Tuesday, November 27, 2012

The Deadly Fruit of Darwinism

The following quote is taken from Robert L. Dabney's article, "The Influence of False Philosophies Upon Character and Conduct" (1896):
"The old saw, "Extremes meet," was never truer than it is of pantheism and atheism. The latter says: 'There is no God at all'; the former: 'Everything is God.' But the moral results of both are closely akin. In this, my indictment includes genuine Darwinism; for there is now no doubt that Dr. Darwin, like his most consistent pupils, Haeckel, Buchner, etc., believed that the doctrine ought to exclude both spirit and God. Their logic is consistent; for if all teleology is banished out of nature, and if that in man which thinks, feels, and wills is but an evolution of brute impulses, inherent in sensorial matter, there is no spiritual substance. We must have materialistic monism. Then every moral restraint arising out of the expectation of future responsibility, rewards, and punishments, is utterly swept away. Why should men conclude anything but. "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die?" To borrow Carlyle's rough phrasing: 'If mine is a pig's destiny, why may I not hold this 'pig philosophy'?' Again, if I am but an animal refined by evolution, I am entitled to live an animal life. Why not? The leaders in this and the sensualistic philosophy may themselves be restrained by their habits of mental culture, social discretion and personal refinement (for which they are indebted to reflex Christian influences); but the herd of common mortals are not cultured and refined, and in them the doctrine will bear its deadly fruit."

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