John Muir and Darwin Discuss Evolution (Kinda)

(Bust sculpted by Rob Hampton 1985)

I have read and reread Muir’s writings for over 40 years. And while I don’t recall that he discussed evolution, he often described “gloriously beautiful monuments of nature†(many in Yosemite) as “sparks of the divine soul.â€

In the preface of John Muir’s America, T.H. Watkins writes:

“The writer approaches this life story with caution. There is, above all, the problem with infatuation. As Catherine Drinker Bowen has pointed out, the biographer’s relationship to his subject should parallel that of a successful marriage, beginning with some touchstone of passion and moving from that to commitment, shared experience, acceptance, and finally to the quality of understanding which can sometimes be called wisdom.â€

After, what surely must have been exhaustive reading and research, Watkins made a bold leap of faith and had either the courage or audacity to write three hypothetical dialogues with himself and a reincarnated John Muir. This can only be attempted when one arrives at a state of knowing his subject, perhaps better than a birth brother.

His conversations occurred at Muir’s home in Martinez, Ca., The South Grove of Calaveras Big trees State Park, Arnold, Ca., and Yosemite Valley, Ca.

Each conversation includes numerous poignant qualities covering a wide range of subjects including natural history, the wilderness ethic, conservation and socio-cultural interactions including politics and religion. Many were useful, however, one of the most timely and powerful moments occurred during a relaxed conversation on the veranda of Muir’s home in Martinez, Ca.

Muir talks about his life and work, building a successful farm to support his wife and family. When asked why he did not take out a patent for over 50 inventions he replied:

            “Weel, the fact of it was that I didn’t care much about money in those days. Or ever, for that matter. ‘Twas  a tool, nothing more, and it seemed to me that there was a guid deal more to life than the getting of it. Still, that was na the deep-down reason for not patenting my machines. I had this belief, you see—and the guid God knows I believed it with all the passion of youth—that man was inevitably on the road to perfection. I believed that machines were a part of that forward movement that would free men to pursue higher things, to learn more of God’s great work in the world and their place in it. If that were the case, then machines had to be acts of God quite as much as creations of man, and therefore all improvements and inventions should be the common property of the human race. No inventor had the right to profit by an invention. It was inspired by God and belonged to all mankind…I realized that inventions were not freeing men, they were enslaving them. Inventions—aye including my own—were appropriated by men with cold eyes and colder hearts.

Watkins, [Men like Thomas Huxley?]

Muir, “Huxley—that bloodless coof! That fool! He and his kind took the work of Darwin and twisted it to fit their vision of the world. And damn, what a cold and heartless world have had it be. They called it ‘survival of the fittest’ but no matter what they might have called it, it was a damnable theory, a dark chilly reasoning that chance and competition accounted for all things. Oh it was a useful theory—that I canna deny. It justified all manner of cruelty, just as my father’s piety excused all manner of cruelty to his children. Should a man be inspired to destroy his best friend in the marketplace, why, he could shrug it off as the natural consequence of living in the great soulless machine of the cosmos. But it was a damnable theory, I tell you. Damnable because it ignored the one real truth of the world, the truth that lives in every rock, flower, leaf, tree and animal—including man: it was all created by a loving God, and His love covers all the earth as the sky covers it, and fills it in every pore.â€

It seems as if Muir was aware of what Darwin wrote in his autobiography:

 “Another source of conviction in the existence of God, connected with reason and not feelings, impresses me as having much more weight. This follows from the extreme difficulty or rather impossibility of conceiving this immense and wonderful universe, including man with his capacity of looking far backwards and far into futurity, as the result of blind chance or necessity. When thus reflecting I feel compelled to look to a First Cause having an intelligent mind in some degree analogous to that of man; and deserve to be called a Theist.â€

Watkins wrote, John Muir’s America in 1972.  I appreciate his work more now than the very first time I read it in 1979. Although several readers of BOFAW have said that the book gives them hope, I fear that Loren Eiseley was correct (1946) when he described a great spiritual malaise settling over the United States. In 1972 Watkins predicted our current state of evolutionary awareness. I doubt that less than one high school teacher (or college or university professor) in 1000 shares the above paragraph with his/her students. Biology teachers (at any level) who are not aware of Darwin’s statement on faith are scientifically and intellectually inept. Those who are aware of it and intentionally deceive students by not sharing it are guilty of “twisting†the truth to fit their narrow vision of the world. For the sake of political correctness (and other factors) our schools, colleges and universities are being spiritually “sanitized†which could mean that  people like Carl Sagan, Richard Dawkins and other humanists are winning the secular battle. If they do, Loren Eiseley predicted that man will cease to be “human.† Muir /Watkins described it as a dark, chilly reasoning where chance and competition have become gods and men can kill each other in the marketplace without any sense of remorse. Many of our inner cities are following this destructive path.

Chief Seattle described this as “the end of living and the beginning of survival.†