We Know in Part: James McCosh on Evolution and Christian Faith

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1 Journal of the History of Biology Ó Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013 DOI /s y We Know in Part: James McCosh on Evolution and Christian Faith MATTHEW MORRIS University of Calgary 2500 University Dr. NW Calgary, AB T2N 1N4 Canada Abstract. James McCosh ( ), president of Princeton College from 1868 to 1888, played a significant role in the American reception of evolution in the late 1800s he was one of the more prominent clergyman to assuage the public s fears of evolution while incorporating evolution into a conservative Christian worldview. McCosh was a prolific writer, whose books document his intellectual journey from hostility to acceptance of evolution. Three things will stand out in this overview that have not been emphasized in detail in other works: (1) James McCosh s perspective on evolution dramatically changed over time; (2) McCosh s motivations for engaging in the evolution-religion debate serve to clear up confusion regarding McCosh s final position on evolution; and (3) the theological and philosophical basis for McCosh s acceptance of evolution was established while McCosh was still hostile to evolution. His theological background therefore pre-adapted him for evolution, and he was able to preach theology and evolution without substantially altering his theology. Keywords: Evolution, Typology, Suffering, Presbyterianism, Darwinism, Princeton, Scottish philosophy James McCosh ( ) holds an unusual position in the history of science and religion. He was a man of many talents, being, often simultaneously, a minister, philosopher, author, debater, reformer, naturalist, and educator. His circle of friends and acquaintances reveals his diverse background: Thomas Guthrie, Hugh Miller, Thomas Chalmers, Woodrow Wilson, James Mark Baldwin, Alexander Hodge. He was, to many, the ideal conservative Christian, a Scotch Presbyterian after the school of John Knox who defended the faith against demonizing influences in American philosophy. To others, he was dangerously liberal, actively facilitating a split from the Established Church of Scotland, crying out for reform in the Westminster Confession,

2 MATTHEW MORRIS increasing the Episcopalian presence among the staff of a Presbyterian college and, above all, preaching the reconciliation of Christian faith with the new biological theory of evolution. He was self-conceited with a fiery temper, yet compassionate and adored by many. He preached against materialistic influences, yet fought for a place for the new psychology in Princeton s curriculum. He was president of Princeton College for 20 years, building it up to become the university it is today, and yet does not warrant an entry in the Encyclopaedia Britannica (Gould, 2003). 1 Despite at one time being a household name in America (even his lecture series were reviewed in the New York Times), he has been largely forgotten by the American public, and this at a time when 46% of American adults have rejected evolution (Newport, 2012). It is time to re-examine this enigmatic figure, to see what lessons he has to share regarding the dialogue between biology and Christian faith today. Although McCosh has by no means been ignored by historians (see for instance David Hoeveler Jr. s wonderful James McCosh and the Scottish Intellectual Tradition, 1981), three things will stand out in this overview that have not been emphasized in detail in other works: (1) James McCosh s perspective on evolution dramatically changed over time; (2) McCosh s motivations for engaging in the evolution-religion debate serve to clear up confusion regarding McCosh s final position on evolution; and (3) the theological and philosophical basis for McCosh s acceptance of evolution was established while McCosh was still hostile to evolution. His theological background therefore pre-adapted him for evolution, and he was able to preach theology and evolution without substantially altering his theology. A Biographical Sketch James McCosh was born in Straiton, Ayrshire in southwestern Scotland in 1811, to Andrew and Jean McCosh, land owners and farmers. James was no stranger to tragedy his father, a man well-loved by the community for his generosity to the poor and his devout faith, passed away suddenly when James was nine, leaving his mother to manage both the farm and family. That same year James, following his father s wish, began to study Latin in preparation for a life in the ministry of the Presbyterian Church (McCosh, 1896). The religious life of Scotland during McCosh s early years was dominated by the Patronage Act of 1711, which gave nobility (patrons) 1 Stephen Jay Gould noted this in 2003; it remains true as of January 2013.

3 WE KNOW IN PART the authority to appoint parish priests, regardless of the needs of the congregation. The patrons, in turn, tended to appoint priests (Moderates) who fell in line with the wishes of the government, thereby indirectly supporting government control of the church. These Moderates, according to McCosh, were of a worldly spirit commonly well educated and of good manners, but with no spiritual life (McCosh, 1896, p. 16). In his later years, McCosh looked back on this period as a time of religious torpor in Scotland, and blamed the Patronage Act for the increase in immorality that he saw among his countrymen, with premarital sex and drunkenness being common among both the church members and the church clergy. 2 In 1829, after finishing his schooling at Glasgow University, 3 McCosh enrolled at Edinburgh University, missing Charles Darwin by two years. It was here that McCosh read Lyell s Principles of Geology, and discovered an interest for natural history under the teaching of Robert Jamieson. But more importantly for McCosh, it was here that he met Thomas Chalmers, striking up a friendship that would persist until Chalmers death in Chalmers reconciliation of astronomy with Christianity in the Bridgewater Treatises would prove to be an important model for McCosh s later life. After graduating in 1834 with an MA in Stoic Philosophy, 5 McCosh became a country parson in Ayr. Evangelicalism was spreading in Scotland, and the Established Presbyterian Church was beginning to feel the pressure (Hoeveler, 1981). Upon the death of a Moderate parson, the public of Kirkmichael clamoured for the appointment of McCosh as their minister. Their patron, however, appointed a minister who had received only a single vote from the congregation. In response McCosh established a Free Church, in which the congregation had sole hiring power. McCosh was then appointed to a larger parish, where reform once again reared its head. In 1843 McCosh marched to Edinburgh with 500 other evangelical leaders, including Thomas Chalmers and Hugh Miller, to sign a protest against the Established Church, an event which became known as the Disruption of Looking back on 2 McCosh provides one account of moral decline among his peers: during a funeral, the mourners, including the clergy, became so inebriated that they walked several miles to the gravesite, only to realize that they had forgotten both the coffin and the corpse! (McCosh, 1896, p. 18). 3 McCosh admitted that he was eager to leave Glasgow University. The preachers were so moderate that McCosh would journey into the city to hear preached what he considered to be the true gospel. 4 McCosh wrote Chalmers memorial upon his death. 5 His graduation was conferred upon a motion by philosopher William Hamilton.

4 MATTHEW MORRIS it before his death, McCosh considered this to be the greatest moment of his life (McCosh, 1896). McCosh lost nearly half his congregation during this rupture. 6 He devoted the next seven years to establishing numerous Free Churches in the Scottish countryside, travelling up to 30 miles on horseback each day, preaching 2 or 3 times before nightfall. 7 During this period he spent some time living with the grandson of James Burnett of Monboddo House, and learned about Burnett s evolutionary views (McCosh, 1896). Despite a busy ministerial life, McCosh found time to continue in his love of philosophy, engaging with the works of Hume, Kant, Combe and others. He became convinced that philosophers had ignored the concept of sin, and so sought to discuss both moral and physical law with sin as an explanatory power (McCosh, 1896). In 1850 he published his first and most influential text, The Method of the Divine Government, in which he argued that God was not synonymous with natural law, and that man had no innate religious intuitions to allow him to rationally discover God. This work was an apologia, exploring both how we come to knowledge of physical and moral laws, and how those laws point to a Creator, a sinful Fall, and the promise and need of Restoration, without appealing to revealed scripture. This book was heavily endorsed by William Hamilton and Hugh Miller, and resulted in McCosh s appointment as Chair of Logic and Metaphysics at Queen s College in Belfast in 1850, 8 an appointment which was not without initial controversy among the college s Irish professors (McCosh, 1896). While in Belfast McCosh continued to do his ministerial work. He visited the poor, established churches, and participated in the emancipation of the Irish Presbyterian church from the State. He also continued with his interest in natural history. In 1851, after reading the works of Richard Owen and several German philosophers, McCosh 6 Approximately 800 members followed him after the split, from a communion roll of 1400 (West, 1895). 7 Of this period, McCosh wrote, I preached in places of which I believe I may say truly that the pure gospel of Jesus Christ had never been proclaimed there before. In the Middle Ages the truth had been mixed with the grossest superstitions. After the reformation, Episcopacy had set forth the Church and church ordinances rather than Christ. When prelacy was driven out, the Presbyterian Church took the form of moderatism, the proper product of Patronage, rather than evangelism (McCosh, 1896, p. 97). 8 The story goes that Earl Clarendon, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, began to read The Method of the Divine Government one Sunday morning, and became so absorbed by it that he missed church. It was shortly thereafter that he offered McCosh a position at Queen s College (West, 1895).

5 WE KNOW IN PART became convinced that a unity of type could be seen between the branches of a tree and the veins of a leaf. He read papers on his discoveries in plant typology to several scientific associations. 9 This resulted in the publication in 1856 of Typical Forms and Special Ends in Creation, co-written with biologist George Dickie. On a trip to Germany, McCosh was gratified to learn that his work had been anticipated and endorsed by Alexander von Humboldt (McCosh, 1896). Collectively, Divine Government and Typical Forms solidified McCosh as one of the most influential religious Scotsmen of his day. Both volumes were typically found in the libraries of ministers in Europe and overseas, with missionaries producing translations of his works in Chinese dialects (McCosh, 1896). While at Belfast he also published Intuitions of the Mind (1860), a pre-psychology text that attracted the attention of those involved in the mental sciences (Anonymous, 1868), along with The Supernatural in Relation to the Natural (1862), and An Examination of Mr. J.S. Mill s Philosophy (1866). The success of these works led to McCosh s appointment as President of Princeton College in 1868, exactly 100 years after the inauguration of Princeton s other favoured Scottish president, John Witherspoon (Anonymous, 1868). Princeton at the time was in need of a revival; its strength and resources had been depleted during the Civil War (West, 1895). Charles Hodge s opening address charged McCosh with a moral mandate to preach the pure gospel, to make the true religion dominant, to focus the minds of the youth on the eternal, to cultivate the richest stores of acquired knowledge (since religion and science are twin daughters of heaven and there is no conflict between them ) and to rule the college through love (Anonymous, 1868). 10 Although McCosh was remembered with fondness by his students and peers (Patton, 1895), his administration was not without controversy. His reforms at Princeton were often met with conflict (Hoeveler, 1981). 9 His first paper on the subject was published in 1851 in the North British Review, with a notice written by Hugh Miller. McCosh and Dickie, prior to publishing Types, presented their work from 1852 to 1854 to the Botanical Society of Edinburgh, the Natural History Society of Belfast, and the British Association for the Promotion of Science. Summaries of these talks were published in the Transactions of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh in the Annals of Natural History, in the proceedings of the British Association, and in the Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal. 10 McCosh took this mandate seriously, sometimes to humorous lengths. His student James Mark Baldwin reflected that McCosh had a very humane and withal Presbyterian conception of his relation to the undergraduates. If taken ill the student was in daily fear that Jimmy would come and pray with him. Quoted in Richards (1989, p. 453).

6 MATTHEW MORRIS McCosh s American life was active and fruitful. He devoted a great deal of effort to increasing Princeton s infrastructure, commissioning and raising funds for the building of a gymnasium, an astronomical observatory, a biology laboratory, and an art museum, among others. 11 He increased the library s collection from 30,000 to 70,000 volumes, did extensive landscaping and drainage remodelling, founded Princeton s School of Science, introduced electives, abolished the practice of secret societies and hazing, more than doubled the professional staff, nearly tripled the student enrollment, added Bachelor degrees in Science and Civil Engineering, began graduate courses on the way to producing a doctoral program, and built a natural history collection that rivalled that of other colleges (West, 1895; McCosh, 1896; Hoeveler, 1981). McCosh paved the way for Princeton to become a University. He was respected for engaging with all of his students, having discussions and meals with students at his home, and trying (although not always successfully) to greet every student he saw by name. He also continued to teach courses on psychology, history of philosophy, contemporary philosophy, aesthetics and metaphysics (West, 1895). His first love was for the mind sciences, and he has been credited with allaying religious fears that the new psychology would lead to atheism, thereby allowing the American acceptance of psychology as a genuine science (Maier, 2004). Among his students in psychology was James Mark Baldwin, who would go on to influence Piaget and whose writings would be foundational for modern evolutionary research. While at Princeton McCosh published numerous works, including his labour of love to his homeland, The Scottish Philosophy (1875), and First and Fundamental Truths, Being a Treatise on Metaphysics (1889). He continued to preach, particularly giving talks and writing popular articles on the theory of evolution. His most important works on evolution include Christianity and Positivism (1871), The Development Hypothesis: Is It Sufficient? (1876), and The Religious Aspect of Evolution (1888, 1890). Collectively these works trace the intellectual journey of a man initially opposed to evolution, who became one of the most frequently cited and imitated pro-evolution theologians of his day (Roberts, 1988, p.120). McCosh retired from Princeton in 1888 and passed away peacefully on November 16, 1894, exactly one hundred years and one day after the death of John Witherspoon. He was survived by his wife, Isabella McCosh (nee Guthrie), 12 one son and two daughters (Libbey, 1895). 11 McCosh commissioned in total fourteen new buildings at Princeton. By 1895 only six buildings were original to the pre-mccosh era (West, 1895). 12 Niece of fellow pastor and friend Thomas Guthrie.

7 WE KNOW IN PART Accepting Evolution Before we can ask how it was that James McCosh was able to be one of the ablest defenders of the Christian faith against the attacks of modern infidelity and a pronounced evolutionist! (Lippincott, 1880), we must first ask what McCosh s beliefs about evolution were originally, and how they changed over time. As becomes a man as controversial as McCosh, there is no current consensus on McCosh s own evolutionary views. Was McCosh a strict Darwinian who differed only with Darwin on his view of human origins (Moore, 1979), a neo-lamarckian (Livingstone, 1984), or both a neo-lamarckian and a vitalist (Richards, 1989)? I will suggest that none of these readings are quite accurate. McCosh believed in evolution, but was not concerned with the truth of evolution, nor was he concerned with which mechanism of evolution was true. 13 He was a pastor who engaged in the evolution debate primarily to defend the Christian faith from its own anti-evolution preachers. McCosh s first recorded views on the theory of evolution occur in The Method of the Divine Government (1850) which was published nine years before Darwin s Origin of Species. By this point McCosh was well versed in natural history readings, citing the likes of Cuvier, Owen, Chalmers and the Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation. McCosh s main thesis was that God governs through natural law. Despite this emphasis on secondary causality, he explicitly rejected the Vestiges view of creation, calling it an enormous blunder (McCosh, 1851, p. 93). Divine fiat was the only explanation that could satisfy an enquiring mind (McCosh, 1851, p. 94). In the 1857 edition, McCosh made certain that no one would confuse his position: That there is an order and progression that is, a law in the works of creation, is implied in the Scripture accounts of the six days (however interpreted,) and follows from the discoveries of geologists, and should be frankly admitted by the opponents of the author of the Vestiges of Creation. But order is not production. The fact that one colour runs into another in a painting is no proof that the one colour produces the other. The author s real facts 13 Although he was opposed to vitalism and certain philosophical positions on evolution (see below).

8 MATTHEW MORRIS prove that there is an order in the works of God, but do not show that there is any power in nature capable of producing new species of animal, or of transmuting one species into another (McCosh, 1857, p. 85). 14 Species, like miracles, were a product of divine fiat rather than natural law: There is no fact which has been demonstrated more completely to the satisfaction of every man of real science, than that there is no known power in nature capable of creating a new species of animal, or of transmuting one species of animal into another. Yet geology reveals, as among the most certain of its discoveries, the introduction of new species of living creatures at various periods in the history of the ancient earth. Finding no cause among natural agents fitted to produce the effect, we rise to the only known cause capable of producing it the fiat of the Creator. All who acknowledge the creation of the world at the beginning, must be prepared to admit the possibility of subsequent acts of creation, and should be ready to believe, on the production of sufficient evidence, that there have actually been such acts. A widely extended and an uniform experience testifies that physical law cannot give a new species of living creature, and shuts us up to the recognition of the Divine agency as the only power capable of the act (McCosh, 1857, p. 155). 15 McCosh s early opposition to evolution sprang largely from three arguments. First, how could life come from non-life? How could one species turn into another? There was neither evidence nor a mechanism that could rationally explain such a theory. Second, McCosh s typological mindset had him always looking for a unity of plan, both in the physical and supernatural works of God. Since the human soul was a product of divine fiat, it stood to reason that inanimate matter was animated by divine fiat. Third, McCosh saw the world as consisting of unity and variability, order and adaptation, permanence despite change. A doctrine of evolution indicated that there was only change and no 14 The above quote is a footnote to the following statement: These views [definitions of natural law] might be usefully applied to check all those rash conclusions which men of science, falsely so called, have been drawing in regard to the formation and past history of the world, which they would explain by referring them to the laws of nature, these laws being the mere generalized facts of natural history (McCosh, 1857, p. 85). 15 The 1851 edition contains this quote, but reads transmitting instead of transmuting. (McCosh, 1851, p. 165).

9 WE KNOW IN PART permanence in the organic world, an observation that did not neatly fit with the permanence and change found in the inorganic world. 16 McCosh sought unity, but in his early writings he could find none in an evolutionary system. In 1851 McCosh published his first work as a naturalist, outlining the unity of type that he saw between trees and their leaves. 17 This and subsequent publications resulted in the joint work, with biologist George Dickie, of Typical Forms and Special Ends in Creation (1856). Here McCosh continued his anti-evolution rhetoric, 18 while also laying down the roots for his later acceptance of evolution by showing that 16 In the context of discussing how the environment influences the growth and reproduction of organisms, McCosh wrote, But there is language employed by them [Carpenter and Matteucci] which seems to imply that one force can be transmuted into another a doctrine which is not supported by anything like valid evidence, and is contrary to the whole analogy of nature, which shows us, amidst constant changes, a constant permanence of substance and property (McCosh, 1857, pp ). 17 For instance, trees that were branchless at the base of their trunk tended to have leaves with long stems, whereas trees with branches at the base of their trunk had short stems. The angles of the secondary veins in a leaf that branched from the central vein matched the angles of the branches from the trunk, etc. (McCosh, 1856). 18 For example, The plants and animals now on the earth have all proceeded from progenitors created many thousand years ago (McCosh and Dickie, 1856, p. 54). Geoffroy St. Hilaire, on the other hand, did not see that his doctrine of analogy was perfectly consistent with teleology, and he connected his theory of unity with the untenable doctrine of the transformation of species (McCosh and Dickie, 1856, p. 176). Even if it were strictly true that there was a gradual improvement in type as time rolled on, it would still be necessary that those who adopt the development hypothesis, should prove that transmutation of a low into a high grade had been accomplished. Allowing that the first position had been established, the question remains, whether this might not have been the plan of the Creator in bringing forward the beings which live on our earth. The supporters of the idea of progressive development and transmutation of species in a long series of ages, believe also in a progression of life from sea to land, and that this explains what they denominate the barrenness of Creation; that is to say, that certain conditions of the earth s surface, favourable to the support of animals, long proceeded their appearance, inasmuch as time was required for the necessary transformations of marine animals into others fitted to live upon the land. It may be true that uninhabited dry land existed at periods when the sea was the abode of many invertebrate, and so may have continued for a time previous to the appearance of terrestrial beings. But all this does not prove transformation of one animal into another, nor the progression of life from sea to land. It remains to be proved and the onus probandi lies with those who make the assertion that marine animals can, by any force of circumstances, or in any course of time, however long, become converted into beings fitted to a new sphere of life on land (McCosh and Dickie, 1856, pp ). As taking this view, we think that the argument in favour of progressive development and transmutation of species, founded on the pre-existence of conditions fitted for organic life before that life appeared is of no value (McCosh and Dickie, 1856, p. 322).

10 MATTHEW MORRIS each geologic epoch anticipated, in the form of its organisms, the type to follow, with all epochs anticipating the perfect type of man. This anticipation would receive an efficient causal explanation in evolution by natural selection. It is difficult to pinpoint exactly when McCosh began to have doubts about the immutability of species. In an autobiographical account, McCosh said that his first doubts arose when he was actively studying botany, and can therefore be placed sometime between 1851 and It was the sheer number of plant species (over two million identified at the time) that caused him to doubt. I was sure that all these are works of God; but I was not sure that each was a special creation (McCosh, 1876, p. 32). Despite this, his 1862 book on the relation between the natural and the supernatural did not endorse evolution, being critical both of the evolution of man from brutes 19 and the fanciful, and false, and atheistic theories of development propounded by geologists (McCosh, 1862, p. 186). He did suggest that there was a true doctrine of development, but did not describe it, instead relying on the anti-evolutionary rhetoric of Agassiz and Richard Owen (McCosh, 1862, p. 182 ff.). In his 1888 work On the Religious Aspect of Evolution, McCosh wrote, When I was called from the Old World to the office which I now hold as president of an important college, I had to consider I remember seriously pondering the question in the vessel which brought me to this country whether I should at once avow my convictions or keep them in abeyance because of the prejudices of religious men, and lest I might unsettle the faith of the students committed to my care. I decided to pursue the open and honest course, as being sure that it would be the best in the end. I was not a week in Princeton till I let it be known to the upper classes of the 19 All this does not prove, as some would argue, that man is merely an upper brute, possibly sprung from the monkey, or removed from it only as one species is from another. In his bodily frame he may be simply a new species, the highest of animated organisms, with the fore limbs turned into hands, and his frame raised into an upright attitude, and even in this, so far anticipated by the ape. But in his soul, endowed with the power of discovering necessary and immutable truths, and of discerning the difference between good and evil; capable of cherishing voluntary affections which alone (and not mere instinctive attachments) are deserving of the name of love, and of rising to the knowledge of God, and of communion with Him; by reason of this soul responsible and immortal he belongs not merely to a new species or genus of nature, but to a new order in creation. In respect of this, his nobler part, he is made not after the true likeness of the brute, but after the image of God. He stands on this earth, but with upright face he looks upward to heaven (McCosh, 1862, pp ).

11 WE KNOW IN PART college that I was in favor of evolution properly limited and explained (McCosh, 1888, pp. x xi). McCosh went to Princeton College in 1868; if the above is accurate, he had accepted evolution within the first decade after the publication of the Origin. It is with some surprise then that one reads scepticism in his writings of the early 1870s. In 1871 McCosh delivered a series of lectures to the Union Theological Seminary in New York, which was published as Christianity and Positivism. These lectures reveal McCosh s openness to evolution. From a religious perspective, he admitted that he was not at present standing up either for or against special creations (McCosh, 1871, p. 83), while theologians have no authority from the Word of God to say that every species of tiny moths has been created independent of all species of moths which have ever gone before (McCosh, 1871, pp ). On the other hand, [I]t does not therefore follow [from the discovery of unity of type in nature] that the animal evolved from the plant, and the man from the lower animals [T]he correspondences in nature, inanimate and animate, show that the whole proceeds from one grand Designing Mind (McCosh, 1871, pp ). McCosh relied on the writings of Alfred Russell Wallace and St. George Mivart to show that, although a religious interpretation of evolution could and should be made, its factuality was not settled (McCosh, 1871, pp. 346ff). This tension in McCosh s lectures, between religious acceptance and scientific scepticism, was continued in his essay On Evolution, a special contribution published in J.G. Wood s popular book on the natural history of Bible animals. In this essay McCosh showed that he had read the Origin, the Descent of Man, and Variation under Domestication, and had some significant problems with them all. McCosh began On Evolution by broadly defining development (evolution) as change, whether change during the formation of the solar system, social change, etc. The laws of the conservation of mass and energy proved that matter could not be spontaneously created or annihilated; anything new therefore must have developed from the old. But, McCosh asked, is there nothing but development? Are objects produced in this way and no other? That is the question for discussion (McCosh, 1875, p. 650). He described evolution for his lay audience: Certain individuals, by exertion or otherwise, get a peculiarity which suits them better to their position. These survive, while 20 First written, but not published, in 1874 (McCosh, 1876). The importance of pinpointing when McCosh wrote this article will soon be apparent.

12 MATTHEW MORRIS others perish, and the peculiarity becomes hereditary, and goes down to their offspring. A struggle ensues, the strongest race prevails, and as a result of the whole there is an advance in the forms of plants and animals. Let this go on, by small augmentations at a time, for millions of years or ages, and it is able to produce all the species and all the genera now on the earth (McCosh, 1875, p. 651). 21 There were, so far as McCosh could see, five main arguments for evolution. (1) The unity of type across nature could be explained mechanistically through descent with modification. (2) The fossil record showed a progression of life from lower to higher forms. (3) There was experimental evidence in the form of artificial selection experiments. (4) There was a correspondence between geological progression and embryology. ( All this seems to prove it is not easy to tell how that the higher animals have passed through the lower forms before they have reached their present organization (McCosh, 1875, p. 653). ) (5) Man shared affinities with the apes, and even lower forms of life such as tunicates. These arguments, however, were countered, in McCosh s mind, by twelve opposing arguments. (1) It is admitted that there are no facts that there is not even a single fact directly proving the doctrine. We have no experience of one species being directly transmuted into another (McCosh, 1875, p. 654) If thousands of years cannot create a new creature, it may be doubted if millions can (McCosh, 1875, p. 654). (2) Evolution was an hypothesis that did not explain everything observed, and which had observations working against it. Before it could be fully accepted ( there is some truth in it (McCosh, 1875, p. 654) it would need to be modified. (3) There were facts it could not explain. Where did life first come from? Theists posited God as the source of first life, and evolutionists seemed unable to do better than this. (4) Darwin himself acknowledged his theory was not complete. He had to bring in another theory, of pangenesis, to explain heritability. It is not pretended that there is any proof of this; it is an hypothesis brought into support an hypothesis. A structure which needs such abutments is not so simple and sufficient as it seems to superficial observers to be (McCosh, 1875, p. 656). (5) The unity of type explained by common descent could also be explained by unity of plan existing in Divine mind. (6) There were gaps in the fossil record. Although Darwin argued that the record was 21 As an example, he had his audience imagine a hill covered in trees. There is a severe frost, and 90% of the trees die. Those that are the strongest, the most frost-resistant, survive. These spread their seeds, and accordingly the population post-frost consists of stronger individuals (McCosh, 1875, p. 652).

13 WE KNOW IN PART incomplete, scientists can only rest on the facts at hand. (7) Domestication had never produced a new species. (8) Domestic organisms reverted to a wild state when released. (9) Hybridization between species was possible, as Darwin said, but these hybrids were barely fertile and could not produce new species. (10) These last two objections indicated that there really was permanence in the species type. (11) Lord Kelvin estimated the earth as being too young for evolution. I do not set much value on this argument, for I do not believe we can calculate the earth s age with anything like accuracy; but the calculations of Sir W. Thomson has more solid data to go on than the speculations of evolutionists, and we may allow the one to counteract the other (McCosh, 1875, p. 658). 22 (12) Wallace countered Darwin s proofs that man descended from brutes, by showing the significant intellectual gap between humans and animals. McCosh summed up the arguments for and against evolution by saying, The conclusion forced upon us is that the Darwinian theory as a whole is not proven, and that it will need to be greatly modified, limited and enlarged before it is entitled to command our assent (McCosh, 1875, p. 659). In 1876 McCosh republished his On Evolution essay in a collection of essays. After reiterating all of the arguments for and against evolution, he changed his conclusion 23 : Looking to these facts and arguments, the candid and judicious mind will be apt to conclude: first, that extreme positions have been taken up, and rash assertions have been made by evolutionists; but, secondly, that there is development in nature which can explain a vast body of phenomena, while it cannot explain everything. And here I may remark, that I attach no value to the objections urged by those who demand that in order to believe in development we should perceive it with our eyes, that we should actually see one species coming out of another. The fact is, no law of nature falls, properly speaking, under the senses; we can discern by the eye, ear, smell, taste, and touch, only individual phenomena, and we have to infer that they proceed from a law which is found to combine and 22 One of McCosh s peers while at the University of Edinburgh was Lord Kelvin s brother, physicist James Thomson (West, 1895). 23 It should be noted that McCosh (1875) was published in later editions of the Bible Animal Encyclopedia, including an edition in The changes made to McCosh (1876) were not made in these later editions. Why? As McCosh had merely submitted an essay for a popular book, he likely had no control over later editions.

14 MATTHEW MORRIS in a sense explain them. Copernicus and Galileo could not furnish ocular demonstration of the movement of the earth; nor could Newton of the law of universal gravitation. These men simply set before their contemporaries a theory which they showed, by wellestablished facts and careful calculations, could account for the facts in a rational and satisfactory manner. Evolutionists will have established their hypothesis, when they can show that it meets the observed facts; and this they are far from being able to do at this present time. Before universal evolution can be accepted as a scientific truth, it must be explained, limited, and made coincident with observation. And, even when this is done, there are moral and religious truths which must be placed along side of it before we have a full view of our world and of men (McCosh, 1876, pp ). It seems that in two years McCosh became more sympathetic to the evolutionary perspective, with his equivocations being empirical (more evidence is required) and religious (the scientists need to leave the metaphysics to the theologians). This attitude was respected by many of McCosh s students and peers, bringing praise from Andrew Dickson White of Cornell University, 24 James Mark Baldwin, and Woodrow Wilson, among others (Hoeveler, 1981), but also led to considerable controversy among the trustees of Princeton, with one of the older members accusing McCosh of being a sneaking heretic, that is, an evolutionist (Caspar Wistar Hodge quoting trustee George Musgrave, quoted in Hoeveler, 1981, p. 277). By the 1880s McCosh was renowned for his defence of the Christian faith through a defence of evolution. My first position is the certainty of evolution Let me warn you, the defenders of religion should be cautious in assailing evolution The legitimate evolution supports Christianity, McCosh told the American public in an 1883 address published in the Pittsburgh Commercial Gazette 25 (quoted in Hoeveler, 1981, p. 277). But just what did McCosh mean by legitimate evolution? In 1883 McCosh published Development: What It Can Do and What It Cannot Do. He repeated much of his work from 1876, explaining in more detail how inorganic and organic matter were subject to laws of development, as seen for instance when a seed matures into a plant, and 24 Whatever may be thought of his general system of philosophy, no one can deny his great service in neutralizing the teachings of his predecessors and colleagues so dangerous to all that is essential to Christianity. Andrew Dickson White, in A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom (1898). Quoted in Hoeveler (1981). 25 And decried by the Chicago Inter-Ocean.

15 WE KNOW IN PART passes its characters on to is offspring. Since Christians did not consider embryology to be atheistic, there was no need for evolution to be atheistic either; both functioned through providentially enforced natural law. If Christians could accept God working through embryology, then nothing should stop them from extending God s work to the evolution of species as well. [T]here is one point on which I am quite as much entitled to speak as any other: Does religion require us to insist that species and orders in natural science are all fixed forever? that in no circumstances can a new species be produced by natural law (McCosh, 1883, p. 20)? 26 The Christian religion could make no such claims. But neither should it fully accept evolution. Religion should be opposed to the application of Darwin s theory to fields in which it is not equipped, such as the origins of life, consciousness, mind and man. By 1888 McCosh felt that evolution by natural selection was on firmer scientific footing. The evolution of the horse in the fossil record was particularly compelling evidence. He accepted that the reversion of escaped domestic animals to their wild-type morphology was largely due to plasticity, 27 and that hybridism in nature was common and did indeed produce fecund organisms. As opposed to Divine Government, the creation of species was now excluded from examples of divine fiat, and included under the powers of natural selection, use and disuse, and Cope and Hyatt s acceleration and retardation. Thirty-eight years after publicly declaring his belief that individual species were created separately by God, McCosh was reconciling evolution with his Christian faith. Historians have not agreed on how to categorize McCosh s evolutionary beliefs. According to Moore (1979), McCosh was a Christian 26 McCosh still required further proof before he could accept evolution. I certainly feel as to myself that I cannot decide it. The tendency of modern speculation has all been toward the prevalence of development by natural causation. Yet there are phenomena of which it may be said that they cannot at this present time be explained by any natural process (McCosh, 1883, p. 20). 27 It is often urged as an objection to the theory of evolution, that the varieties and breeds of domestic animals which have been produced by the agency of man, are apt when allowed to run wild to return to the original type. It is not difficult to explain the actual facts in accordance with evolution as it is explained in this treatise. In the progress of development animals assume a fixed structure which they naturally retain and cannot easily be changed. But when placed in new surroundings alterations may be produced. These will continue so long as the environment continues the same; that is, as long as the animal is in a state of domestication. But when it is placed back in its old position, its old nature still remaining in it will bring it back to its old form (McCosh, 1888, pp ). McCosh was not far off from the truth: reversion is due to a combination of plasticity and selection (those domestic individuals most like the wild type will be more successful in the wild and will flourish).

16 MATTHEW MORRIS Darwinist leaning more towards Christian Darwinism, who accepted natural selection but differed with Darwin on human origins (see also Barbour, 1997). According to Livingstone (1984), McCosh in his later years showed an increasing predilection toward Neo-Lamarckism (Livingstone, 1984, p. 110). According to Richards (1989) McCosh was both a neo-lamarckian and a vitalist. The debate has at times been fierce. Richards (1989) accused Moore (1979) of producing a revised history when Moore categorized McCosh as a strict Darwinian. 28 Although McCosh did interact with Darwin s ideas, and although the few examples of evolution he provided involve simple cases of natural selection, if (and this is a big if) being a strict Darwinian involved expunging all forms of Lamarckian evolution (and therefore accepting a form of evolution that not even Darwin accepted), then contra Moore McCosh was not a strict Darwinian. 29 But it is also true that he was not a strict neo- Lamarckian, invoking use and disuse and Cope and Hyatt s acceleration and retardation as supplements to natural selection. 30 On my reading, Richards (1989) is being more of a revisionist than Moore when he accuses McCosh of embracing vitalism. 31 Although McCosh discussed vital powers as being superadded to inorganic matter, he clearly distinguished between vital powers and vitalism: Mr. Huxley can work such wonders by protoplasm, only by imparting to it a life-power such as is ascribed to nature generally by pantheists. I am inclined, on the evidence of science, to 28 To be fair, Moore was undecided with what to call McCosh. He included him in the chapter on liberal Darwinisticism, not because McCosh was a liberal, but because he modified Darwin s theory by rejecting human evolution. But in later chapters Moore acknowledged that McCosh was more aligned with the conservative Darwinians (Moore, 1979). 29 McCosh himself felt that Darwin was not a pure Darwinian in the sense defined above: Darwin gives prominence to the principle of Natural Selection, with its accompaniment the Survival of the Fittest; but acknowledges in his later editions that he had attached too much importance to it (McCosh, 1883, p. 22). 30 McCosh s student, James Mark Baldwin, contrasted Darwinism and Lamarckism as follows: in Darwinism, Evolution is by natural selection of variations added to the congenital mean from generation to generation, while in Lamarckism the modification of one generation is added to the endowment of the next by the principle of useinheritance (Baldwin, 1902, pp ). Although one could debate the role of natural selection in Lamarckism it is clear that McCosh would have agreed with these definitions, with the inheritance of acquired characters being for McCosh as well as Baldwin the primary defining factor of Lamarckian evolution. See for instance McCosh, 1883, p. 22, or McCosh, 1888, p 65. See also Livingstone, 1984, p. 110, for Livingstone s definition of Lamarckism, which included both the inheritance of acquired characteristics and the directive evolutionary significance of consciousness and will. 31 McCosh, however, rejected the mechanistic interpretation often given evolution: he insisted that internal, vital forces having a divine origin were the true causes of development (Richards, 1989, p. 454).

17 WE KNOW IN PART believe in a vital power, as different from the chemical as the chemical is from the mechanical; but I do not believe in an independent power called the vegetable or animal life, capable of producing all the beautiful forms and adaptations which we admire in the living creatures (McCosh, 1871, p. 39). 32 McCosh believed vitalism to be an untenable philosophical position rather than a scientific position, whereas vital powers could in principle be demonstrated empirically. Contrary to Richards, McCosh did not attribute powers of evolution to vital power. Rather, God had to create the vital power (life) as distinct from mechanical power in order for life to exist at all. Once formed, vital power could interact with the environment to produce species, but vital power itself did not direct evolution. McCosh recognized that a power was needed to explain evolution, but this power was not the vital power: [C]all it what you please, force or power or energy there is certainly such a thing, not imaginary or hypothetical but real I argue that we know it to be not only a power but a wise power, a benevolent, a righteous power. But evolution has not produced this power, it is the production of it (McCosh, 1883, pp ). It is true that McCosh injected evolution with teleology, but this was a progress brought about, not by some internal drive (even if divinely-inspired), but by the providence of God working mechanistically through natural law and adjustments. 33 McCosh was an enigmatic figure, and it is no surprise that historians have had difficulty labelling his beliefs. Although by the 1880s McCosh had come to believe that evolution (properly limited and explained) was a scientific fact, he was not one to hold to a particular mechanism of evolution. In fact, he always acknowledged that the evidence he found so convincing could change. He was not concerned with defending a particular mechanism of evolution. He was concerned with defending the Christian faith against preachers who called evolution atheism. Repeatedly, in over a decade of writings, McCosh provided his two reasons for engaging in the evolution debate: first, to show that no matter whether special creation or evolution ended up being true, the 32 McCosh and Dickie, 1856, p. 369 are quite clear in their anti-vitalist perspective: It is wrong to talk of an organism developing itself by its simple and independent energy. Whatever be its internal nature in which also, in our opinion, there is complexity and combination it requires external agents in exact adaptation to it. In his pro-evolutionary works McCosh does discuss a vital agency in distinction from chemical agencies. For instance, It has to be added that these elements [hydrogen, carbon, sulphur and iron, the constituents of living beings] will not of themselves form living beings without some inherent or superadded hereditary vital power (McCosh, 1883, p. 21), but this power did not impel evolution; it did allow evolution to move in directions it could not have moved before. 33 This is not to say that McCosh was a deist; see the section on Providence.

18 MATTHEW MORRIS Christian (Presbyterian) religion s core beliefs would remain unchanged. The fixity of species has become (it was not so in ancient times) a religious doctrine, and a sacred feeling has gathered around it which it is dangerous to disturb (McCosh, 1888, p. 22). However, I have never been able to see that religion, and in particular that Scripture in which our religion is embodied, is concerned with the question of the absolute immutability of species and I am sure meanwhile that religion is safe whatever be the decision come to (McCosh, 1888, p. 27). Second, he was motivated by his love for the younger generation, who were being swayed towards evolution by scientists and away from their faith by the clergy. Many a youth is brought to a crisis in his belief and life by such a representation [of atheistic evolution]. He feels that he must give up either his science or his faith, and his head is distracted, and his heart is tortured till feelings more bitter than tears are wrung from it (McCosh, 1888, p. 6). If young men have been made infidels by sceptical writers, they have also been made so by those who sit in Moses seat, and have every quality recommended by the law except charity (McCosh, 1876, p. 75). This is certainly a rhetorical device, allowing McCosh to be on the side of the righteous while preaching a doctrine held as heretical by many Christians, but it seems from his writings that McCosh sincerely meant these words. It is these motivations that make McCosh so difficult to label. Richards and Moore and Livingstone spent too much time examining McCosh s descriptions of evolution, and forgot that for McCosh the details did not matter. He was not concerned with whether evolution followed Darwinian or Lamarckian mechanisms, or some other mechanism entirely. He was only concerned with whether this alternative to the independent creation of species, if true, disproved Christianity. And his answer was always a resounding no I have argued above that McCosh is difficult to label because he did not embrace a particular mechanism for evolution. Alternatively, different historians may label the same belief with a different name due to a lack of consensus on definitions. We see this today with the Intelligent Design Movement: some critics outside of creationism have labelled Intelligent Design creationism, while some creationists who are sympathetic towards Intelligent Design have nevertheless differentiated it from creationism because it refuses to identify the creator. Both groups have a similar understanding of Intelligent Design but define creationism in different ways, leading to different labels. Could the same be true for McCosh? Could Moore, Livingstone and Richards all have the same understanding of McCosh, but give him different labels because they each define Darwinism, neo- Lamarckism and vitalism differently? On my reading, this does not provide a full explanation. For instance, Richards defines McCosh as a vitalist, not because his vitalism is the same as Moore s Darwinisticism/Darwinism, but because he has taken a single McCosh quote out of context. Similarly, all three authors rely on different aspects of McCosh s writings to support their claims, rather than looking at the whole picture.