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OXFORD TEXTBOOKS IN LINGUISTICS

Compositional Semantics
 OXFORD TEXTBOOKS IN LINGUISTICS
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Compositional Semantics A Semantic Approach to English Grammar

An Introduction to the Syntax/Semantics by R. M. W. Dixon
Interface
by Pauline Jacobson Semantic Analysis
A Practical Introduction
The Grammar of Words by Cliff Goddard
An Introduction to Linguistic Morphology
Third edition Pragmatics
by Geert Booij by Yan Huang

A Practical Introduction to Phonetics The History of Languages

Second edition An Introduction
by J. C. Catford by Tore Janson

Meaning in Language Diachronic Syntax

An Introduction to Semantics and by Ian Roberts
Pragmatics
Third edition Cognitive Grammar
by Alan Cruse An Introduction
by John R. Taylor
Natural Language Syntax
by Peter W. Culicover Linguistic Categorization
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An Introduction to Syntactic Theory
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Functional Discourse Analysis Linguistic Typology

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Semantics and Pragmatics
Meaning in Language and Discourse
Second edition
by Kasia M. Jaszczolt
Compositional Semantics
An Introduction to the
Syntax/Semantics Interface

Pauline Jacobson

1
 3
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 To the memory of my parents,
Florence and Nathan Jacobson (Florie and Jake)
 Contents

Sections and exercises marked with * are more advanced and/or less central
(and on some occasions intended as open-ended speculation). These may be
skipped with little or no consequence for later sections.

Acknowledgments xv
Foreword: On Using this Book xvii

Part I: Foundational Concepts: Building a Fragment

1. Introduction 3
1.1. Goals 3
1.1.1. Compositional semantics and (some of ) the
goals of semantic theory 4
1.1.2. Direct Compositionality—and its role in this text 8
1.2. A brief note on the history of semantics within
modern linguistic theory 10
1.3. The notion of a “fragment” and its use in this text 12
*1.4. An intriguing puzzle 13
1.5. Appendix: Sets and Functions 19
1.5.1. Sets, members, and subsets 19
1.5.2. Union, intersection, and complement 21
1.5.3. Ordered pairs, relations, equivalence relations,
and partitions 21
1.5.4. Functions 24

2. Semantic foundations 27
2.1. Model-theoretic semantics 27
2.2. Truth conditions 28
2.3. Possible worlds 31
2.3.1. Introducing the notion 31
2.3.2. Characteristic function of a set 35
viii CONTENTS

2.3.3. Notation and terminology 36

2.3.4. Talking about worlds 37
2.4. Times 41

3. Compositionality, Direct Compositionality,

and the syntax/semantics interface 42
3.1. Building a fragment: First steps 43
3.2. Implicatures vs truth conditions 46
3.3. Folding in worlds (and times) 48
3.4. Negation: A first pass 49

4. Expanding the fragment: Syntactic categories

and semantic types 52
4.1. Noun phrases 52
4.2. Intransitive verbs/verb phrases 58
4.3. A brief look at lexical semantics 60
4.4. Back to the compositional semantics 62
4.5. Illustrating the syntactic/semantic composition 63

5. Transitive verbs: Resolving an apparent

syntax/semantics mismatch 66
5.1. First pass: Straw Man’s solution 67
5.2. Abandoning Direct Compositionality 70
5.3. Hidden S conjunction? 73
5.4. Back to the drawing board: Curry’ed functions 76
5.4.1. Recasting the meaning of transitive verbs 76
*5.4.2. Currying more generally 79
5.4.3. Solving Straw Man’s problems 80
*5.5. A note on three-place verbs 84

6. Categorial Grammar 88
6.1. Basics 89
6.2. Syntax/semantics correspondence 92
6.3. Refinements 94
*6.4. Some further observations about syntax: Case marking
and agreement 96
6.5. Further generalizing the rules 98
6.6. and, or, negation, and case-marking prepositions 100
6.7. Summary: The fragment so far 104
 CONTENTS ix

7. The autonomy of syntax? 107

7.1. Good syntax—bad semantics 108
7.2. Bad syntax—good semantics 111

8. Adjectives, nouns, determiners, and more 113

8.1. Predicative adjectives 113
8.2. Nouns (“common nouns”) 116
8.3. the 118
8.4. Prenominal adjectives and unary rules 120
8.4.1. An additional binary rule? 120
8.4.2. Interlude: Unary rules (“type shift” rules;
morphological rules) 121
8.4.3. Back to adjectives 124
8.4.4. Are all noun modifier adjectives intersective? 126
8.5. Relational nouns 128
8.6. Summary: The fragment so far 131

9. Interlude: The semantics of variables and the

lambda calculus 133
9.1. First-order predicate logic (modified) 134
9.1.1. Variables 134
9.1.2. Quantifiers 138
9.2. The lambda calculus 144
9.2.1. Lambda abstraction 144
9.2.2. Lambda conversion 147
9.3. Naming model-theoretic objects 151

Part II: Enriching the Domain

10. Returning to English: Generalized quantifiers 157

10.1. “NPs” with quantificational determiners 157
10.1.1. First pass: Individuals? 158
10.1.2. Second pass: Sets of individuals? 159
10.1.3. Third pass: English as first-order logic?
Straw Man makes a cameo reappearance 160
10.2. Generalized quantifiers 162
10.2.1. The semantics 162
10.2.2. The syntax 165
10.2.3. Extending to the other quantified cases 166
x CONTENTS

10.3. The determiners 167

10.4. Interlude: Scalar implicature 168
10.5. Generalized quantifiers and conjunction 173
10.5.1. VP conjunction 173
10.5.2. Generalized quantifier conjunction 175
*10.6. Domain restriction 178

11. Ordinary NPs and type lifting 181

11.1. Montague’s solution 182
11.2. Partee and Rooth’s solution: Lift as a unary rule 185
11.3. Generalizing the rule 186
11.4. The lowest types hypothesis 189
11.4.1. Some additional predictions 189
*11.4.2. The lowest types hypothesis: Processing vs
grammar 192
11.5. Resolving some syntactic loose ends 194
11.6. Summary: The fragment so far 196

12. Generalized conjunction 198

12.1. Generalizing and and or 198
12.2. Remarks on noun conjunction 201
12.3. Summary: The fragment so far 203

Part III: Relative Clauses, Scopes, and Binding:

Some Theoretical Controversies

13. Relative clauses: Sketching two accounts 207

13.1. Preliminaries 207
13.2. What do relative clauses modify? 209
13.2.1. The noun modification argument 209
*13.2.2. But—not quite so fast . . . 213
13.3. An account with movement and traces: Assignment
functions in grammar 214
13.4. A Direct Compositional (and variable-free) analysis 221
13.4.1. Preliminaries: Function composition 221
13.4.2. Interlude: Coordination 224
13.4.3. Returning to relative clauses 227
13.4.3.1. The basic account 227
13.4.3.2. Syntactic loose ends 231
 CONTENTS xi

13.4.4. A refinement: The Geach rule 233

13.4.4.1. The rule and its application to
relative clauses
(and coordination) 233
*13.4.4.2. Generalized and as
generalized g-sl? 238
13.5. Appendix: Reassuring the Appalled Syntactician 240
13.6. Summary: The fragment so far 242

14. Generalized quantifiers in object position: Two

approaches 244
14.1. A tempting but inadequate solution 245
14.2. Quantifier (Lowering)/Raising 248
14.3. A Direct Compositional solution 255
14.4. Some comparisons 263
14.4.1. The generality of the solutions 263
14.4.2. Antecedent-Contained Ellipsis 265
14.4.2.1. The “textbook” argument 265
14.4.2.2. Antecedent-Contained Ellipsis
as Transitive Verb Phrase Ellipsis 270
14.5. Generalized quantifiers in embedded sentences 272
14.6. Summary: The fragment so far 273

15. The interpretation of pronouns: Two accounts 274

15.1. Introductory remarks 274
15.1.1. Variables or not? 274
15.1.2. Pronominal binding: The empirical
phenomenon 276
15.2. The LF (variable-ful) view 278
15.2.1. The basic account 278
15.2.2. A wrinkle: Weak Crossover effects 282
15.2.3. Free pronouns 285
15.3. A Direct Compositional and variable-free approach 286
15.3.1. Pronouns and “binding” 287
15.3.2. Free pronouns 293
*15.3.3. Generalizing the rules 294
15.3.4. Weak Crossover 298
15.3.5. What happens when there is more than
one pronoun? 301
xii CONTENTS

15.3.5.1. Multiple pronouns which

are “the same” 301
*15.3.5.2. And yet another possibility 303
15.3.5.3. More than one pronoun—
different binders 304
15.4. More on Weak Crossover 305
15.4.1. Definite NPs and WCO 305
15.4.1.1. An apparent problem (for both
theories) 305
15.4.1.2. Not a problem after all 306
15.4.1.3. Independent evidence: Ellipsis and
the notion “sloppy identity” 307
*15.4.1.4. A more formal account of the
strict reading 312
*15.4.2. A note on three-place verbs and WCO
interactions 315
15.5. More on free “variables” 317
15.5.1. Free “variables” in the variable-ful account 317
15.5.2. Free “variables” in the variable-free theory 319
15.6. The i-within-i effect revisited: A solution 320

Appendices to Parts I–III: The full fragment 323

Appendix 1: The basic fragment 323
Foundational concepts 323
The lexicon 324
Word order rules 326
Unary and combinatory rules 327
*Appendix 2: Possible extensions of the fragment for
three-place verbs using Wrap 329
The lexicon 329
Word order rule 330
Revision of the definition of functions
corresponding to categories of the form A/B 330
Appendix 3: Informally discussed addition for VP Ellipsis 330
 CONTENTS xiii

Part IV: Further Topics

16. Negative Polarity Items, semantic strength, and scalar

implicature revisited 333
16.1. The notion of Negative Polarity Items 334
16.1.1. any and ever 334
16.1.2. Minimizers 336
16.2. The distribution of NPIs 337
16.2.1. First pass 337
16.2.2. Second pass 339
16.3. The first breakthrough 340
16.3.1. Initial characterization of the environments 340
16.3.2. A note on many and few 347
16.4. But why? And how? 349
16.4.1. The insight from semantic strength 351
16.4.2. The second breakthrough: Kadmon
and Landman on any 353
16.4.3. ever 356
16.5. Open questions and further discussion 358
16.6. Semantic strength and scalar implicatures 360

17. More binding phenomena 364

17.1. Functional questions 364
17.1.1. The phenomenon 364
17.1.2. An analysis with complex traces 366
17.1.3. A variable-free analysis 368
17.2. Binding and coordination (in variable-free semantics) 370
17.3. “Paycheck” pronouns (and “donkey” pronouns?) 371
17.3.1. Paychecks 371
17.3.2. A variable-free analysis of paycheck pronouns 374
17.3.3. Donkeys 376
17.4. “Hidden variables” 378
17.4.1. Hidden variables can always be complex 378
17.4.2. Translating into variable-free 382

18. Additional semantic dimensions: The semantics of focus 385

18.1. Computing alternatives compositionally 386
18.2. The meaning of only 390
xiv CONTENTS

18.3. Additional focus-sensitive words 392

18.4. Further compositional issues 393
18.5. Focus and binding 395
18.6. More generally: Multidimensional semantics 397

19. Intensionality and the syntax/semantics interface 398

19.1. Intensionality-sensitive words 399
19.2. Revising the fragment: Type-sensitive rules 403

References 407
Index 419
 Acknowledgments

This book began life as a series of handouts for my Formal Semantics course
in 1998. The handouts grew and were revised over the years until I realized
they were trying to become a book. I owe my greatest debt to the students in
these classes. I never would have undertaken to write this book were it not
for the enthusiasm and insight of my students who have always made
teaching Formal Semantics just plain fun. I am also indebted to three
scholars whose work has influenced my thinking in ways sometimes obvious
and sometimes subtle. The influence of Barbara Partee will be obvious
throughout this book. To David Dowty, I owe an understanding of how
to think “semantically,” and my thinking about Categorial Grammar and
its elegance as a theory of the syntax/semantics interface owes much to the
work of Emmon Bach. The way of thinking that I learned directly or
indirectly from these three semanticists has shaped in various ways the
point of view taken in this book, and the way the material is put together.
Oxford University Press provided me with three detailed and extraordin-
arily helpful referee reports. Probably none of the referees will be satisfied
with all of my decisions, but hopefully each will find ways in which their
thoughtful comments have greatly improved the manuscript. I thank also
Chris Kennedy both for very helpful comments on the manuscript and for
“dry-running” parts of it in his courses.
I owe a huge debt to Peter Klecha, who did a heroic job of going through
the manuscript in detail—working through all of the exercises to make sure
they were doable (indeed sometimes they weren’t), to make sure they were
not presupposing material not yet introduced (indeed, sometimes they
were), and to make sure the formalism was consistent (indeed, sometimes
it wasn’t). I have been amazed at Peet’s ability to see just what a student new
to the material could or could not be expected to do, and at his astute
reading of the material which saved me from some embarrassing mistakes.
I am also extremely indebted to Jackson Golden, who has done a fantastic
xvi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

job in helping to put together the bibliography, and to Christopher Mescher

for help in compiling the index. I thank NSF for funding on my grant BCS
0646081; although this is a textbook it also contains much of my own
research which was funded under the grant.
Finally, I thank Michael Rosen, for always encouraging this project, for
putting up with its writing over the last two years, and for everything else.
 Foreword: On Using this Book

Each instructor will no doubt find her or his own most useful path through
this book (or parts of it), but some suggestions might be helpful. The book
obviously contains more material than can realistically be covered in a
single semester’s introductory formal semantics course. In teaching this
material myself in introductory formal semantics courses (with a mix of
graduate students and advanced undergraduates) I have found that I can
teach most of the material through Part III plus Chapter 16 and a brief foray
into one other of additional topics in Part IV, although I do not go through
the material in the full detail given here. (One reason for writing such a book
is so that students can get more detail on their own.) Hence, an instructor
might choose to do (most of) Chapters 1–15, and one or two additional
chapters in Part IV. One plan for this is to spend about three to four weeks
on the material through Chapter 5, one week on Chapters 6 and 7 com-
bined, and then approximately one chapter a week for the rest (Chapter 12
could take less than a week and Chapter 15 probably more). Depending on
the students’ background, another reasonable semester’s goal might instead
be to work in detail through Part II and then approach some of the material
in Part III. The material would also probably work as the full text for a two-
quarter or one-year semantics course (perhaps supplemented at the end with
some readings from original sources), and the later material can be the basis
of a more advanced course, supplemented with readings from the literature.
I hope that the book might also be used by students already familiar with
basic formal semantics but not familiar with the viewpoint of Direct Com-
positionality (or not familiar with Categorial Grammar); such a student can
systematically work through the material from what would be for them a
new point of view. This could easily be part of a second-semester or second-
year semantics course.
There are some choice points in the order in which to read the material.
I myself always teach Chapter 16 (on Negative Polarity Items) right after
Chapter 10. This is because once students have learned about generalized
quantifiers, they have the tools to approach the domain of Negative Polarity
Items. I feel it is an especially satisfying reward—after working through
xviii FOREWORD: ON USING THIS BOOK

much technical apparatus—to apply the apparatus to a domain that is rich

and so beautifully illustrates the relevance of the formal tools to the distri-
bution of items that are entirely natural and conversational. So right after
Chapter 10 there is a fork point: one can either go on to Chapter 11 or
digress and read Chapter 16. I have set it up so that neither chapter (nor
subsequent ones) presupposes the other except in occasional minor ways.
Chapter 16 could also be read between Parts II and III. Moreover, the
chapters in Part IV can be read in any order.
The decision to include two theoretical points of view—the Direct Com-
positional view and a view that instead uses Logical Form—poses some
difficulties. While I would love to have written the book purely from the
point of view of Direct Compositionality, I feel it would be doing students a
disservice to not be able to read and appreciate the rich body of work that
uses the notion of a Logical Form. My solution, then, was to illustrate these
two different viewpoints side by side with respect to a key body of data
(relative clauses, quantifiers in object positions, scopes, and binding). But
this could be confusing for a student new to this material, so I have set it up
in such a way that a student can—on a first pass—work through the relevant
chapters carefully from just one of the points of view, and later go back to
work through the other. In general, the material on the other point of view
will need to be skimmed as it will sometimes contain empirical data of
relevance to the discussion, but the technical details can be postponed.
Another difficult decision centered on the material on binding. As is
pointed out in the text, I give two versions of pronominal binding: a fairly
standard one that makes use of Logical Form and variables, and one
making no use of variables in the semantics set within the Direct Compos-
itional framework. (This is based in part although not exclusively on my
own work on variable-free semantics.) But this makes it appear as if Direct
Compositionality is crucially tied in with a variable-free semantics. It is not,
and in an earlier draft (as well as in the way I have often taught this material)
I also exposit an intermediate position: one which is Direct Compositional
but does make use of variables. In the end, I decided that to develop three
approaches to a single domain was bound to be just too much for an
introductory book. With some regret, then, I decided it was prudent to
remove the discussion of the intermediate position. Still, I feel it is worth-
while to be able to access this material—both for the sake of historical
accuracy (it was a well-developed position) and to understand that the
issue of whether or not to have variables is to some extent independent of
 FOREWORD: ON USING THIS BOOK xix

the issue of Direct Compositionality. For those who are not fans of the
variable-free approach, I don’t want to leave the impression that if variable-
free semantics is wrong, so is Direct Compositionality: there is a very good
Direct Compositional semantics of pronouns using variables. So in order
to allow access to a discussion of that intermediate position, I have made
it available on the textbook website, which is <http://sites.clps.brown.edu/
compositional.sem>.
One further decision that some have found unusual is to delay the formal
introduction of the lambda calculus until Chapter 9 which is the end of
Part I. There is a reason for this. I want to stress that this is just a convenient
notation for writing model-theoretic objects, and not some level of repre-
sentation that is a crucial part of the theory. (For example, lambda conver-
sion is not intended as a rule of grammar, but just as a way to convert one
way of writing a model-theoretic object into another way of writing it.) To
stress the difference between the notation and the actual meanings of
expressions, I have always found it helpful to try to use ordinary prose in
naming model-theoretic objects wherever possible, even when this prose
leads to cumbersome descriptions like “the set of all sets that contain the
dog-set as a subset.” Eventually, of course, English prose gets too cumber-
some (and is not sufficiently unambiguous) and we need a better notation
(hence the lambda calculus). But I find that insisting on prose whenever
possible alongside with a clearer notation is helpful—not only for under-
standing that notation is just that, but also to get a better intuition about
fancy objects like sets of sets or functions from sets of sets to truth values.
However, an instructor who prefers to make use of the lambda calculus
earlier can move Chapter 9; it could have been placed after Chapter 6.
For the student with no prior background in elementary set theory, I have
included an appendix to Chapter 1 that contains all of the basic notions of
set theory, ordered pairs, relations, and functions that are necessary for the
later material. There is quite a bit of material there, and so I would recom-
mend that a student with no relevant background just read the discussion of
sets first, and then come back to subsequent notions as they appear in the
text. It is often easiest to absorb this material when one has a reason to do
so, and when it is in the context of the fuller semantic theory for which it is
being pressed into service.
A word about the sections and exercises marked with an asterisk. These
are more advanced and any of them truly can be skipped (especially on a
first pass through the material). They are intended to provide greater
coverage and depth for the ambitious and curious student, and the starred
xx FOREWORD: ON USING THIS BOOK

exercises can be quite challenging. Some—especially toward the end—are

actually open-ended; I hope that a few might even spawn some interesting
research topics for students. In any case, the starred exercises are there to be
enjoyed and not to be frustrating, so I would recommend picking and
choosing wisely according to a student’s level of interest and ambition.
I do hope that some of these will be fun.
Finally, as noted above, there is a website for this book at <http://sites.clps.
brown.edu/compositional.sem>. It contains the supplementary material on
binding and will be updated from time to time with other supplementary
material, along with errata as they are discovered.
 PART I
Foundational Concepts:
Building a Fragment
 1
Introduction

1.1. Goals 3 1.3. The notion of a “fragment”

and its use in this text 12
1.2. A brief note on the history
of semantics within modern *1.4. An intriguing puzzle 13
linguistic theory 10
1.5. Appendix: Sets and Functions 19

1.1. Goals

This book stems from a belief that linguistic semantics is a beautiful field,
that the tools used to study formal semantics have yielded a rich body of
results about fascinating and subtle data, that the field continues to produce
exciting new insights at an impressive rate,1 and that there are simple and

1
Readers wishing a taste of many of the ongoing developments in formal
semantics and in the syntax/semantics interface might want to look at the journals
Linguistics and Philosophy (Springer), Natural Language Semantics (Springer),
Journal of Semantics (Oxford University Press), and Semantics and Pragmatics
(online journal, available at <http://semprag.org/>), among many other journals.
Regular conferences at which cutting-edge research is presented include the annual
Semantics and Linguistic Theory (SALT) conference, Sinn und Bedeutung (also
annual), the biannual Amsterdam Colloquium for Language, Logic, and Informa-
tion, and Semantics of Underrepresented Languages of the Americas, as well as
most of the more general regular linguistics conferences. Of course, most of the work
in these venues will not be accessible to a student just learning formal semantics, but
it is hoped that this book will give a large part of the necessary background for
following at least some of this research. In any case, a glance at the list of papers in
4 1. INTRODUCTION

elegant tools to model how the syntax and semantics of a natural language
work together. We begin with a very elementary “fragment” of English and
proceed to expand it further and further—adding tools as needed but aiming
to keep the basic machinery relatively simple. The goal of proceeding in this
way is to account for a domain of data which is sufficiently rich as to show
the excitement of studying formal semantics and its interaction with syntax.
We note one limitation from the outset: this book concentrates entirely on
the analysis of English. The project of modeling the semantics and the
syntax/semantics interaction of any single language already provides such
a rich set of results that one can hopefully find this limitation justified for an
introductory book like this. In fact, the results that have been gleaned from
a detailed modeling of one language have in recent years allowed the field to
expand so as to provide a wealth of analyses of other languages.2 This book
hopes to give the foundation to approach that literature.

1.1.1. Compositional semantics and (some of)

the goals of semantic theory

One of the most striking and fundamental properties of language—any

language—is that speakers have the ability to produce and understand an
unlimited number of expressions that they have never produced or heard
before (indeed many of these will have never before been uttered by any-
one). This simple point is stressed in just about every introductory linguistics
textbook, often phrased this way: “A speaker of a language is able to
recognize as well-formed an unlimited number of expressions that s/he has
never heard before.” Examples that demonstrate this are easy to construct.
One can, for instance, note the existence of expressions like those in (1):

any of these venues can give the reader a taste of the richness of the domain of
inquiry within linguistic semantics.
2
Much cross-linguistic semantic work can be found in the journals and confer-
ence proceedings cited in footnote 1. An early edited volume on this is Bach et al.’s
Quantification in Natural Languages. There is now also an annual conference
Semantics of Underrepresented Languages of the Americas with published confer-
ence proceedings. And many of the specialized conferences on individual languages
and language families regularly include work on semantics.
 1.1. GOALS 5

(1) a. the tallest linguistics major

b. the tallest linguistics major who is graduating in December
c. the tallest linguistics major who is graduating in December who is enrolled
in formal semantics
d. the tallest linguistics major who is graduating in December who is enrolled
in formal semantics who took phonology last semester . . .

One can keep forming longer and longer expressions like this by adding new
relative clauses (each of the phrases that begin with who here is what is
commonly known as a relative clause). But while this is often put in terms of
a speaker’s ability to recognize that these are well-formed, that is surely only
part of the story. Even more interesting (at least to a semanticist) is the fact
that speakers know how to interpret these expressions. The rule system that
speakers have unconsciously learned is hardly just a system to determine
whether a given string of words is an expression of the language in question
(here English); language would be quite useless if it were just a collection of
meaningless strings.
And so, in modeling what a speaker of English “knows” (in an uncon-
scious sense, of course) about her/his language we want to predict how it is
that s/he can understand expressions like those in (1) no matter how many
relative clauses they contain. Thus speakers obviously have as part of their
knowledge a finite set of basic items—call these the words and call the
collection of the basic items the lexicon. (Here and for most of this text we
ignore the distinction between words and morphemes.) Since the lexicon is
finite, the meanings of the basic items can be learned on a case-by-case basis.
But this obviously cannot be the case for the larger expressions: there has to
be some systematic set of principles that speakers have that allows them to
understand their meanings on the basis of the meanings of the smaller parts
(ultimately the words) that make them up. This is the system which is called
the compositional semantics—and one of the jobs of a theory of the seman-
tics (of any language) is to model the rules and/or principles which allow
speakers to understand an unlimited number of expressions. This book is
primarily about just this.
Let’s look a bit more at the expressions in (1). When a speaker utters any
of these expressions—perhaps as part of a fuller sentence like in (2)—the act
of uttering these expressions takes place in a fuller discourse context, and we
understand them relative to facts about that context:
(2) We need to make sure to order academic regalia which is long enough to fit the
tallest linguistics major (who is graduating in December (who . . . ))
6 1. INTRODUCTION

The role of context will be discussed more formally at various points in

the text, but the informal notion of a speech or discourse context is clear
enough. So suppose we are using the expressions in (1) in a context in which
it is obvious that we are concerned with the students at Brown University.
Given this (or any other context), we can see that any speaker of English
immediately knows some interesting facts about these expressions—facts
which our model of the compositional semantics needs to account for. Take
for instance (1a). It refers to some unique individual.3 The hearer may well
not know who exactly that is—in fact the speaker might not either (as is
clear in a context like (2)). But both parties assume that there is a particular
individual (and only one) referred to by each of these expressions. And there
are many other inferences that can be drawn from these. For example, we
immediately know that if the individual described by (1a) is Nora, then
either she’s also the individual described by (1b) or else she is not graduating
in December. Moreover, if Nora is not the person picked out by (1b) then
whoever that person is, s/he must be shorter than Nora. Similarly, with each
successively longer phrase we either refer to the same person, or to one who
is shorter. Suppose that Zorba is the person described by (1b). We know that
he is shorter than Nora, and also know that if he is not the person described
by (1c) then he is not enrolled in formal semantics. And whoever the (1c)
person is—let’s say Otto—Otto must be shorter than Zorba. The addition of
each successive relative clause either keeps the referent constant or allows
shorter and shorter people to “rise to the top.” This kind of knowledge is
automatic and immediate, and it is the job of a model of the compositional
semantics to explicitly account for inferences like this.
We won’t give a serious account of any of this at this point, but can hint at
one possible account. Suppose that an expression like linguistics major refers
to some set of individuals. (Readers not familiar with basic notions of set
theory should consult the Appendix to this chapter.) When this set is put
together with the tallest (pretend that the tallest is a single word here), the
entire expression ends up referring to the tallest member of that set. Nothing

3
In reality there could conceivably be two individuals of exactly the same height.
But use of the expressions in (1) does seem to assume that there is a unique referent
for these. This is sometimes called a presupposition; these are rather odd expressions
if the speaker knows that there are two individuals with exactly the same height (in
that case the speaker might have said the two tallest linguistics majors).
 1.1. GOALS 7

surprising so far. But what is more interesting is what happens with

the addition of further relative clauses. It seems plausible that something
like who is graduating in December also refers to a set (obviously, the
set of December graduates). The above facts will make sense if the
compositional semantics first combines the two sets (the set of linguistics
majors and the set of December graduates) and intersects them to give
a new set. (The intersection of two sets is all things that are in both
sets; again see the Appendix.) So (1b) ends up picking out the tallest
member of that set. It is now possible to demonstrate that the system
correctly predicts that if the referent of (1b) is not Nora, it can only
be because she is not graduating in December. For if Nora is taller
than anyone in the linguistics major set (call that L) then she is
taller than anyone in the intersection of L with the December graduates
(call that D). After all, everyone who is in that intersection of L and
D is also in L. So if Nora is not the referent of (1b) it can only be that
she’s not in the intersection of D and L, and since she’s in L (by
assumption) it follows that she can’t be in D. It also follows that if
(1b) refers to Zorba, he must be shorter than Nora. By the definition of
intersection, if Zorba is in the intersection of D and L he is in L, but we
already know that Nora is taller than everyone else in L. All of this is
very simple logic that we—the linguists—can work out in the form of
an informal proof as above. It could also be worked more formally if
one were so inclined. Pedantic though it may seem, it shows that our
compositional procedure (which involves intersecting two sets) can
be used to correctly model inferences that speakers of English effort-
lessly make.
Moreover, the appeal here is that this is perfectly general and extends
no matter how many new relative clauses are added. Take (1c). The
semantics set-up above extends immediately to this. The new relative
clause in (1c) is who is enrolled in formal semantics. This picks out
yet another set—and so this now intersects with the set that we already
formed for (1b). The fact that the referent of (1c) can either be Zorba
or someone shorter than Zorba follows by the same logic shown
above; the reader can work out the details. And the procedure can be
repeated over and over no matter how many relative clauses are
introduced.
8 1. INTRODUCTION

1.1. Because this example is just meant to illustrate the notion of a

compositional semantics, we have made some assumptions about the
order in which the semantics put things together without justifying
them. Suppose that rather than the way it was set up here, the meanings
of the two relative clauses (1c) first combined, and then that combined
with linguistics major. Would that make any difference to the basic
semantic compositional picture that we have set up here? Would the
procedure extend correctly to (1d)?

1.1.2. Direct Compositionality—and its role in this text

This book has a rather ambitious set of goals. On the one hand, I intend this
to be a stand-alone text for anyone wishing to have an introduction to
formal semantics, compositional semantics, or what is commonly known
as the syntax/semantics interface. In other words, we will be asking (as in the
above example) what a compositional semantics might look like: how can
we model the tools available (again, of course, unconsciously) to speakers
of a language that allow them to compute meanings of larger expressions
from the meanings of the smaller ones that make them up. What are the
formal ways in which meanings combine? And what are the types of objects
that we need in order to model that? (For example, the discussion above
shows that some simple tools of set theory can be useful.)
But while most semanticists agree that (in general) the meaning of a larger
expression is built in some systematic way from the meanings of the parts
that make it up, just exactly how the syntactic system of a language and
the compositional semantics work together is a matter of considerable
controversy, and is one of the central questions addressed in this book.
And so this book takes one particular point of view on this: the point of view
known as Direct Compositionality. This view was explored perhaps most
notably in Montague (1970) and was either generally accepted or at least
taken as a serious desideratum in much of the work in linguistic formal
semantics throughout the 1970s and 1980s (particularly work in what was
then known as the Montague Grammar program). It was also taken as
the foundation for semantics in syntactic theories such as Generalized Phrase
Structure Grammar (Gazdar, Klein, Pullum, and Sag 1985), and is assumed
in a large body within current grammatical theories that go under the rubric
of Categorial Grammar, Type-Logical Grammar, and other related theories.
 1.1. GOALS 9

To elucidate, a fairly uncontroversial claim is that the grammar of any

natural language is a system of rules (or principles, if one prefers) that define
the set of well-formed expressions of the language (i.e., the syntax) and a set
of rules (or principles) pairing these with meanings (i.e., the semantics). The
hypothesis of Direct Compositionality is a simple one: the two systems work
in tandem. Each expression that is proven well-formed in the syntax is
assigned a meaning by the semantics, and the syntactic rules or principles
which prove an expression as well-formed are paired with the semantics
which assign the expression a meaning. (An interesting consequence of this
view is that every well-formed syntactic expression does have a meaning.4)
It is not only the case that every well-formed sentence has a meaning, but
also each local expression (“constituent”) within the sentence that the syntax
defines as well-formed has a meaning. Of course putting it this way is
arguably not much more than just a slogan: the empirical content of this
depends in part on just how the syntax works and what one takes to be a
meaning. This will be filled in as we proceed. It might also seem at first
glance that the hypothesis of Direct Compositionality is a fairly trivial one.
But in fact it is not always immediately obvious how to give a Direct
Compositional analysis. Even the example in 1.1.1 is a case in point. If the
syntax and semantics work together, then the analysis given above leads to
the conclusion that in the syntax a relative clause like who is graduating in
December combines with linguistics major rather than with the tallest lin-
guistics major. But this very question regarding the syntax of relative clauses
has been debated in the literature since the 1960s, and many researchers
have claimed that the syntactic constituent structure of the tallest linguistics
major who is graduating next year is not the structure that was used above
for the semantic analysis. We will actually revisit this particular question in
later chapters (see, e.g., section 13.2). So one of the goals of this book will
be to see what it takes to give Direct Compositional analyses of a variety of
constructions.
While the material in this book is generally exposited from the Direct
Compositional point of view (along with discussion of the challenges to
this hypothesis), the book is also intended to be a perfectly reasonable

4
Of course one of the earliest arguments in Generative Grammar for divorcing
the syntax from the semantics (and thus a putative argument against Direct Com-
positionality) is based on the claim that there are well-formed expressions that don’t
have any meaning (Chomsky 1957). This is addressed in section 7.1.
10 1. INTRODUCTION

stand-alone textbook for any formal semantics course. Thus it is suitable

for any linguistics student or linguist wanting a ground-up introduction
to formal semantics, and for a philosophy or logic student wanting a
background in formal semantics within linguistics. In the service of being
a stand-alone text in modern formal semantic theory, the book will, where
relevant, also develop the mechanics of at least one fairly standard non-
Direct Compositional theory of the syntax/semantics interface. This is done
especially in Part III (Chapters 13–15) where some phenomena are discussed
from both direct and non-Direct Compositional points of view. There are
several reasons for expositing parallel Direct and non-Direct Compositional
accounts of some domains. One is to enable readers to approach the wide
range of literature written from either point of view. Second, this allows
for a serious comparison of two different approaches. Third, learning
more than one set of details for the analysis of any construction allows
for a deeper understanding of the basic generalizations and results—
generalizations which often transcend the particulars of one theoretical
implementation. Finally, a student who has already learned formal seman-
tics from a non-Direct Compositional point of view can hopefully also profit
from this book by seeing an interesting fragment of English explicitly
analyzed from the Direct Compositional point of view.

1.2. A brief note on the history of semantics

within modern linguistic theory

The subfield of semantics as a core field in modern linguistic theory is

relatively recent and is one of the fastest growing subfields.5 Early work
within the general enterprise of generative grammar had little to say about
semantics. To be sure, by the end of about the 1960s and the early 1970s
there was considerable discussion as to how the syntax and the semantics
interacted; such discussion was mostly framed in terms of a debate between
Generative Semantics (see, e.g., McCawley 1971; Lakoff 1971) and Inter-
pretive Semantics (see Chomsky 1970; Jackendoff 1972). We will not discuss
the content of that debate here, but much of the work framed within these

5
A much more extensive and authoritative history of the development of formal
semantics within modern linguistic theory can be found in Partee (forthcoming).
 1.2. THE HISTORY OF SEMANTICS 11

two competing points of view did not incorporate a systematic view of

the semantics itself. Of course, the linguistics literature during that period
contained many seminal observations about semantic notions such as scope,
negation, and “binding,” but these were generally not embedded within a
full-blown theory of semantics designed to capture semantic notions like
entailment and truth conditions (see Chapter 2), although they easily could
have been embedded into such a theory. The fact that semantics was not
taken a subfield in and of itself during this period comes—at least in part—
from Noam Chomsky’s emphasis on syntax during the early development
of generative grammar. Chomsky (1957) explicitly rejects the notion that
semantics is relevant in the construction of grammars, and this notion
persisted for quite some time.
It is probably fair to say that modern formal semantics as a subfield within
linguistic theory began in the early to mid-1970s with the cross-fertilization of
linguistic theory and philosophy of language (including semantics) sparked
by Barbara Partee, Richmond Thomason, David Lewis, and others. Par-
tee’s work was a particularly influential bridge between linguistics and
philosophy as she had originally been a student of Chomsky’s at MIT and
always had a strong interest in the connections between language and logic,
and hence in topics like quantifiers, negation, etc. As an assistant professor
at UCLA, she became acquainted with the seminal work of Richard Mon-
tague, a philosopher and logician who (among his many other contributions
within philosophy and logic) had a major interest in modeling the semantics
(and the syntax/semantics interaction) of natural language (although
Montague himself dealt only with English). In fact, the program of Direct
Compositionality is advocated in his work (see especially Montague 1970).
We will have more to say about his specific contributions as this book
proceeds; for now, we note that one of the appeals of his work from the
point of view of a linguist was his notion that the semantic composition of
natural language reflects and respects its syntax. Partee saw the relevance of
Montague’s work to linguistic theory and wrote a series of papers aimed at
synthesizing some of the insights from Montague’s work with results within
Transformational Grammar (see, for example, Partee 1973). At the same
time, the appearance of Lewis (1970), Stalnaker and Thomason (1973), and
other work in the philosophy of language also helped launch modern formal
semantics and cement its connection to linguistic theory. Such work within
philosophy as well as Partee’s early group of students (both at UCLA
and later at the University of Massachusetts) continued the tradition,
12 1. INTRODUCTION

broadening the domain of inquiry and results. From there was born the
enterprise known as Montague grammar6 which eventually gave rise to the
more general subfield of formal semantics. Montague himself died in 1971,7
and the field of formal semantics evolved in many ways quite different from
the original work in Montague grammar. Nonetheless, many of the basic
tools of linguistic formal semantics as it is developed to this day stem
from some of this early work cited above. Since the late 1970s the field has
blossomed, and is now within linguistics generally considered as one of the
core areas along with at least phonology and syntax.

1.3. The notion of a “fragment” and its use in this text

Inspired by the work of Montague in papers such as Montague (1973),

much work in formal semantics within the 1970s and 1980s took it as
axiomatic that a goal was to formulate fully explicit grammars (in both
syntactic and semantic detail) of the fragment of the language one
is concerned with (English in most such work). The term “fragment” got
extended to mean not only the portion of the language being modeled, but
also the portion of the grammar being proposed as an explicit account of the
facts. The strategy of writing fragments (of grammars) has the advantage of
giving an explicit theory which makes testable predictions, and of making
theory and/or proposal comparison easier.
Unfortunately, the goal of formulating fully explicit fragments went out
of style during the last two decades or so. This is in part due to the fact that
linguistic theories often promised that many of the particular details did not
need to be stated as they would fall out from very general principles. It is
certainly reasonable to hope that this is ultimately true, but the relevant
principles often go unstated or are stated only rather vaguely, making it
extremely difficult to really compare proposals and/or evaluate theories and
theoretical claims. Having rules and principles be as general as possible is,
of course, highly desirable. But this does not mean that they should not be

6
An excellent introduction to the general program of Montague semantics and
an explication especially of Montague (1973) can be found in Dowty, Wall, and
Peters (1981).
7
Montague was murdered on March 7, 1971. No arrest was ever made in
conjunction with the murder.
 *1.4. AN INTRIGUING PUZZLE 13

formulated explicitly—only that more mileage will be gotten out of explicit

formulations.
The present text is therefore committed to trying to revive the notion of
explicit fragment construction. We cannot promise to give every detail of
the domain of English syntax and semantics we are trying to model. Some
parts will be left tentative, some stated informally, and some simply omitted.
Nonetheless, the goal is to give a reasonable amount of an explicit fragment.
We will therefore periodically take stock by summarizing the fragment
constructed so far, and a full summary is provided at the end of Part III.

*1.4. An intriguing puzzle

This introductory chapter concludes with an illustration of a puzzle, a

solution to which is proposed in section 15.6. However, the goal here is
not to champion any one particular solution, and readers may safely skip
this section and return to the data only in section 15.6. But we include this
in the introductory remarks for the reader who wants a preview of just
what kinds of complex and subtle data a theory of syntax and semantics
ultimately hopes to account for. To fully appreciate the particular puzzle
here, one should keep the following in mind. The contrasts are quite
real; the judgments have been checked with many speakers over the years
by myself and many others. Yet—like other subtle facts in syntax, phon-
ology, and semantics—these are not generalizations which we have ever
been consciously taught nor even generalizations that most of us are even
aware of until we see them in a linguistics course (or book). What, then, is
there about our unconscious knowledge of the grammatical system that
predicts these judgments? This is the sort of puzzle that theories of semantics
and its interaction with syntax ultimately seek to solve.
So, consider what we will call the A-B-C party scenario. I go to a small
party consisting of only myself and three married couples: Alice and Abe,
Betty and Bert, and Cathy and Carl. I learn that Alice and Abe met each
other only a few years ago, and similarly for Cathy and Carl. But interest-
ingly, I also find out that Betty and Bert have been sweethearts since
childhood. I like Betty a lot, and spend a good part of the evening talking
to her. The next day, you ask me how I enjoyed the party and if there was
anyone that I especially enjoyed meeting. I certainly can answer with (3):
14 1. INTRODUCTION

(3) Oh yes, I especially enjoyed talking to Betty.

But now suppose that I can’t remember Betty’s name, although I do remem-
ber that her husband’s name is Bert. I can answer with either (4a) or (4b):
(4) a. Oh yes, I especially enjoyed talking to—oh, I can’t remember her name—
you know, the woman who is married to Bert.
b. Oh yes, I especially enjoyed talking to—oh, I can’t remember her name—
you know, the wife of Bert.

((4b) would sound more natural if we substituted Bert’s wife for the wife of
Bert; this will not impact on the ultimate point and the exposition is
simplified using (4b).)
Now, let us tweak the scenario slightly and assume that I am one of those
people who just doesn’t remember names very well. As a result, I remember
neither Betty’s name nor Bert’s name, although I do remember the interest-
ing fact that they are the only couple at the party who have been sweethearts
since childhood. As an answer to your question, (5) would be quite natural:
(5) Oh yes, I especially enjoyed talking to—oh, I can’t remember her name—you
know, the woman who is married to her childhood sweetheart.

But what is striking is that I can’t answer with (6):

(6) *Oh yes, I especially enjoyed talking to—oh I can’t remember her name—you
know, the wife of her childhood sweetheart.

(We are taking liberties with the * notation here. This is generally used in
works in syntax to indicate something that is ill-formed. (6) in fact is fine,
just not on the intended reading; and we will continue to notate a sentence
with an asterisk in front of it when we mean “bad on a particular reading”
provided that it is clear what the intended reading is.) It should be noted that
some speakers find the contrast rather subtle but there is general agreement
that (6) is stranger than (5).
All of these examples contain various extra material (the parentheticals,
etc.) which are there to make them sound natural and conversational. But as
we proceed it will be convenient to strip away the parts that are irrelevant to
figuring out the semantics, so we can recast (6) as (7)—also impossible as an
answer to the question and in this context:
(7) *I especially enjoyed talking to the wife of her childhood sweetheart.
 *1.4. AN INTRIGUING PUZZLE 15

Of course, (7) is a perfectly good sentence, but it cannot be used in our party
scenario as a way to identify Betty.
Since some readers do find the contrast subtle, two points are worth
noting. First, one should resist the temptation to recast (7) in one’s mind
as I especially enjoyed talking to the one who’s the wife of her childhood
sweetheart or I especially enjoyed talking to the woman who’s the wife of her
childhood sweetheart. That would be cheating; the point is not to find a
closely related way to say the same thing but to notice that the actual way in
(7) contrasts with I especially enjoyed talking to the woman who is married to
her childhood sweetheart (and contrasts with the above variants too). As to
why these variants are good, we return to that shortly. Moreover, while the
contrasts above may be subtle for some speakers, there is a related mystery
where the facts dramatically pop out. Thus take (8) in the same scenario,
where the only people at issue are Alice, Betty, and Cathy:
(8) Betty is the only woman who is married to her childhood sweetheart.

This can be making two different claims. The obvious one in this scenario is
that Cathy is not married to Cathy’s childhood sweetheart, and Alice is not
married to Alice’s childhood sweetheart. The other is the “non-polygam-
ous” reading: it asserts that Bert (or whoever Betty’s husband might be)
has only one wife. Since we (generally) assume that people have just one
wife, this reading (given standard assumptions) is not the first one that
someone would think of since it is less likely to be conveying any interesting
information. But despite the fact that the non-polygamous reading is the
less obvious one for (8), it is the only reading (or at least the one that pops
out first) for (9):
(9) Betty is the only wife of her childhood sweetheart.

Why should that be? We’ll put (8) and (9) aside for the moment, and return
to the simpler case of (7).
So the mystery is why (7) is bad as a way to identify Betty. This is especially
puzzling in that both (4b) and (5) are perfectly good—or, to give their
stripped-down versions, (10) and (11) are both fine. Each one differs minim-
ally from our bad case, yet neither of these two has any problem.
(10) I especially enjoyed talking to the woman who is married to her childhood
sweetheart.

(11) I especially enjoyed talking to the wife of Bert.

16 1. INTRODUCTION

So surely there is nothing incoherent or wrong with the meaning that (7) is
trying convey, for (10) is just a slightly different form and conveys exactly
this meaning. Hence the puzzle has something to do with the mapping
between syntax and semantics: why one is a good way to package the
relevant information while the other is not.
We can informally recast the puzzle in the following way. Compare
the two expressions the woman who is married to Bert and the wife of Bert.
(Following a long tradition within linguistics, we will refer to these as NPs,
which comes from “noun phrases.” They are also in much modern literature
referred to as DPs, for “determiner phrases,” but we stick to the more
traditional terminology in this text.)8 Both of these can correspond to
meanings that we can (roughly and informally) represent as (12):
(12) the x: x is a woman and x is married to Bert

But while the object NP in (10) can be represented as in (11), the object NP
in (7) cannot:
(13) the x: x is a woman and x is married to x’s childhood sweetheart

The basic phenomenon here was discussed in, among others, Jacobson (1977)
(where it was called Langendoen’s constraint), Chomsky (1981 under the
rubric of i-within-i condition), and many since. As there seems to be nothing
wrong with the meaning, we can assume that the phenomenon in question has
something to do with the way the syntax and semantics interact.
Notice that we have given a kind of formula (and one that uses a
“variable” x) to represent the meanings in question, but for now we should
think of these simply as placeholders to bring out the intuition. After all,
recasting her in the above examples as x doesn’t really immediately give us
the tools for computing the meanings of the expression: we have traded a

8
In theories which use the term DP, the NP is used instead to refer to material
after the Determiner; e.g., mother of Romeo in an expression like the mother of
Romeo. Here we will be calling this simply N (i.e., a “noun”) and allowing terms like
N to refer both to simple material consisting of just one word and to complex
material. This is discussed further in Chapter 6. We are aware that this will initially
cause some confusion to a reader who is used to using “NP” to mean a noun and its
complement, but it is well worth becoming fluent in both sets of terminologies. The
terminology here is the traditional one found in large amounts of literature not only
in syntax and semantics but in neighboring fields like psycholinguistics, philosophy,
cognitive science, etc.
 *1.4. AN INTRIGUING PUZZLE 17

pronoun her for a variable x. But this accomplishes little until we have a way
to think about what a variable like x means. (Indeed this is explored in detail
in Chapters 9 and 15, including developing an alternative view that does not
make use of variables in the semantics.) We thus caution that formulas like
(12) and (13) are best seen simply as informal and helpful ways to bring out
the intended meanings. Similarly, one often sees indices used in the literature
as a way to bring this out; one will find discussions using the notation in
(14) and (15) to make the point, where the indexation in (14) indicates
a good possible reading for the NP while (15) cannot be understood in the
intended way:
(14) the womani whoi is married to heri childhood sweetheart

(15) *the wifei of heri childhood sweetheart

Much work in grammatical theory actually assumes that NPs and pronouns
come with (obviously silent) indices in the syntax; here we will be using indices
from time to time simply as a way to notate intended readings without any
commitment to their being actual pieces of grammatical machinery.
Before leaving this (for now), there’s one other interesting point to
notice. However we ultimately state the principle, the claim is that an NP
like the wife of her childhood sweetheart cannot correspond to the meaning
shown earlier in (13):
(13) the x: x is a woman and x is married to x’s childhood sweetheart

But one might think that this is not really correct, since it is in fact just fine to
use (16) as a way to identify Betty:
(16) I especially enjoyed meeting the woman who is the wife of her childhood
sweetheart.

This point was made earlier; many speakers on reading (7) tend to recast
it in their minds as (16). Similarly, (17) is impeccable on the understanding
where her is Betty:
(17) Betty is the wife of her childhood sweetheart.

But a close reflection reveals that this does not threaten the generalization.
Again, using indices or variables simply as a convenient way to elucidate
the point, it is easy to see in (17) that her need not be “coindexed with” (or
“correspond to the same variable as”) wife but rather it just refers directly
to Betty. That is, we can represent it as in (18a) using indices, or as in (18b)
using the more spelled-out formula (though still quite informal).
18 1. INTRODUCTION

(18) a. Bettyj is [NP the wifei of herj childhood sweetheart].

b. Betty, y [y = the x: x is a woman and x is married to y’s childhood
sweetheart]

Since we are asserting identity between Betty and the person married to
Betty’s childhood sweetheart, it of course follows that Betty is married
to Betty’s childhood sweetheart and so the full sentence (16) will end up
with the relevant meaning.9 But the claim that the object NP itself (the wife
of her childhood sweetheart) does have the meaning represented in (12) is
not threatened. The same point holds for (17), whose meaning can be
represented as (19a) or (19b).
(19) a. the womanj whoj is the wifei of herj childhood sweetheart
b. the y: y is a woman and y = the x: x is a woman and x is married to y’s
childhood sweetheart

Is there a way to confirm that this is the right sort of explanation for
these apparent counterexamples? Indeed there is, and it centers on the
contrast between (8) and (9) which was discussed earlier. We leave it to
the interested reader in the exercise to play with this and get a sense of
why (8) is ambiguous and (9) is not. Having completed that, one should
be able to see how it is that this gives support for the explanation
offered above as to why (17) does not threaten the claim that the wife
of her childhood sweetheart cannot correspond to the meaning shown
informally in (12).

*1.2. Work out—using the informal representations either with indices

or the representations with variables—why it is that (7) is ambiguous and
(8) is not. Of course you will need to think a bit about how to treat only,
but nothing very complex is required. You can be perfectly informal in
your treatment of only, but you should be able to get a feel for why these
two differ.

9
This general observation—although for a slightly different case—was made in
Postal (1970) who distinguished between “presuppposed” coreference and “asserted”
coreference. Here the fact that Betty and the wife of her childhood sweetheart end up
“referring” to the same individual is exactly what the sentence is asserting.
 1.5. APPENDIX: SETS AND FUNCTIONS 19

As noted at the outset of this section, the goal here is just to provide a
mystery to whet the reader’s appetite; the tools needed to provide a hypoth-
esis as to the explanation of the mystery will be developed later.

1.5. Appendix: Sets and Functions

1.5.1. Sets, members, and subsets

Since the notions of sets and of functions are crucial throughout this
book, some formal definitions and discussion are provided here for readers
not entirely familiar with these notions. We begin with the notion of a set.
A set is simply any collection of objects (it can have a finite number of
objects, an infinite number, or none at all). For example, we can talk
about the set of positive integers less than 10; sets can be notated by listing
the members and enclosing the list in curly brackets: {1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9}. The
order in which they are listed makes no difference; a set is just a collection of
things without any order. So if we were to write {2,5,3,4,9,7,8,1,6}, this
names the same set. Each integer in this set is called a member or an element
of the set. If we were to name this set A, then the notation 4 ∈ A means
that 4 is a member (or element) of A. Something either is or is not in a set; it
makes no sense to say it occurs twice (or more) in the set. Note also that a
set can have a single member; this is called a singleton set. Thus {4} is the
set with only one member; this set is distinct from 4 itself. (4 is a member
of {4}.)
A set can have an infinite number of members; the set of positive integers
for example is infinite. Obviously this can’t be named by listing the mem-
bers. One can in this case specify the set by a recursive procedure. Call the set I,
then one can specify I by two statements: (a) (what is known as the base step):
1 ∈ I, and (b) (the recursion step) if n ∈ I then n+1 ∈ I. (It is understood
when one lists things this way that nothing else is in I.) One will also often
see a notation which describes rather than lists the members. For example,
we can write the following set, call it B: {x|x is a New England state}. This
names a finite set, and so we could also give B in list form as follows:
{Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Con-
necticut}. These two are just different notations for naming the same set.
This can also be used, of course, for infinite sets. Take, for example, the set
20 1. INTRODUCTION

{x|x is an integer and x > 9}. This names the set of integers greater than 9.
And, a set can have no members. There is only one such set; its name is the
null set or the empty set, and is generally written as . Of course, there are
other ways one can describe the null set. For example, the set of integers each
of which is greater than 9 and less than 10 is the empty set. The cardinality of
some set refers to the number of elements in that set; the notation |B| means
the cardinality of B. Hence, given our set B above, |B| is six.
Take some set A. Then a subset of A is any set all of whose members are
also in A. Suppose, for example, we begin with a set C which is {1,2,3}. Then
{1,2} is a subset of C, as is {1,3} and so forth. The notation for the subset
relation is
. The full definition of subset is as follows: B
A if and only if
every member of B is a member of A. From this it follows that every set is
a subset of itself (so for the set C above, one of its subsets is the set {1,2,3}).
It is, however, sometimes convenient to refer to those subsets distinct
from the original set; in that case we can talk about a proper subset of
some set. The symbol for this is , so B  ` if and only if B
A and B 6¼
A. Since the definition of subset says that B is a subset of A if and only
if everything that is in B is also in A, it follows that if nothing is in
B then B is a subset of A. thus the null set is a subset of every other set.
Sets themselves can have sets as members, and so one can talk about
the set of all subsets of a set A. This is called the power set of A, written
as P (A). For example, given the set C above, P (A) = {, {1}, {2}, {3},
{1,2}, {1,3}, {2,3}, {1,2,3}}.

*1.3. If a set A has n members, then the number of subsets of A is 2n. Try
to see why this is true. Hint: for every member x of some set A, then for
each subset B of A, x is either in B or is not in B.
1.4. How many members does the following set have: {}?
*1.5. What is P ()?

We will also have occasion to talk about the reverse of the subset
relation—i.e., the superset relation. A is a superset of B if and only if B is
a subset of A. The notation for this is A  B. Once again this is defined in
such a way that every set is a superset of itself; a superset of B which is not
identical to B is called a proper superset, and the notation for this is .
 1.5. APPENDIX: SETS AND FUNCTIONS 21

1.5.2. Union, intersection, and complement

Take any two sets A and B. Then there is a set C which consists of
everything that is in A and everything that is in B. This is called the union
of A and B, and is written A [ B. For example, if A is {1,2,3} and B is
{2,4,6} then A [ B is {1,2,3,4,6}. Moreover, for any two sets A and B the
intersection of A and B is the set of all things that are in both A and B. This is
written A \ B. So, for example, in the case directly above, the intersection of
A and B is {2}. Or, if we were to intersect the set of integers which can be
evenly divided by 2 (the set of even integers) with the set of integers which
can be evenly divided by 3, we end up with the set of integers that can be
evenly divided by 6.

1.6. a. For any two sets A and B such that A
B, what set is A [ B?
b. For any two sets A and B such that A
B, what set is A \ B?

One final useful notion here is the complement of a set. The complement
of some set A is the set of all things which are not in A (this is sometimes
notated as A0 ). Usually one talks about this notion with respect to some
larger domain. Strictly speaking, the complement of {1,2,3} would include
not only all integers greater than 3 but also all sorts of other numbers (like
1/3), the sun, my dog Kiana, and the kitchen sink. Rarely are we interested
in that sort of set; so in practice when one talks about “the complement of
some set A” this is generally with respect to some larger set B of which A is a
subset. Then the complement of A refers to all things in B that are not in
A (this is notated as B-A). For example, when restricting the discussion to
the set of positive integers, the complement of {1,2,3} is the set of all integers
greater than 3.

1.5.3. Ordered pairs, relations, equivalence relations,

and partitions

Sets are unordered collections of objects. But it is quite useful (as will
become very apparent as this book proceeds) to be able to talk about
pairs of objects that are ordered in some way. An ordered pair is just that:
22 1. INTRODUCTION

it is two objects with some ordering between them. If the two objects are a
and b, then (a,b) is an ordered pair; (b,a) is a different ordered pair. An
ordered pair need not contain distinct items: (a,a) is an ordered pair. In
applying this to actual natural relations that exist in the world we are
generally interested in sets of ordered pairs. (One can generalize this notion
to ordered triples and so forth; an ordered n-tuple means an ordered list of
n items.)
This notion is easiest to grasp with some concrete examples. Take again
the set {1,2,3}, and take the relation “is greater than.” Then this can be seen
as a set of ordered pairs; if we are restricting this to items from our little 1-2-3
set, this would be the set {(2,1), (3,1), (3,2)}. Now suppose we instead take the
following set of ordered pairs: {(2,1), (3,1), (3,2), (1,1), (2,2), (3,3)}. Then
(restricting this again to our 1-2-3 set) we have now actually listed the
relation “is greater than or equal to.” Or, take the set {(1,1), (2,2), (3,3)}.
That is the relation “is equal to” (defined for the set of integers {1,2,3}).
In other words, what we are calling a relation is just some set of ordered
pairs. In the example above, both the first and second member of each
ordered pair was drawn from the same set (the set {1,2,3}). But this is not
necessary; we can have a set of ordered pairs each of whose first member
is drawn from some set A and the second member from some set B where
A and B are different (they can, but need not, have some of the same
members). For example, the relation “is the capital of” is a relation between
cities and states; it can be expressed as a set of ordered pairs of the general
form {(Providence, Rhode Island), (Boston, Massachusetts), (Springfield,
Illinois), (Pierre, South Dakota), . . . } (the . . . here is a shorthand for the
remaining 46 pairs).
Take two sets A and B (they could be the same set or different). Then A x B
refers to the set of all ordered pairs whose first member is in A and whose
second member is in B. (This is also called the Cartesian product of A and B.)
As in the case above, it is helpful to give the intuition of this by coming up
with some concrete example. Suppose we take as our set A some group
of professors—say, Professor Magoo, Professor Carberry, and Professor
Glazie. Call that set P (for shorthand, let’s call its members m, c, and g, so
P is the set {m,c,g}). Now suppose we have a set S which consists of three
students who we will just indicate as x, y, and z (so S = {x,y,z}). Then P x S =
{(m,x}, (m,y), (m,z), (c,x), (c,y), (c,z), (g,x), (g,y), (g,z)}. Suppose that Magoo
wrote a letter of recommendation for all three students, Carberry wrote one
for only y, and Glazie wrote one for y and z. Then the relation “wrote a
 1.5. APPENDIX: SETS AND FUNCTIONS 23

recommendation for” is a subset of P x S, and is the set of ordered pairs

{(m,x}, (m,y), (m,z), (c,y), (g,y), (g,z)}.
More generally, we define a relation (between members of A and B) as
any subset of A x B. There are some special and interesting properties that
can be defined when the two sets are the same. That is, we are now looking
at subsets of A x A. Consider a relation R (some subset of A x A) which is
such that for all x in A, (x,x) is in R. Such a relation is called a reflexive
relation. (These need not be the only kinds of pairs to be in R for R to be
reflexive; other pairs can be in there too.) For example, if talking about the
set of integers again, the relation “is greater than or equal to” is reflexive; for
all numbers n, (n,n) is in the set of ordered pairs described by that relation.
A relation R is called irreflexive if for all x in A, (x,x) is not in R. Further,
consider any two members x and y (both members of A). Then if it’s the case
that for all x and y if (x,y) is in R then (y,x) is also in R, the relation is called
symmetric. Imagine, for example, a lovely world with no unrequited love.
Then is in love with is symmetric in that world. If our set were {m, c, g, and
p}, then if the pair (m,c) were in our relation R (i.e., “is in love with”) the
fact that R is symmetric means that (c,m) is also in R. (Notice that our
definition neither requires (c,c) to be in R nor excludes that; either is
possible.) Or, to look at a relation which is symmetric by definition: consider
the relation is a sibling of. (While is a sibling of is symmetric, is a sister of is
not. Why not?) One final useful definition is a transitive relation. A transitive
relation R is one for which for every x, y, and z, if (x,y) is in R and (y,z) is in
R, then (x,z) is in R. (The relation “is greater than” is transitive, as is the
relation “is greater than or equal to”).
Any relation R which is reflexive, transitive, and symmetric is called an
equivalence relation. As an example of such a relation, consider the set of
students (call it S) at an elementary school that services grades 1 through 6.
Then “is in the same grade as” is an equivalence relation in S x S. (While it is
unusual to use the phrase “in the same grade as” when referring to the same
person it seems false to say Johnny is not in the same grade as himself so we
can see that this relation is reflexive.) It is also obvious that it is symmetric
and transitive. Note that this—and any other equivalence relation—divides
up the original set (here, S) into a group of non-overlapping subsets. The set
of these subsets is called a partition. Thus, a partition of any set S is a set of
subsets of S such that for each distinct subset A and B, A \ B = , and the
union of all the subsets is S. To show that any equivalence relation induces
such a partition, take any x in S and define Sx as {y|(y,x) is in R}. Since R is
24 1. INTRODUCTION

reflexive, we know that x is in Sx (and hence we know that Sx is guaranteed

not to be empty). Moreover, the fact that R is reflexive means that each
member of S is guaranteed to be in at least one such subset, so we know that
the union of all of these is S. We can further show that for any two such
subsets Sa and Sb, they either have no members in common (i.e., they have a
null intersection) or they are the same. Thus, take any c which is in both Sa
and Sb. By definition, this means that (c,a) is in R and (c,b) is in R. By the
fact that R is transitive and symmetric, it follows that (a,b) and (b,a) are in
R (the reader can work through the necessary steps). But then, for all x such
that (x,a) is in R, (x,b) is also in R. To show this note again that R is
transitive. If (x,a) is in R and (a,b) is in R then (x,b) is also in R. Hence given
the initial premise that there is a non-empty intersection between Sa and Sb,
it follows that everything in Sa is in Sb. That everything in Sb is also in Sa
follows in the same way, and so the two are the same set. Each subset in a
partition is called a cell in that partition.
In the example above, the cells correspond to the different grades. (There
don’t have to be six cells—it could be that one of the grades has no student
in it. But there can be no more than six; recall that by definition a cell can’t
be empty.) Just as any equivalence relation induces a partition, given any
partition one can give an equivalence relation that corresponds to any
partition; this is the relation that holds between any two a and b in S such
that a and b are in the same cell in the partition.

1.5.4. Functions

A function takes every member of some set A and assigns it a value from a
set B (B could be the same set as A, but need not be). This can also be
formalized using the notion of a set of ordered pairs. Thus, consider two sets
A and B (which again could be the same but need not be). Then, a (total)
function from A to B is any set of ordered pairs (i.e., any subset of A x B)
such that for each a in A, there is one and only one ordered pair with a as
first member. Thus if we think of the function f as assigning to each a in
A some values in B, note that the criterion above ensures that each member
of A is indeed assigned a value, and is assigned a unique value. A is referred
to as the domain of the function, and B is referred to as the co-domain. For
any function f and any a in the domain of f, we write f(a) to indicate the
value that f assigns to a. (To use other common terminology, f(a) means
 1.5. APPENDIX: SETS AND FUNCTIONS 25

the result that one gets by applying the function f to a.) There is no
restriction that each member of B must appear as second member of some
ordered pair; the term range of the function f is the set of all b in B such that
there is some a such that f(a) = b. Note that these definitions are such that
the range of a function is a subset of the co-domain. In practice (at least in
works within linguistics) the terms “range” and “co-domain” are often not
distinguished.
As noted above, there is no restriction that each member of B appear as
second member of an ordered pair. Nor is there a restriction that it appear
only once. If each member of B is used as a value only once (that is, for each
b in B, there is a unique a such that f(a) = b) then B obviously can be no
smaller than a. It can have more members, or it can be the same size. If the
latter is the case, then it also follows that for every b in B, there is some a
such that f(a) = b. When both conditions above hold (i.e., for each b in B,
there is one and only one a such that f(a) = b, we say that there is a one-to-
one correspondence between A and B. Note that for any function f which is a
one-to-one correspondence, there is a corresponding function f-1 which is
just the reverse: it is a function mapping each member of B to a member of
A such that for all a in A and b in B, if f(a) = b then f-1(b) = a.10
We will have some occasion to talk about the notion of a partial function.
A partial function is one where not every member of A is actually assigned a
value by f; f is undefined for some subset of A. (Of course any partial
function f is also a total function with a smaller domain.) We can illustrate
this by returning to our earlier example of ordered pairs of US cities and
states, where the first member of each ordered pair is the capital of the
second. This is a partial function from the set of US cities to states (not every
US city is a capital). We can reverse it, and have each state as the first
member of the ordered pair and the second as its capital (this function could
be expressed in prose as has as its capital). This is now a total function from

10
Incidentally, the notion of the availability of a one-to-one correspondence can
be used to define what it means for two sets to have the same cardinality. Obviously
for two finite sets it is clear what it means to have the same cardinality, since we can
count the members. But consider the case of infinite sets. Take the following two
sets: A = the set of positive integers {1,2,3, . . . } and B = the set of positive even
integers {2,4,6, . . . }. Both are infinite. Surprisingly (when one first hears this) they
are also of the same cardinality, because one can establish a one-to-one correspond-
ence between them (each member of A is paired with a member of B by multiplying
by 2: we will never run out of members in B).
26 1. INTRODUCTION

the set of states (every state does have a capital) to the set of US cities. But it
is not a one-to-one correspondence for the same reason that our original
relation is not a total function; there are many cities without the honor of
being a capital.
Occasionally in this text it will be useful to list out some actual
functions—that is, to name every member in the domain and name what
the function at issue maps that member to. There are a variety of ways one
could do this. To illustrate, take a domain of four children {Zacky, Yonnie,
Shelley, and Baba} (call that set C) and four men {Abe, Bert, Carl, David}
(call that set M). Suppose there is a function f from C to M which maps each
child to their father. Assume that Abe is the father of Zacky and Yonnie,
Bert is the father of Shelley, and David is the father of Baba. Then one can
write this information out in various ways. One would be to simply give the
set of ordered pairs: {(Zacky, Abe), (Yonnie, Abe), (Shelley, Bert), (Baba,
David)}. Usually this notation, however, is not terribly easy to read. We
could also write this out in either of the ways shown in (20):
(20) a. f(Zacky) = Abe b. Zacky ! Abe
f(Yonnie) = Abe Yonnie ! Abe
f(Shelley) = Bert Shelley ! Bert
f(Baba) = David Baba ! David

Or, sometimes it is more convenient to list out the domain on the left and the
co-domain on the right and connect them with arrows as in (21):
(21) Zacky Abe

Yonnie Bert

Shelley Carl

Baba David

Which notation is chosen makes no difference; the choice should be dictated

by clarity.
 2
Semantic foundations

2.1. Model-theoretic semantics 27 2.3. Possible worlds 31

2.2. Truth conditions 28 2.4. Times 41

2.1. Model-theoretic semantics

The primary focus of this book is the syntax/semantics interface—that

is, how the syntax and semantics work so that sentences (and other well-
formed linguistic expressions) are paired with a meaning. But of course this
task is impossible without some idea of what meaning is. Can we talk about
meaning without relegating it to the realm of the mysterious, or leaving it
solely to folks who work on cognition to deal with? The answer (of course)
is yes—there is a rich tradition within linguistics and the philosophy of
language for modeling linguistic meaning.
In some early work within linguistic theory—especially in the 1960s—
meaning was taken to be just a symbolic representation (call it a Logical
Form, or LF). While it remains an open question as to whether such
representations play an actual role in the way the grammar pairs expressions
with meanings, this book (along with much other modern work in formal
semantics) assumes that meaning is not just some string of symbols, but
rather some actual object out there in the world. Call this a model-theoretic
object. (More precisely, we are taking meaning to be an object which forms
part of a model which is an abstract representation of the world: hence the
term model theory.) Of course, we need some way to name these objects, and
so throughout we will use strings of symbols as ways to name them. But the
28 2. SEMANTIC FOUNDATIONS

point is that the grammar maps each linguistic expression into something
beyond just a symbolic representation. Otherwise—as so aptly pointed out
by David Lewis (1970)—we are simply mapping one language (say, English)
into another (what Lewis termed “Markerese”). Yet language is used to
convey facts about the world; we draw inferences about the world from
what we hear and we gain information about what is true and what is not.
So semantics must be a system mapping a linguistic expression to something
in the world.
But what exactly is meant by model-theoretic objects? These can in fact be
quite abstract. Still, they are the “stuff” that is out there in the universe—
something constructed out of actual bits of the universe (or, at least, the
ontology of the universe as given by language). This would include things
like individuals, times, possibilities, and perhaps others; just what are the
basic objects that we need is an open question and is part of what semantic
theory addresses. The strategy here will be to use a fairly sparse set of
primitive objects, and construct more complex objects out of these. Let us,
then, begin by setting up two basic building blocks which are foundational
in much of the work in linguistic formal semantics.

2.2. Truth conditions

A common adage in semantics is: “To know the meaning of a (declarative)

sentence is to know what it would take to make it true.” We can use this
adage as a first step in constructing the building blocks for meanings: a
fundamental fact about declarative sentences is that they are either true
or false1 (and since we use language to communicate information about the
world, a listener will in general assume that a sentence they have just heard

1
Henceforth we use the term “sentence” to mean a declarative sentence. There is
actually no reason to consider questions to be of the same category as declarative
sentences even though they also are traditionally referred to as “sentences.” Ques-
tions have a different external distribution from declarative sentences (for example,
wonder can occur only with a question as its complement, not an ordinary sentence,
while the reverse is true for believe); they have a different kind of meaning, and they
have a different internal structure. Whether imperatives and declaratives should be
considered the same category is a bit less clear (they are more similar), but we will
not deal with those here either.
 2.2. TRUTH CONDITIONS 29

is true, and uses that fact to enrich their knowledge of the world). Thus (1) is
true and (2) is false:
(1) Barack Obama moved into the White House on Jan. 20, 2009.

(2) John McCain moved into the White House on Jan. 20, 2009.

Hence, one basic notion used for the construction of meanings is a truth
value—for now assume that there are just two such values: true and false.
(More on this directly.) The claim that truth values are a fundamental part
of meaning is also motivated by noting that—as shown by the examples
above—speakers have intuitions about truth, given certain facts about the
world, just like they do about acceptability. And these judgments can be
used to test the adequacy of particular theories of meaning. Following
standard practice, we use 1 for true and 0 for false. Thus the set of truth
values {1,0} and we will also refer to this set as t. Let us use [[Æ]] to mean
the semantic value (i.e., the meaning) of a linguistic expression Æ. Then
(temporarily) we can say that [[Barack Obama moved into the White House
on Jan. 20, 2009]] = 1.
Some worries should immediately spring to mind. The most obvious is
that something seems amiss in calling the meaning of (1) “true” even if we
are willing to accept the fact that it is true. We will enrich the toolbox
directly to take care of that. But there are other objections: does it really
make sense to say that all declarative sentences are true or false? Clearly
not—for some sentences the truth value depends on who is speaking (and on
when the sentence is spoken). Take (3):
(3) I am President of the United States.

This is true if spoken by Barack Obama in 2011, but not if spoken by John
McCain and not true if spoken by Barack Obama in 2006. So this has no
truth value in and of itself. Nonetheless once certain parameters are fixed
(time of utterance and speaker) it is either true or false. So we might want to
think of the meaning of (3) as a function into {1,0}—it does yield a truth
value but only once we fix certain parameters. But it seems inescapable that
a declarative sentence is telling us something about the world, and so truth
values are certainly one fundamental piece.
In fact, there are many parameters that need to be set in order to
derive a truth value. Certain words like I, you, here, now, etc. quite obvi-
ously have the property that their value depends on when, where, and by
whom these are spoken (these are called indexicals). There are also more
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of such an animal shows an abundant vegetation, and a climate so
mild, that the rivers were not covered with heavy ice in winter; for the
supposition that this old hippopotamus was a migratory animal seems
very unlikely. Another animal of this time, was the magnificent deer,
known as the Irish elk; and which perhaps had its principal abode on
the great plain which is now the Irish Sea. The terrible machairodus, or
cymetar-toothed tiger, was continued from the Pliocene; and in
addition to species of bear still living, there was a species of gigantic
size, probably now extinct, the cave bear. Evidences are accumulating,
to show that all or nearly all these survived until the human period.
If we turn now to those animals which are only locally extinct, we
meet with some strange, and at first sight puzzling anomalies. Some of
these are creatures now limited to climates much colder than that of
Britain. Others now belong to warmer climates. Conspicuous among
the former are the musk-sheep, the elk, the reindeer, the glutton, and
the lemming. Among the latter, we see the panther, the lion, and the
Cape hyena. That animals now so widely separated as the musk-sheep
of Arctic America and the hyena of South Africa, could ever have
inhabited the same forests, seems a dream of the wildest fancy. Yet it
is not difficult to find a probable solution of the mystery. In North
America, at the present day, the puma, or American lion, comes up to
the same latitudes with the caribou, or reindeer, and moose; and in
Asia, the tiger extends its migrations into the abodes of boreal animals
in the plains of Siberia. Even in Europe, within the historic period, the
reindeer inhabited the forests of Germany; and the lion extended its
range nearly as far northward. The explanation lies in the co-existence
of a densely wooded country with a temperate climate; the forests
affording to southern animals shelter from the cold or winter; and
equally to the northern animals protection from the heat of summer.
Hence our wonder at this association of animals of diverse habitudes
as to climate, is merely a prejudice arising from the present
exceptional condition of Europe. Still it is possible that changes
unfavourable to some of these animals, were in progress before the
arrival of man, with his clearings and forest fires and other disturbing
agencies. Even in America, the megalonyx, or gigantic sloth, the
mammoth, the mastodon, the fossil horse, and many other creatures,
disappeared before the Modern period; and on both continents the
great Post-glacial subsidence or deluge may have swept away some of
the species. Such a supposition seems necessary to account for the
phenomena of the gravel and cave deposits of England, and Cope has
recently suggested it in explanation of similar storehouses of fossil
animals in America.[AS]
[AS] Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, April
1871.

Among the many pictures which this fertile subject calls up,
perhaps none is more curious than that presented by the Post-glacial
cavern deposits. We may close our survey of this period with the
exploration of one of these strange repositories; and may select Kent’s
Hole at Torquay, so carefully excavated and illumined with the
magnesium light of scientific inquiry by Mr. Pengelly and a committee
of the British Association.
The somewhat extensive and ramifying cavern of Kent’s Hole is an
irregular excavation, evidently due partly to fissures in limestone rock,
and partly to the erosive action of water enlarging such fissures into
chambers and galleries. At what time it was originally cut we do not
know, but it must have existed as a cavern at the close of the Pliocene
or beginning of the Post-pliocene period, since which time it has been
receiving a series of deposits which have quite filled up some of its
smaller branches.
First and lowest, according to Mr. Pengelly, is a “breccia” or mass of
broken and rounded stones, with hardened red clay filling the
interstices. Most of the stones are of the rock which forms the roof and
walls of the cave, but many, especially the rounded ones, are from
more distant parts of the surrounding country. In this mass, the depth
of which is unknown, are numerous bones, all of one kind of animal,
the cave bear, a creature which seems to have lived in Western Europe
from the close of the Pliocene down to the modern period. It must
have been one of the earliest and most permanent tenants of Kent’s
Hole at a time when its lower chambers were still filled with water.
Next above the breccia is a floor of “stalagmite” or stony carbonate of
lime, deposited from the drippings of the roof, and in some places
three feet thick. This also contains bones of the cave bear, deposited
when there was less access of water to the cavern. Mr. Pengelly infers
the existence of man at this time from a single flint flake and a single
flint chip found in these beds; but mere flakes and chips of flint are too
often natural to warrant such a conclusion. After the old stalagmite
floor above mentioned was formed, the cave again received deposits of
muddy water and stones; but now a change occurs in the remains
embedded. This stony clay, or “cave earth” has yielded an immense
quantity of teeth and bones, including those of the elephant,
rhinoceros, horse, hyena, cave bear, reindeer, and Irish elk. With these
were found weapons of chipped flint, and harpoons, needles, and
bodkins of bone, precisely similar to those of the North American
Indians and other rude races. The “cave earth” is four feet or more in
thickness, It is not stratified, and contains many fallen fragments of
rock, rounded stones, and broken pieces of stalagmite. It also has
patches of the excrement of hyenas, which the explorers suppose to
indicate the temporary residence of these animals; and in one spot,
near the top, is a limited layer of burnt wood, with remains which
indicate the cooking and eating of repasts of animal food by man. It is
clear that when this bed was formed the cavern was liable to be
inundated with muddy water, carrying stones and other heavy objects,
and breaking up in places the old stalagmite floor. One of the most
puzzling features, especially to those who take an exclusively
uniformitarian view, is, that the entrance of water-borne mud and
stones implies a level of the bottom of the water in the neighbouring
valleys of about 100 feet above its present height. The cave earth is
covered by a second crust of stalagmite, less dense and thick than that
below, and containing only a few bones, which are of the same general
character with those below, but include a fragment of a human jaw
with teeth. Evidently, when this stalagmite was formed, the influx of
water-borne materials had ceased, or nearly so; but whether the
animals previously occupying the country still continued in it, or only
accidental bones, etc., were introduced into the cave or lifted from the
bed below, does not appear.
 The next bed marks a new change. It is a layer of black mould from
three to ten inches thick. Its microscopic structure does not seem to
have been examined; but it is probably a forest soil, introduced by
growth, by water, by wind, and by ingress of animals, at a time when
the cave was nearly in its present state, and the surrounding country
densely wooded. This bed contains bones of animals, all of them
modern, and works of art ranging from the old British times before the
Roman invasion up to the porter-bottles and dropped halfpence of
modern visitors. Lastly, in and upon the black mould are many fallen
blocks from the roof of the cave.
There can be no doubt that this cave and the neighbouring one of
Brixham have done very much to impress the minds of British
geologists with ideas of the great antiquity of man, and they have,
more than any other Post-glacial monuments, shown the persistence of
some animals now extinct up to the human age. Of precise data for
determining time, they have, however, given nothing. The only
measures which seed to have been applied, namely, the rate of growth
of stalagmite and the rate of erosion of the neighbouring valleys, are,
from the very sequence of the deposits, obviously worthless; and the
only apparently available constant measure, namely, the fall of blocks
from the roof, seems not yet to have been applied. We are therefore
quite uncertain as to the number of centuries involved in the filling of
this cave, and must remain so until a surer system of calculation is
adopted. We may, however, attempt to sketch the series of events
which it indicates.
The animals found in Kent’s Hole are all “Post-glacial.” They
therefore inhabited the country after it rose from the great Glacial
submergence. Perhaps the first colonists of the coasts of Devonshire in
this period were the cave bears, migrating on floating ice, and
subsisting, like the Arctic bear, and the black bears of Anticosti, on fish,
and on the garbage cast up by the sea. They found Kent’s Hole a sea-
side cavern, with perhaps some of its galleries still full of water, and
filling with, breccia, with which the bones of dead bears became
mixed. As the land rose, these creatures for the most part betook
themselves to lower levels, and in process of time the cavern stood
upon a hill-side, perhaps several hundreds of feet above the sea; and
the mountain torrents, their beds not yet emptied of glacial detritus,
washed into it stones and mud and carcases of animals of many
species which had now swarmed across the plains elevated out of the
sea, and multiplied in the land. This was the time of the cave earth;
and before its deposit was completed, though how long before, a
confused and often-disturbed bed of this kind cannot tell, man himself
seems to have been added to the inhabitants of the British land. In
pursuit of game he sometimes ascended the valleys beyond the
cavern, or even penetrated into its outer chambers; or perhaps there
were even in those days rude and savage hill-men, inhabiting the
forests and warring with the more cultivated denizens of plains below,
which are now deep under the waters. Their weapons, lost in hunting,
or buried in the flesh of wounded animals which crept to the streams
to assuage their thirst, are those found in the cave earth. The absence
of human bones may merely show that the mighty hunters of those
days were too hardy, athletic, and intelligent, often to perish from
accidental causes, and that they did not use this cavern for a place of
burial. But the land again subsided. The valley of that now nameless
river, of which the Rhine the Thames, and the Severn may have alike
been tributaries, disappeared under the sea; and some tribe, driven
from the lower lands, took refuge in this cave, now again near the
encroaching waves, and left there the remains of their last repasts ere
they were driven farther inland or engulfed in the waters. For a time
the cavern may have been wholly submerged, and the charcoal of the
extinguished fires became covered with its thin coating of clay. But ere
long it re-emerged to form part of an island, long barren and desolate;
and the valleys having been cut deeper by the receding waters, it no
longer received muddy deposits, and the crust formed by drippings
from its roof contained only bones and pebbles washed by rains or
occasional land floods from its own clay deposits. Finally, the modern
forests overspread the land, and were tenanted by the modern
animals. Man returned to use the cavern again as a place of refuge or
habitation, and to leave there the relics contained in the black earth.
This seems at present the only intelligible history of this curious cave
and others resembling it; though, when we consider the imperfection
of the results obtained even by a large amount of labour, and the
difficult and confused character of the deposits in this and similar
caves, too much value should not be attached to such histories, which
may at any time be contradicted or modified by new facts or different
explanations of those already known. The time involved depends very
much, as already stated, on the question whether we regard the Post-
glacial subsidence and re-elevation as somewhat sudden, or as
occupying long ages at the slow rate at which some parts of our
continents are now rising or sinking.[AT]
[AT] Another element in this is also the question raised by
Dawkins, Geikie, and others as to subdivisions of the Post-glacial
period and intermissions of the Glacial cold. After careful
consideration of these views, however, I cannot consider them as of
much importance.

Such are the glimpses, obscure though stimulating to the

imagination, which geology can give of the circumstances attending
the appearance of man in Western Europe. How far we are from being
able to account for his origin, or to give its circumstances and relative
dates for the whole world, the reader will readily understand. Still it is
something to know that there is an intelligible meeting-place of the
later geological ages and the age of man, and that it is one inviting to
many and hopeful researches. It is curious also to find that the few
monuments disinterred by geology, the antediluvian record of Holy
Scripture, and the golden age of heathen tradition, seem alike to point
to similar physical conditions, and to that simple state of the arts of life
in which “gold and wampum and flint stones”[AU] constituted the chief
material treasures of the earliest tribes of men. They also point to the
immeasurable elevation, then as now, of man over his brute rivals for
the dominion of the earth. To the naturalist this subject opens up most
inviting yet most difficult paths of research, to be entered on with
caution and reverence, rather than in the bold and dashing spirit of
many modern attempts. The Christian, on his part, may feel satisfied
that the scattered monumental relics of the caves and gravels will tell
no story very different from that which he has long believed on other
evidence, nor anything inconsistent with those views of man’s heavenly
origin and destiny which have been the most precious inheritance of
the greatest and best minds of every age, from that early pre-historic
period when men, “palaeolithic” men, no doubt, began to “invoke the
name of Jehovah,” the coming Saviour, down to those times when life
and immortality are brought to light, for all who will see, by the
Saviour already come.
[AU] So I read the “gold, bedolah, and shoham” of the
description of Eden in Genesis ii.—the oldest literary record of the
stone age.

In completing this series of pictures, I wish emphatically to insist on

the imperfection of the sketches which I have been able to present,
and which are less, in comparison with the grand march of the creative
work, even as now imperfectly known to science, than the roughest
pencilling of a child when compared with a finished picture. If they
have any popular value, it will be in presenting such a broad general
view of a great subject as may induce further study to fill up the
details. If they have any scientific value, it will be in removing the
minds of British students for a little from the too exclusive study of
their own limited marginal area, which has been to them too much the
“celestial empire” around which all other countries must be arranged,
and in divesting the subject of the special colouring given to it by
certain prominent cliques and parties.
Geology as a science is at present in a peculiar and somewhat
exceptional state. Under the influence of a few men of commanding
genius belonging to the generation now passing away, it has made so
gigantic conquests that its armies have broken up into bands of
specialists, little better than scientific banditti, liable to be beaten in
detail, and prone to commit outrages on common sense and good
taste, which bring their otherwise good cause into disrepute. The
leaders of these bands are, many of them, good soldiers, but few of
them fitted to be general officers, and none of them able to reunite our
scattered detachments. We need larger minds, of broader culture and
wider sympathies, to organise and rule the lands which we have
subdued, and to lead on to further conquests.
In the present state of natural science in Britain, this evil is perhaps
to be remedied only by providing a wider and deeper culture for our
young men. Few of our present workers have enjoyed that thorough
training in mental as well as physical science, which is necessary to
enable men even of great powers to take large and lofty views of the
scheme of nature. Hence we often find men who are fair workers in
limited departments, reasoning most illogically, taking narrow and local
views, elevating the exception into the rule, led away by baseless
metaphysical subtleties, quarrelling with men who look at their
specialties from a different point of view, and even striving and plotting
for the advancement of their own hobbies. Such defects certainly mar
much of the scientific work now being done. In the more advanced
walks of scientific research, they are to some extent neutralised by that
free discussion which true science always fosters; though even here
they sometimes vexatiously arrest the progress of truth, or open
floodgates of error which it may require much labour to close. But in
public lectures and popular publications they run riot, and are
stimulated by the mistaken opposition of narrow-minded good men, by
the love of the new and sensational, and by the rivalry of men
struggling for place and position. To launch a clever and startling
fallacy which will float for a week and stir up a hard fight, seems
almost as great a triumph as the discovery of an important fact or law;
and the honest student is distracted with the multitude of doctrines,
and hustled aside by the crowd of ambitious groundlings.
The only remedy in the case is a higher and more general scientific
education; and yet I do not wonder that many good men object to
this, simply because of the difficulty of finding honest and competent
teachers, themselves well grounded in their subjects, and free from
that too common insanity of specialists and half-educated men, which
impels them to run amuck at everything that does not depend on their
own methods of research. This is a difficulty which can be met in our
time only by the general good sense and right feeling of the
community taking a firm hold of the matter, and insisting on the
organization and extension of the higher scientific education, as well as
that of a more elementary character, under the management of able
and sane men. Yet even if not so counteracted, present follies will pass
away, and a new and better state of natural science will arise in the
future, by its own internal development. Science cannot long
successfully isolate itself from God. Its life lies in the fact that it is the
exponent of the plans and works of the great Creative Will. It must, in
spite of itself, serve His purposes, by dispelling blighting ignorance and
superstition, by lighting the way to successive triumphs of human skill
over the powers of nature, and by guarding men from the evils that
flow from infringement of natural laws. And it cannot fail, as it
approaches nearer to the boundaries of that which may be known by
finite minds, to be humbled by the contemplation of the infinite, and to
recognise therein that intelligence of which the human mind is but the
image and shadow.
It may be that theologians also are needed who shall be fit to take
the place of Moses to our generation, in teaching it again the very
elements of natural theology; but let them not look upon science as a
cold and godless demon, holding forth to the world a poisoned cup
cunningly compounded of truth and falsehood; but rather as the
natural ally and associate of the gospel of salvation. The matter is so
put in one of those visions which close the canon of revelation, when
the prophet sees a mighty angel having the “everlasting gospel to
preach;” but he begins his proclamation by calling on men to “worship
Him that made heaven and earth and the sea and the fountains of
waters.” Men must know God as the Creator even before they seek
Him as a benefactor and redeemer. Thus religion must go hand in hand
with all true and honest science. In this way only may we look forward
to a time when a more exact and large-minded science shall be in
perfect accord with a more pure and spiritual Christianity, when the
natural and the spiritual shall be seen to be the necessary
complements of each other, and when we shall hear no more of
reconciliations between science and theology, because there will be no
quarrels to reconcile. Already, even in the present chaos of scientific
and religious opinion, indications can be seen by the observant, that
the Divine Spirit of order is breathing on the mass, and will evolve from
it new and beautiful worlds of mental and spiritual existence.

CHAPTER XIV.
 PRIMITIVE MAN. CONSIDERED
WITH REFERENCE TO MODERN
THEORIES AS TO HIS ORIGIN.
The geological record, as we have been reading it, introduces us to
primitive man, but gives us no distinct information as to his origin.
Tradition and revelation have, it is true, their solutions of the mystery,
but there are, and always have been, many who will not take these on
trust, but must grope for themselves with the taper of science or
philosophy into the dark caverns whence issue the springs of humanity.
In former times it was philosophic speculation alone which lent its dim
and uncertain light to these bold inquirers; but in our day the new and
startling discoveries in physics, chemistry, and biology have flashed up
with an unexpected brilliancy, and have at least served to dazzle the
eyes and encourage the hopes of the curious, and to lead to
explorations more bold and systematic than any previously undertaken.
Thus has been born amongst us, or rather renewed, for it is a very old
thing, that evolutionist philosophy, which has been well characterised
as the “baldest of all the philosophies which have sprung up in our
world,” and which solves the question of human origin by the
assumption that human nature exists potentially in mere inorganic
matter, and that a chain of spontaneous derivation connects
incandescent molecules or star-dust with the world, and with man
himself.
This evolutionist doctrine is itself one of the strangest phenomena
of humanity. It existed, and most naturally, in the oldest philosophy
and poetry, in connection with the crudest and most uncritical,
attempts of the human mind to grasp the system of nature; but that in
our day a system destitute of any shadow of proof, and supported
merely by vague analogies and figures of speech, and by the arbitrary
and artificial coherence of its own parts, should be accepted as a
philosophy, and should find able adherents to string upon its thread of
hypotheses our vast and weighty stores of knowledge, is surpassingly
strange. It seems to indicate that the accumulated facts of our age
have gone altogether beyond its capacity for generalisation; and but
for the vigour which one sees everywhere, it might be taken as an
indication that the human mind has fallen into a state of senility, and in
its dotage mistakes for science the imaginations which were the
dreams of its youth.
In many respects these speculations are important and worthy of
the attention of thinking men. They seek to revolutionise the religious
beliefs of the world, and if accepted would destroy most of the existing
theology and philosophy. They indicate tendencies among scientific
thinkers, which, though probably temporary, must, before they
disappear, descend to lower strata, and reproduce themselves in
grosser forms, and with most serious effects on the whole structure of
society. With one class of minds they constitute a sort of religion,
which so far satisfies the craving for truths higher than those which
relate to immediate wants and pleasures. With another and perhaps
larger class, they are accepted as affording a welcome deliverance
from all scruples of conscience and fears of a hereafter. In the domain
of science evolutionism has like tendencies. It reduces the position of
man, who becomes a descendant of inferior animals, and a mere term
in a series whose end is unknown. It removes from the study of nature
the ideas of final cause and purpose; and the evolutionist, instead of
regarding the world as a work of consummate plan, skill, and
adjustment, approaches nature as he would a chaos of fallen rocks,
which may present forms of castles and grotesque profiles of men and
animals, but they are all fortuitous and without significance. It
obliterates the fine perception of differences from the mind of the
naturalist, and resolves all the complicated relations of living things
into some simple idea of descent with modification. It thus destroys
the possibility of a philosophical classification, reducing all things to a
mere series, and leads to a rapid decay in systematic zoology and
botany, which is already very manifest among the disciples of Spencer
and Darwin in England. The effect of this will be, if it proceeds further,
in a great degree to destroy the educational value and popular interest
attaching to these sciences, and to throw them down at the feet of a
system of debased metaphysics. As redeeming features in all this, are
the careful study of varietal forms, and the inquiries as to the limits of
species, which have sprung from these discussions, and the harvest of
which will be reaped by the true naturalists of the future.
Thus these theories as to the origin of men and animals and plants
are full of present significance, and may be studied with profit by all;
and in no part of their applications more usefully than in that which
relates to man. Let us then inquire,—1. What is implied in the idea of
evolution as applied to man? 2. What is implied in the idea of creation?
3. How these several views accord with what we actually know as the
result of scientific investigation? The first and second of these
questions may well occupy the whole of this chapter, and we shall be
able merely to glance at their leading aspects. In doing so, it may be
well first to place before us in general terms the several alternatives
which evolutionists offer, as to the mode in which the honour of an
origin from apes or ape-like animals can be granted to us, along with
the opposite view as to the independent origin of man which have
been maintained either on scientific or scriptural grounds.
All the evolutionist theories of the origin of man depend primarily
on the possibility of his having been produced from some of the
animals more closely allied to him, by the causes now in operation
which lead to varietal forms, or by similar causes which have been in
operation; and some attach more and others less weight to certain of
these causes, or gratuitously suppose others not actually known. Of
such causes of change some are internal and others external to the
organism. With respect to the former, one school assumes an innate
tendency in every species to change in the course of time.[AV] Another
believes in exceptional births, either in the course of ordinary
generation or by the mode of parthenogenesis.[AW] Another refers to
the known facts of reproductive accelleration or retardation observed in
some humble creatures.[AX] New forms arising in any of these ways or
fortuitously, may, it is supposed, be perpetuated and increased and
further improved by favouring external circumstances and the effort of
the organism to avail itself of these,[AY] or by the struggle for existence
and the survival of the fittest.[AZ]
[AV] Parsons, Owen.
 [AW] Mivart, Ferris.
[AX] Hyatt and Cope.
[AY] Lamarck, etc.
[AZ] Darwin, etc.

On the other hand, those who believe in the independent origin of

man admit the above causes as adequate only to produce mere
varieties, liable to return into the original stock. They may either hold
that man has appeared as a product of special and miraculous
creation, or that he has been created mediately by the operation of
forces also concerned in the production of other animals, but the
precise nature of which is still unknown to us; or lastly, they may hold
what seems to be the view favoured by the book of Genesis, that his
bodily form is a product of mediate creation and his spiritual nature a
direct emanation from his Creator.
The discussion of all these rival theories would occupy volumes,
and to follow them into details would require investigations which have
already bewildered many minds of some scientific culture. Further, it is
the belief of the writer that this plunging into multitudes of details has
been fruitful of error, and that it will be a better course to endeavour to
reach the root of the matter by looking at the foundations of the
general doctrine of evolution itself, and then contrasting it with its rival.
Taking, then, this broad view of the subject, two great leading
alternatives are presented to us. Either man is an independent product
of the will of a Higher Intelligence, acting directly or through the laws
and materials of his own institution and production, or he has been
produced by an unconscious evolution from lower things. It is true that
many evolutionists, either unwilling to offend, or not perceiving the
logical consequences of their own hypothesis, endeavour to steer a
middle course, and to maintain that the Creator has proceeded by way
of evolution. But the bare, hard logic of Spencer, the greatest English
authority on evolution, leaves no place for this compromise, and shows
that the theory, carried out to its legitimate consequences, excludes
the knowledge of a Creator and the possibility of His work. We have,
therefore, to choose between evolution and creation; bearing in mind,
however, that there may be a place in nature for evolution, properly
limited, as well as for other things, and that the idea of creation by no
means excludes law and second causes.
Limiting ourselves in the first place to theories of evolution, and to
these as explaining the origin of species of living beings, and especially
of man, we naturally first inquire as to the basis on which they are
founded. Now no one pretends that they rest on facts actually
observed, for no one has ever observed the production of even one
species. Nor do they even rest, like the deductions of theoretical
geology, on the extension into past time of causes of change now seen
to be in action. Their probability depends entirely on their capacity to
account hypothetically for certain relations of living creatures to each
other, and to the world without; and the strongest point of the
arguments of their advocates is the accumulation of cases of such
relations supposed to be accounted for. Such being the kind of
argument with which we have to deal, we may first inquire what we
are required to believe as conditions of the action of evolution, and
secondly, to what extent it actually does explain the phenomena.
In the first place, as evolutionists, we are required to assume
certain forces, or materials, or both, with which evolution shall begin.
Darwin, in his Origin of Species, went so far as to assume the
existence of a few of the simpler types of animals; but this view, of
course, was only a temporary resting-place for his theory. Others
assume a primitive protoplasm, or physical basis of life, and arbitrarily
assigning to this substance properties now divided between organised
and unorganised, and between dead and living matter, find no difficulty
in deducing all plants and animals from it. Still, even this cannot have
been the ultimate material. It must have been evolved from
something. We are thus brought back to certain molecules of star-dust,
or certain conflicting forces, which must have had self-existence, and
must have potentially included all subsequent creatures. Otherwise, if
with Spencer we hold that God is “unknowable” and creation
“unthinkable,” we are left suspended on nothing over a bottomless
void, and must adopt as the initial proposition of our philosophy, that
all things were made out of nothing, and by nothing; unless we prefer
to doubt whether anything exists, and to push the doctrine of relativity
to the unscientific extreme of believing that we can study the relations
of things non-existent or unknown. So we must allow the evolutionist
some small capital to start with; observing, however, that self-existent
matter in a state of endless evolution is something of which we cannot
possibly have any definite conception.
Being granted thus much, the evolutionist next proceeds to demand
that we shall also believe in the indefinite variability of material things,
and shall set aside all idea that there is any difference in kind between
the different substances which we know. They must all be mutually
convertible, or at least derivable from some primitive material. It is true
that this is contrary to experience. The chemist holds that matter is of
different kinds, that one element cannot be converted into another;
and he would probably smile if told that, even in the lapse of enormous
periods of time, limestone could be evolved out of silica. He may think
that this is very different from the idea that a snail can be evolved from
an oyster, or a bird from a reptile. But the zoologist will inform him that
species of animals are only variable within certain limits, and are not
transmutable, in so far as experience and experiment are concerned.
They have their allotropic forms, but cannot be changed into one
another.
But if we grant this second demand, the evolutionist has a third in
store for us. We must also admit that by some inevitable necessity the
changes of things must in the main take place in one direction, from
the more simple to the more complex, from the lower to the higher. At
first sight this seems not only to follow from the previous assumptions,
but to accord with observation. Do not all living things rise from a
simpler to a more complex state? has not the history of the earth
displayed a gradually increasing elevation and complexity? But, on the
other hand, the complex organism becoming mature, resolves itself
again into the simple germ, and finally is dissolved into its constituent
elements. The complex returns into the simple, and what we see is not
an evolution, but a revolution. In like manner, in geological time, the
tendency seems to be ever to disintegration and decay. This we see
everywhere, and find that elevation occurs only by the introduction of
new species in a way which is not obvious, and which may rather imply
the intervention of a cause from without; so that here also we are
required to admit as a general principle what is contrary to experience.
If, however, we grant the evolutionist these postulates, we must
next allow him to take the facts of botany and zoology out of their
ordinary connection, and thread them like a string of beads, as Herbert
Spencer has done in his “Biology,” on the threefold cord thus
fashioned. This done, we next find, as might have been expected,
certain gaps or breaks which require to be cunningly filled with artificial
material, in order to give an appearance of continuity to the whole.
The first of these gaps which we notice is that between dead and
living matter. It is easy to fill this with such a term as protoplasm,
which includes matter both dead and living, and so to ignore this
distinction; but practically we do not yet know as a possible thing the
elevation of matter, without the agency of a previous living organism,
from that plane in which it is subject merely to physical force, and is
unorganised, to that where it becomes organised, and lives. Under that
strange hypothesis of the origin of life from meteors, with which Sir
William Thomson closed his address at a late meeting of the British
Association, there was concealed a cutting sarcasm which the
evolutionists felt. It reminded them that the men who evolve all things
from physical forces do not yet know how these forces can produce the
phenomena of life even in its humblest forms. It is true that the
scientific world has been again and again startled by the
announcement of the production of some of the lowest forms of life,
either from dead organic matter, or from merely mineral substances;
but in every case heretofore the effort has proved as vain as the
analogies attempted to be set up between the formation of crystals
and that of organized tissues are fallacious.
A second gap is that which separates vegetable and animal life.
These are necessarily the converse of each other, the one deoxidizes
and accumulates, the other oxidizes and expends. Only in reproduction
or decay does the plant simulate the action of the animal, and the
animal never in its simplest forms assumes the functions of the plant.
Those obscure cases in the humbler spheres of animal and vegetable
life which have been supposed to show a union of the two kingdoms,
disappear on investigation. This gap can, I believe, be filled up only by
an appeal to our ignorance. There may be, or may have been, some
simple creature unknown to us, on the extreme verge of the plant
kingdom, that was capable of passing the limit and becoming an
animal. But no proof of this exists. It is true that the primitive germs of
many kinds of humble plants and animal s are so much alike, that
much confusion has arisen in tracing their development. It is also true
that some of these creatures can subsist under very dissimilar
conditions, and in very diverse states, and that under the specious
name of Biology,[BA] we sometimes find a mass of these confusions,
inaccurate observations and varietal differences made to do duty for
scientific facts. But all this does not invalidate the grand primary
distinction between the animal and the plant, which should be
thoroughly taught and illustrated to all young naturalists, as one of the
best antidotes to the fallacies of the evolutionist school.
[BA] It is doubtful whether men who deny the existence of vital
force have a right to call their science “Biology,” any more than
atheists have to call their doctrine “Theology;” and it is certain that
the assumption of a science of Biology as distinct from Phytology
and Zoology, or including both, is of the nature of a “pious fraud” on
the part of the more enlightened evolutionists. The objections stated
in the text, to what have been called Archebiosis and Heterogenesis
seem perfectly applicable, in so far as I can judge from a friendly
review by Wallace, to the mass of heterogeneous material
accumulated by Dr. Bastian in his recent volumes. The conclusions
of this writer, would also, if established, involve evolution in a fatal
embarras des richesses, by the hourly production during all
geological time, of millions of new forms all capable of indefinite
development.

A third is that between any species of animal or plant and any other
species. It was this gap, and this only, which Darwin undertook to fill
up by his great work on the origin of species, but, notwithstanding the
immense amount of material thus expended, it yawns as wide as ever,
since it must be admitted that no case has been ascertained in which
an individual of one species has transgressed the limits between it and
other species. However extensive the varieties produced by artificial
breeding, the essential characters of the species remain, and even its
minor characters may be reproduced, while the barriers established in
nature between species by the laws of their reproduction, seem to be
absolute.
With regard to species, however, it must be observed that
naturalists are not agreed as to what constitutes a species. Many so-
called species are probably races, or varieties, and one benefit of these
inquiries has been to direct attention to the proper discrimination of
species from varieties among animals and plants. The loose
discrimination of species, and the tendency to multiply names, have
done much to promote evolutionist views; but the researches of the
evolutionists themselves have shown that we must abandon
transmutation of true species as a thing of the present; and if we
imagine it to have occurred, must refer it to the past.
Another gap is that between the nature of the animal and the self-
conscious, reasoning, moral nature of man. We not only have no proof
that any animal can, by any force in itself, or by any merely physical
influences from without, rise to such a condition; but the thing is in the
highest degree improbable. It is easy to affirm, with the grosser
materialists, that thought is a secretion of brain, as bile is of the liver;
but a moment’s thought shows that no real analogy obtains between
the cases. We may vaguely suppose, with Darwin, that the continual
exercise of such powers as animals possess, may have developed
those of man. But our experience of animals shows that their
intelligence differs essentially from that of man, being a closed circle
ever returning into itself, while that of man is progressive, inventive,
and accumulative, and can no more be correlated with that of the
animal than the vital phenomena of the animal with those of the plant.
Nor can the gap between the higher religious and moral sentiments of
man, and the instinctive affections of the brutes, be filled up with that
miserable ape imagined by Lubbock, which, crossed in love, or pining
with cold and hunger, conceived, for the first time in its poor addled
pate, “the dread of evil to come,” and so became the father of
theology. This conception, which Darwin gravely adopts, would be
most ludicrous, but for the frightful picture which it gives of the aspect
in which religion appears to the mind of the evolutionist.
 The reader will now readily perceive that the simplicity and
completeness of the evolutionist theory entirely disappear when we
consider the unproved assumptions on which it is based, and its failure
to connect with each other some of the most important facts in nature:
that, in short, it is not in any true sense a philosophy, but merely an
arbitrary arrangement of facts in accordance with a number of
unproved hypotheses. Such philosophies, “falsely so called,” have
existed ever since man began to reason on nature, and this last of
them is one of the weakest and most pernicious of the whole. Let the
reader take up either of Darwin’s great books, or Spencer’s “Biology,”
and merely ask himself as he reads each paragraph, “What is assumed
here and what is proved?” and he will find the whole fabric melt away
like a vision. He will find, however, one difference between these
writers. Darwin always states facts carefully and accurately, and when
he comes to a difficulty tries to meet it fairly. Spencer often
exaggerates or extenuates with reference to his facts, and uses the
arts of the dialectician where argument fails.
Many naturalists who should know better are puzzled with the great
array of facts presented by evolutionists; and while their better
judgment causes them to doubt as to the possibility of the structures
which they study being produced by such blind and material processes,
are forced to admit that there must surely be something in a theory so
confidently asserted, supported by so great names, and by such an
imposing array of relations which it can explain. They would be
relieved from their weak concessions were they to study carefully a few
of the instances adduced, and to consider how easy it is by a little
ingenuity to group undoubted facts around a false theory. I could wish
to present here illustrations of this, which abound in every part of the
works I have referred to, but space will not permit. One or two must
suffice. The first may be taken from one of the strong points often
dwelt on by Spencer in his “Biology.”[BB]
[BB] “Principles of Biology,” § 118.

"But the experiences which most clearly illustrate to us the process

of general evolution are our experiences of special evolution, repeated
in every plant and animal. Each organism exhibits, within a short space
of time, a series of changes which, when supposed to occupy a period
indefinitely great and to go on in various ways instead of one, may
give us a tolerably clear conception of organic evolution in general. In
an individual development we have compressed into a comparatively
infinitesimal space a series of metamorphoses equally vast with those
which the hypothesis of evolution assumes to have taken place during
those unmeasurable epochs that the earth’s crust tells us of. A tree
differs from a seed immeasurably in every respect—in bulk, in
structure, in colour, in form, in specific gravity, in chemical
composition: differs so greatly that no visible resemblance of any kind
can be pointed out between them. Yet is the one changed in the
course of a few years into the other; changed so gradually that at no
moment can it be said, ‘Now the seed ceases to be and the tree exists.’
What can be more widely contrasted than a newly-born child and the
small gelatinous spherule constituting the human ovum? The infant is
so complex in structure that a cyclopædia is needed to describe its
constituent parts. The germinal vesicle is so simple that it may be
defined in a line.... If a single cell under appropriate conditions
becomes a man in the space of a few years, there can surely be no
difficulty in understanding how, under appropriate conditions, a cell
may in the course of untold millions of years give origin to the human
race."
“It is true that many minds are so unfurnished with those
experiences of nature, out of which this conception is built, that they
find difficulty in forming it.... To such the hypothesis that by any series
of changes a protozoan should ever give origin to a mammal seems
grotesque—as grotesque as did Galileo’s assertion of the earth’s
movement seem to the Aristoteleans; or as grotesque as the assertion
of the earth’s sphericity seems now to the New Zealanders.”
I quote the above as a specimen of evolutionist reasoning from the
hand of a master, and as referring to one of the corner-stones of this
strange philosophy. I may remark with respect to it, in the first place,
that it assumes those “conditions” of evolution to which I have already
referred. In the second place, it is full of inaccurate statements of fact,
all in a direction tending to favour the hypothesis. For example, a tree
does not differ “immeasurably” from a seed, especially if the seed is of
the same species of tree, for the principal parts of the tree and its
principal chemical constituents already exist and can be detected in the
seed, and unless it were so, the development of the tree from the seed
could not take place. Besides, the seed itself is not a thing self-existent
or fortuitous. The production of a seed without a previous tree of the
same kind is quite as difficult to suppose as the production of a tree
without a previous seed containing its living embryo. In the third place,
the whole argument is one of analogy. The germ becomes a mature
animal, passing through many intermediate stages, therefore the
animal may have descended from some creature which when mature
was as simple as the germ. The value of such an analogy depends
altogether on the similarity of the “conditions” which, in such a case,
are really the efficient causes at work. The germ of a mammal
becomes developed by the nourishment supplied from the system of a
parent, which itself produced the germ, and into whose likeness the
young animal is destined to grow. These are the “appropriate
conditions” of its development. But when our author assumes from this
other “appropriate conditions,” by which an organism, which on the
hypothesis is not a germ but a mature animal, shall be developed into
the likeness, of something different from its parent, he oversteps the
bounds of legitimate analogy. Further, the reproduction of the animal,
as observed, is a closed series, beginning at the embryo and returning
thither again; the evolution attempted to be established is a
progressive series going on from one stage to another. A reproductive
circle once established obeys certain definite laws, but its origin, or
how it can leave its orbit and revolve in some other, we cannot explain
without the introduction of some new efficient cause. The one term of
the analogy is a revolution, and the other is an evolution. The
revolution within the circle of the reproduction of the species gives no
evidence that at some point the body will fly off at a tangent, and does
not even inform us whether it is making progress in space. Even if it is
so making progress, its orbit of revolution may remain the same. But it
may be said the reproduction of the species is not in a circle but in a
spiral. Within the limit of experience it is not so, since, however it may
undulate, it always returns into itself. But supposing it to be a spiral, it
may ascend or descend, or expand and contract; but this does not
connect it with other similar spirals, the separate origin of which is to
be separately accounted for.
I have quoted the latter part of the passage because it is
characteristic of evolutionists to decry the intelligence of those who
differ from them. Now it is fair to admit that it requires some
intelligence and some knowledge of nature to produce or even to
understand such analogies as those of Mr. Spencer and his followers,
but it is no less true that a deeper insight into the study of nature may
not only enable us to understand these analogies, but to detect their
fallacies. I am sorry to say, however, that at present the hypothesis of
evolution is giving so strong a colouring to much of popular and even
academic teaching, more especially in the easy and flippant conversion
of the facts of embryology into instances of evolution on the plan of
the above extract, that the Spencerians may not long have to complain
of want of faith and appreciation on the part of the improved apes
whom they are kind enough to instruct as to their lowly origin.
The mention of “appropriate conditions” in the above extract
reminds me of another fatal objection to evolution which its advocates
continually overlook. An animal or plant advancing from maturity to the
adult state is in every stage of its progress a complete and symmetrical
organism, correlated in all its parts and adapted to surrounding
conditions. Suppose it to become modified in any way, to ever so small
an extent, the whole of these relations are disturbed. If the
modification is internal and spontaneous, there is no guarantee that it
will suit the vastly numerous external agencies to which the creature is
subjected. If it is produced by agencies from without, there is no
guarantee that it will accord with the internal relations of the parts
modified. The probabilities are incalculably great against the
occurrence of many such disturbances without the breaking up
altogether of the nice adjustment of parts and conditions. This is no
doubt one reason of the extinction of so many species in geological
time, and also of the strong tendency of every species to spring back
to its normal condition when in any way artificially caused to vary. It is
also connected with the otherwise mysterious law of the constant
transmission of all the characters of the parent.
 Spencer and Darwin occasionally see this difficulty, though they
habitually neglect it in their reasonings. Spencer even tries to turn one
part of it to account as follows:—
“Suppose the head of a mammal to become very much more
weighty—what must be the indirect results? The muscles of the neck
are put to greater exertions; and the vertebras have to bear additional
tensions and pressures caused both by the increased weight of the
head and the stronger contraction of muscles that support and move
the head.” He goes on to say that the processes of the vertebrae will
have augmented strains put upon them, the thoracic region and fore
limbs will have to be enlarged, and even the hind limbs may require
modification to facilitate locomotion. He concludes: “Any one who
compares the outline of the bison with that of its congener, the ox, will
clearly see how profoundly a heavier head affects the entire osseous
and muscular system.”
We need not stop to mention the usual inaccuracies as to facts in
this paragraph, as, for example, the support of the head being
attributed to muscles alone, without reference to the strong elastic
ligament of the neck. We may first notice the assumption that an
animal can acquire a head “very much more weighty” than that which
it had before, a very improbable supposition, whether as a monstrous
birth Dr as an effect of external conditions after birth. But suppose this
to have occurred, and what is even less likely, that the very much
heavier head is an advantage in some way, what guarantee can
evolution give us that the number of other modifications required
would take place simultaneously with this acquisition! It would be easy
to show that this would depend on the concurrence of hundreds of
other conditions within and without the animal, all of which must co-
operate to produce the desired effect, if indeed they could produce this
effect even by their conjoint action, a power which the writer, it will be
observed, quietly assumes, as well as the probability of the initial
change in the head. Finally, the naivete with which it is assumed that
the bison and the ox are examples of such an evolution, would be
refreshing in these artificial days, if instances of it did not occur in
almost every page of the writings of evolutionists.
 It would only weary the reader to follow evolution any further into
details, especially as my object in this chapter is to show that
generally, and as a theory of nature and of man, it has no good
foundation; but we should not leave the subject without noting
precisely the derivation of man according to this theory; and for this
purpose I may quote Darwin’s summary of his conclusions on the
subject.[BC]
[BC] “Descent of Man,” part ii., ch. 21.

“Man,” says Mr. Darwin, “is descended from a hairy quadruped,

furnished with a tail and pointed ears, probably arboreal in its habits,
and an inhabitant of the Old World. This creature, if its whole structure
had been examined by a naturalist, would have been classed amongst
the quadrumana, as surely as would the common, and still more
ancient, progenitor of the Old and New World monkeys. The
quadrumana and all the higher mammals are probably derived from an
ancient marsupial animal; and this, through a long line of diversified
forms, either from some reptile-like or some amphibian-like creature,
and this again from some fish-like animal. In the dim obscurity of the
past we can see that the early progenitor of all the vertebrata must
have been an aquatic animal, provided with branchiæ, with the two
sexes united in the same individual, and with the most important
organs of the body (such as the brain and heart) imperfectly
developed. This animal seems to have been more like the larvæ of our
existing marine Ascidians than any other form known.”
The author of this passage, in condescension to our weakness of
faith, takes us no further back than to an Ascidian, or “sea-squirt,” the
resemblance, however, of which to a vertebrate animal is merely
analogical, and, though a very curious case of analogy, altogether
temporary and belonging to the young state of the creature, without
affecting its adult state or its real affinities with other mollusks. In
order, however, to get the Ascidian itself, he must assume all the
“conditions” already referred to in the previous part of this article, and
fill most of the gaps. He has, however, in the “Origin of Species” and
“Descent of Man,” attempted merely to fill one of the breaks in the
evolutionary series, that between distinct species, leaving us to receive
all the rest on mere faith. Even in respect to the question of species, in
all the long chain between the Ascidian and the man, he has not
certainly established one link; and in the very last change, that from
the ape-like ancestor, he equally fails to satisfy us as to matters so
trivial as the loss of the hair, which, on the hypothesis, clothed the pre-
human back, and on matters so weighty as the dawn of human reason
and conscience.
We thus see that evolution as an hypothesis has no basis in
experience or in scientific fact, and that its imagined series of
transmutations has breaks which cannot be filled. We have now to
consider how it stands with the belief that man has been created by a
higher power. Against this supposition the evolutionists try to create a
prejudice in two ways. First, they maintain with Herbert Spencer that
the hypothesis of creation is inconceivable, or, as they say,
“unthinkable;” an assertion which, when examined, proves to mean
only that we do not know perfectly the details of such an operation, an
objection equally fatal to the origin either of matter or life, on the
hypothesis of evolution. Secondly, they always refer to creation as if it
must be a special miracle, in the sense of a contravention of or
departure from ordinary natural laws; but this is an assumption utterly
without proof, since creation may be as much according to law as
evolution, though in either case the precise laws involved may be very
imperfectly known.
How absurd, they say, to imagine an animal created at once, fully
formed, by a special miracle, instead of supposing it to be slowly
elaborated through, countless ages of evolution. To Darwin the
doctrine of creation is but “a curious illustration of the blindness of
preconceived opinion.” “These authors,” he says, “seem no more
startled at a miraculous act of creation than at an ordinary birth; but
do they really believe that at innumerable periods in the earth’s history,
certain elemental atoms have been commanded suddenly to flash into
living tissues?” Darwin, with all his philosophic fairness, sometimes
becomes almost Spencerian in his looseness of expression; and in the
above extract, the terms “miraculous,” “innumerable,” “elemental
atoms,” “suddenly,” and “flash,” all express ideas in no respect
necessary to the work of creation. Those who have no faith in
evolution as a cause of the production of species, may well ask in
return how the evolutionist can prove that creation must be
instantaneous, that it must follow no law, that it must produce an
animal fully formed, that it must be miraculous. In short, it is a portion
of the policy of evolutionists to endeavour to tie down their opponents
to a purely gratuitous and ignorant view of creation, and then to attack
them in that position.
What, then, is the actual statement of the theory of creation as it
may be held by a modern man of science? Simply this; that all things
have been produced by the Supreme Creative Will, acting either
directly or through the agency of the forces and materials of His own
production.
This theory does not necessarily affirm that creation is miraculous,
in the sense of being contrary to or subversive of law; law and order
are as applicable to creation as to any other process. It does not
contradict the idea of successive creations. There is no necessity that
the process should be instantaneous and without progression. It does
not imply that all kinds of creation are alike. There may be higher and
lower kinds. It does not exclude the idea of similarity or dissimilarity of
plan and function as to the products of creation. Distinct products of
creation may be either similar to each other in different degrees, or
dissimilar. It does not even exclude evolution or derivation to a certain
extent: anything once created may, if sufficiently flexible and elastic,
be evolved or involved in various ways. Indeed, creation and derivation
may, rightly understood, be complementary to each other. Created
things, unless absolutely unchangeable, must be more or less modified
by influences from within and from without, and derivation or evolution
may account for certain subordinate changes of things already made.
Man, for example, may be a product of creation, yet his creation may
have been in perfect harmony with those laws of procedure which the
Creator has set for His own operations. He may have been preceded by
other creations of things more or less similar or dissimilar. He may have
been created by the same processes with some or all of these, or by
different means. His body may have been created in one way, his soul
in another. He may, nay, in all probability would be, part of a plan of
which some parts would approach very near to him in structure or
functions. After his creation, spontaneous culture and outward
circumstances may have moulded him into varieties, and given him
many different kinds of speech and of habits. These points are so
obvious to common sense that it would be quite unnecessary to insist
on them, were they not habitually overlooked or misstated by
evolutionists.
The creation hypothesis is also free from some of the difficulties of
evolution. It avoids the absurdity of an eternal progression from the
less to the more complex. It provides in will, the only source of power
actually known to us by ordinary experience, an intelligible origin of
nature. It does not require us to contradict experience by supposing
that there are no differences of kind or essence in things. It does not
require us to assume, contrary to experience, an invariable tendency to
differentiate and improve. It does not exact the bridging over of all
gaps which may be found between the several grades of beings which
exist or have existed.
Why, then, are so many men of science disposed to ignore
altogether this view of the matter? Mainly, I believe, because, from the
training of many of them, they are absolutely ignorant of the subject,
and from their habits of thought have come to regard physical force
and the laws regulating it as the one power in nature, and to relegate
all spiritual powers or forces, or, as they have been taught to regard
them, “supernatural” things, to the domain of the “unknowable.”
Perhaps some portion of the difficulty may be got over by abandoning
altogether the word “supernatural,” which has been much misused,
and by holding nature to represent the whole cosmos, and to include
both the physical and the spiritual, both of them in the fullest sense
subject to law, but each to the law of its own special nature. I have
read somewhere a story of some ignorant orientals who were induced
to keep a steam-engine supplied with water by the fiction that it
contained a terrible djin, or demon, who, if allowed to become thirsty,
would break out and destroy them all. Had they been enabled to
discard this superstition, and to understand the force of steam, we can
readily imagine that they would now suppose they knew the whole
truth, and might believe that any one who taught them that the engine
was a product of intelligent design, was only taking them back to the
old doctrine of the thirsty demon of the boiler. This is, I think, at
present, the mental condition of many scientists with reference to
creation.
Here we come to the first demand which the doctrine of creation
makes on us by way of premises. In order that there may be creation
there must be a primary Self-existent Spirit, whose will is supreme. The
evolutionist cannot refuse to admit this on as good ground as that on
which we hesitate to receive the postulates of his faith. It is no real
objection to say that a God can be known to us only partially, and, with
reference to His real essence, not at all; since, even if we admit this, it
is no more than can be said of matter and force.
I am not about here to repeat any of the ordinary arguments for
the existence of a spiritual First Cause, and Creator of all things, but it
may be proper to show that this assumption is not inconsistent with
experience, or with the facts and principles of modern science. The
statement which I would make on this point shall be in the words of a
very old writer, not so well known as he should be to many who talk
volubly enough about antagonisms between science and Christianity:
“That which is known of God is manifest in them (in men), for God
manifested it unto them. For since the creation of the world His
invisible things, even His eternal power and divinity are plainly seen,
being perceived by means of things that are made.”[BD] The statement
here is very precise. Certain things relating to God are manifest within
men’s minds, and are proved by the evidence of His works; these
properties of God thus manifested being specially His power or control
of all forces, and His divinity or possession of a nature higher than
ours. The argument of the writer is that all heathens know this; and,
as a matter of fact, I believe it must be admitted even by those most
sceptical on such points, that some notion of a divinity has been
derived from nature by men of all nations and tribes, if we except,
perhaps, a few enlightened positivists of this nineteenth century whom
excess of light has made blind. “If the light that is in man be darkness,
how great is that darkness.” But then this notion of a God is a very old
and primitive one, and Spencer takes care to inform us that “first
thoughts are either wholly out of harmony with things, or in very
incomplete harmony with them,” and consequently that old beliefs and
generally diffused notions are presumably wrong.
[BD] Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, chap i.

Is it true, however, that the modern knowledge of nature tends to

rob it of a spiritual First Cause? One can conceive such a tendency, if
all our advances in knowledge had tended more and more to identify
force with matter in its grosser forms, and to remove more and more
from our mental view those powers which are not material; but the
very reverse of this is the case. Modern discovery has tended more and
more to attach importance to certain universally diffused media which
do not seem to be subject to the laws of ordinary matter, and to prove
at once the Protean character and indestructibility of forces, the
aggregate of which, as acting in the universe, gives us our nearest
approach to the conception of physical omnipotence. This is what so
many of our evolutionists mean when they indignantly disclaim
materialism. They know that there is a boundless energy beyond mere
matter, and of which matter seems the sport and toy. Could they
conceive of this energy as the expression of a personal will, they would
become theists.
Man himself presents a microcosm of matter and force, raised to a
higher plane than that of the merely chemical and physical. In him we
find not merely that brain and nerve force which is common to him and
lower animals, and which exhibits one of the most marvellous energies
in nature, but we have the higher force of will and intellect, enabling
him to read the secrets of nature, to seize and combine and utilize its
laws like a god, and like a god to attain to the higher discernment of
good and evil. Nay, more, this power which resides within man rules
with omnipotent energy the material organism, driving its nerve forces
until cells and fibres are worn out and destroyed, taxing muscles and
tendons till they break, impelling its slave the body even to that which
will bring injury and death itself. Surely, what we thus see in man must
be the image and likeness of the Great Spirit. We can escape from this
conclusion only by one or other of two assumptions, either of which is
rather to be called a play upon words than a scientific theory. We may,
with a certain class of physicists and physiologists, confine our
attention wholly to the fire and the steam, and overlook the engineer.
We may assume that with protoplasm and animal electricity, for
example, we can dispense with life, and not only with life but with
spirit also. Yet he who regards vitality as an unmeaning word; and yet
speaks of “living protoplasm,” and “dead protoplasm,” and affirms that
between these two states, so different in their phenomena, no
chemical or physical difference exists, is surely either laughing at us, or
committing himself to what the Duke of Argyll calls a philosophical bull;
and he who shows us that electrical discharges are concerned in
muscular contraction, has just as much proved that there is no need of
life or spirit, as the electrician who has explained the mysteries of the
telegraph has shown that there can be no need of an operator. Or we
may, turning to the opposite extreme, trust to the metaphysical fallacy
of those who affirm that neither matter, nor force, nor spirit, need
concern them, for that all are merely states of consciousness in
ourselves. But what of the conscious self this self which thinks, and
which is in relation with surroundings which it did not create, and
which presumably did not create it? and what is the unknown third
term which must have been the means of setting up these relations?
Here again our blind guides involve us in an absolute self-contradiction.
Thus we are thrown back on the grand old truth that man, heathen
and savage, or Christian and scientific, opens his eyes on nature and
reads therein both the physical and the spiritual, and in connection
with both of these the power and divinity of an Almighty Creator. He
may at first have many wrong views both of God and of His works, but
as he penetrates further into the laws of matter and mind, he attains
more just conceptions of their relations to the Great Centre and Source
of all, and instead of being able to dispense with creation, he hopes to
be able at length to understand its laws and methods. If unhappily he
abandons this high ambition, and contents himself with mere matter
and physical force, he cannot rise to the highest development either of
science or philosophy.
 It may, however, be said that evolution may admit all this, and still
be held as a scientific doctrine in connection with a modified belief in
creation. The work of actual creation may have been limited to a few
elementary types, and evolution may have done the rest. Evolutionists
may still be theists. We have already seen that the doctrine, as carried
out to its logical consequences, excludes creation and theism. It may,
however, be shown that even in its more modified forms, and when
held by men who maintain that they are not atheists, it is practically
atheistic, because excluding the idea of plan and design, and resolving
all things into the action of unintelligent forces. It is necessary to
observe this, because it is the half-way evolutionism which professes to
have a Creator somewhere behind it, that is most popular; though it is,
if possible, more unphilosophical than that which professes to set out
from absolute and eternal nonentity, or from self-existent star-dust
containing all the possibilities of the universe.
Absolute atheists recognise in Darwinism, for example, a philosophy
which reduces all things to a “gradual summation of innumerable
minute and accidental material operations,” and in this they are more
logical than those who seek to reconcile evolution with design. Huxley,
in his “lay sermons,” referring to Paley’s argument for design founded
on the structure of a watch, says that if the watch could be conceived
to be a product of a less perfect structure improved by natural
selection, it would then appear to be the “result of a method of trial
and error worked by unintelligent agents, as likely as of the direct
application of the means appropriate to that end, by an intelligent
agent.” This is a bold and true assertion of the actual relation of even
this modified evolution to rational and practical theism, which requires
not merely this God “afar off,” who has set the stone of nature rolling
and then turned His back upon it, but a present God, whose will is the
law of nature, now as in times past. The evolutionist is really in a
position of absolute antagonism to the idea of creation, even when
held with all due allowance for the variations of created things within
certain limits.
Perhaps Paley’s old illustration of the watch, as applied by Huxley,
may serve to show this as well as any other. If the imperfect watch,
useless as a time-keeper, is the work of the contriver, and the
perfection of it is the result of unintelligent agents working fortuitously,
then it is clear that creation and design have a small and evanescent
share in the construction of the fabric of nature. But is it really so? Can
we attribute the perfection of the watch to “accidental material
operations” any more than the first effort to produce such an
instrument? Paley himself long ago met this view of the case, but his
argument may be extended by the admissions and pleas of the
evolutionists themselves. For example, the watch is altogether a
mechanical thing, and this fact by no means implies that it could not
be made by an intelligent and spiritual designer, yet this assumption
that physical laws exclude creation and design turns up in almost every
page of the evolutionists. Paley has well shown that if the watch
contained within itself machinery for making other watches, this would
not militate against his argument. It would be so if it could be proved
that a piece of metal had spontaneously produced an imperfect watch,
and this a more perfect one, and so on; but this is precisely what
evolutionists still require to prove with respect both to the watch and
to man. On the other hand it is no argument for the evolution of the
watch that there may be different kinds of watches, some more and
others less perfect, and that ruder forms may have preceded the more
perfect. This is perfectly compatible with creation and design.
Evolutionists, however, generally fail to make this distinction. Nor
would it be any proof of the evolution of the watch to find that, as
Spencer would say, it was in perfect harmony with its environment, as,
for instance, that it kept time with the revolution of the earth, and
contained contrivances to regulate its motion under different
temperatures, unless it could be shown that the earth’s motion and the
changes of temperature had been efficient causes of the motion and
the adjustments of the watch; otherwise the argument would look
altogether in the direction of design. Nor would it be fair to shut up the
argument of design to the idea that the watch must have suddenly
flashed into existence fully formed and in motion. It would be quite as
much a creation if slowly and laboriously made by the hand of the
artificer, or if more rapidly struck off by machinery; and if the latter, it
would not follow that the machine which produced the watch was at all
like the watch itself. It might have been something very different.
Finally, when Spencer tries to cut at the root of the whole of this
argument, by affirming that man has no more right to reason from
himself with regard to his Maker than a watch would have to reason
from its own mechanical structure and affirm the like of its maker, he
signally fails. If the watch had such power of reasoning, it would be
more than mechanical, and would be intelligent like its maker; and in
any case, if thus reasoning it came to the conclusion that it was a
result of “accidental material operations,” it would be altogether
mistaken. Nor would it be nearer the truth if it held that it was a
product of spontaneous evolution from an imperfect and comparatively
useless watch that had been made millions of years before.
We have taken this illustration of the watch merely as given to us
by Huxley, and without in the least seeking to overlook the distinction
between a dead machine and a living organism; but the argument for
creation and design is quite as strong in the case of the latter, so long
as it cannot be proved by actual facts to be a product of derivation
from a distinct species. This has not been proved either in the care of
man or any other species; and so long as it has not, the theory of
creation and design is infinitely more rational and scientific than that of
evolution in any of its forms.
But all this does not relieve us from the question, How can species
be created?—the same question put to Paul by the sceptics of the first
century with reference to the resurrection—“How are the dead raised,
and with what bodies do they come?” I do not wish to evade this
question, whether applied to man or to a microscopic animalcule, and I
would answer it with the following statements:—
1. The advocate of creation is in this matter in no worse position
than the evolutionist. This we have already shown, and I may refer
here to the fact that Darwin himself assumes at least one primitive
form of animal and plant life, and he is confessedly just as little able to
imagine this one act of creation as any other that may be demanded of
him.
2. We are not bound to believe that all groups of individual animals,
which naturalists may call species, have been separate products of
creation. Man himself has by some naturalists been divided into several
species; but we may well be content to believe the creation of one
primitive form, and the production of existing races by variation. Every
zoologist and botanist who has studied any group of animals or plants
with care, knows that there are numerous related forms passing into
each other, which some naturalists might consider to be distinct
species, but which it is certainly not necessary to regard as distinct
products of creation. Every species is more or less variable, and this
variability may be developed by different causes. Individuals exposed
to unfavourable conditions will be stunted and depauperated; those in
more favourable circumstances may be improved and enlarged.
Important changes may thus take place without transgressing the
limits of the species, or preventing a return to its typical forms; and the
practice of confounding these more limited changes with the wider
structural and physiological differences which separate true species is
much to be deprecated. Animals which pass through metamorphoses,
or which, are developed through the instrumentality of intermediate
forms or “nurses”[BE] are not only liable to be separated by mistake
into distinct species, but they may, tinder certain circumstances, attain
to a premature maturity, or may be fixed for a time or permanently in
an immature condition. Further, species, like individuals, probably have
their infancy, maturity, and decay in geological time, and may present
differences in these several stages. It is the remainder of true specific
types left after all these sources of error are removed, that creation
has to account for; and to arrive at this remainder, and to ascertain its
nature and amount, will require a vast expenditure of skilful and
conscientious labour.
[BE] Mr. Mungo Ponton, in his book “The Beginning,” has based
a theory of derivation on this peculiarity.

3. Since animals and plants have been introduced upon our earth in
long succession throughout geologic time, and this in a somewhat
regular manner, we have a right to assume that their introduction has
been in accordance with a law or plan of creation, and that this may
have included the co-operation of many efficient causes, and may have
differed in its application to different cases. This is a very old doctrine
of theology, for it appears in the early chapters of Genesis. There the
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