumspect, as was Mr. Clodd's friend and associate, Mr. Grant Allen, when he exhibited his true sentiments naked and unashamed, complaining of the tyranny of the law which prevents a man from saying anything worth hearing -- the law in question being that which prohibits obscene publications.

That to such writers the mention of Religion should be as a red rag to a bull is not surprising, but their hostility is not the least of her claims on the respect of thinking men.

Edward Clodd was a popular writer on evolution and religion. He also wrote creepy children's books. Clodd was the chairman of Rationalist Press Association, which specialised in anti-Christian books. Ernst Haeckel and the anti-Catholic Joseph McCabe were honorary associates at the time. Clodd attended the First International Eugenics Congress, which was presided by Leonard Darwin. RPA described him as a "noted pioneer of mental and moral progress." I can't find the Primer online, so his other work will have to do: The Story of Creation: A Plain Account of Evolution. Clodd, McCabe, and Haeckel were Monists. The eternity of matter and motion, along with many other peculiar notions like "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" and "pagan Christs", are Monistic doctrines.

The Article mentions Grant Allen. He wrote an extremely popular little biography of Charles Darwin, portraying him as the Newton of biology and a saint, and the finest man in England and all that familiar BS.

For more information on the evils of Darwinism and related Isms, see Ibred Science.

Should this be “A Clod’s Primer to Evolution”?

Certainly "Ed Clodd" sounds like he would be a harmless shirt-presser at the local laundry, but he was really quite a sinister character. He was chairman of RPA. Read more about it:

Rationalist Press
Rationalism, Communism, Darwinism

the real primer:

“first there was nothing, then is exploded. we don’t know how it overcame it’s own gravity, or how it violated all the laws of physics, but it just did, and we have faith in that.

then there was no life, and it made DNA, a digital code with error correction built in. the odds of enough D-type amino acids coming together to form even one strand is about 10 with about 200 zeros after it, to 1, and it’s completely impossible, never mind the formation of a cell, but we have faith in that.

then this life started becoming other life, a thing for which we have no evidence, but, again, we have faith in that.

This is the theory we have because we don’t want to believe in God.”

The end.

pretty much sums it up- but you forgot to add

“We know that someday the evidnece will come to light, but for now, we just don’t know... oh, and ID’ists and Creationists are poopie-heads”

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