Volume I Part 53 (2/2)

I remember, in the course ofmy belief in the sharpness of the lines of deroups and in the absence of transitional fore I was not aware, at that ti over the species-question; and the huentle answer, that such was not altogether his view, long haunted and puzzled me But it would seem that four or five years' hard work had enabled me to understand what it e 212), writing to Sir Charles Bunbury (under date of April 30, 1856), says:--

”When Huxley, Hooker, and Wollaston were at Darwin's last week they (all four of theainst species--further, I believe, than they are prepared to go”

I recollect nothing of this beyond the fact ofMr Wollaston; and except for Sir Charles' distinct assurance as to ”all four,” I should have thought my ”outrecuidance” was probably a counterblast to Wollaston's conservatisard to Hooker, he was already, like Voltaire's Habbakuk, ”capable du tout” in the way of advocating Evolution

As I have already said, I iht seriously about the matter, were very much in my own state of mind--inclined to say to both Mosaists and Evolutionists, ”a plague on both your houses!” and disposed to turn aside from an interminable and apparently fruitless discussion, to labour in the fertile fields of ascertainable fact And I may, therefore, further suppose that the publication of the Darwin and Wallace papers in 1858, and still in' in 1859, had the effect upon theht, which to a ht, suddenly reveals a road which, whether it takes hioes his way That which ere looking for, and could not find, was a hypothesis respecting the origin of known organic forms, which assumed the operation of no causes but such as could be proved to be actually at work We wanted, not to pin our faith to that or any other speculation, but to get hold of clear and definite conceptions which could be brought face to face with facts and have their validity tested The 'Origin' provided us with the working hypothesis we sought Moreover, it did the i us for ever from the dilemma--refuse to accept the creation hypothesis, and what have you to propose that can be accepted by any cautious reasoner?

In 1857, I had no answer ready, and I do not think that any one else had A year later, we reproached ourselves with dullness for being perplexed by such an inquiry My reflection, when I first in,' was, ”How extreht of that!” I suppose that Colu stand on end The facts of variability, of the struggle for existence, of adaptation to conditions, were notorious enough; but none of us had suspected that the road to the heart of the species probleh them, until Darwin and Wallace dispelled the darkness, and the beacon-fire of the 'Origin' guided the benighted

Whether the particular shape which the doctrine of evolution, as applied to the organic world, took in Darwin's hands, would prove to be final or not, was, to me, a in' I ventured to point out that its logical foundation was insecure so long as experi had not produced varieties which were more or less infertile; and that insecurity remains up to the present time But, with any and every critical doubt which est, the Darwinian hypothesis remained incomparably more probable than the creation hypothesis And if we had none of us been able to discern the paranificance of some of the most patent and notorious of natural facts, until they were, so to speak, thrust under our noses, what force re? It was obvious that, hereafter, the probability would be ireater, that the links of natural causation were hidden from our purblind eyes, than that natural causation should be incompetent to produce all the phenomena of nature

The only rational course for those who had no other object than the attain hypothesis, and see what could be made of it Either it would prove its capacity to elucidate the facts of organic life, or it would break down under the strain This was surely the dictate of common sense; and, for once, common sense carried the day The result has been that complete volte-face of the whole scientific world, which eneration I do not ical science have avowed thele zoologist, or botanist, or palaeontologist, aeneration, who is other than an evolutionist, profoundly influenced by Darwin's views Whatever may be the ultimate fate of the particular theory put forth by Darwin, I venture to affirenuity and all the learning of hostile critics have not enabled them to adduce a solitary fact, of which it can be said, this is irreconcilable with the Darwinian theory In the prodigious variety and coanic nature, there are eneralisations we have yet reached But the same may be said of every other class of natural objects I believe that astronoet the ravitation

It would be inappropriate, even if it were possible, to discuss the difficulties and unresolved problems which have hitherto met the evolutionist, and which will probably continue to puzzle hienerations to come, in the course of this brief history of the reception of Mr Darwin's great work But there are two or three objections of a eneral character, based, or supposed to be based, upon philosophical and theological foundations, which were loudly expressed in the early days of the Darwinian controversy, and which, though they have been answered over and over again, crop up now and then to the present day

The ular of these, perhaps immortal, fallacies, which live on, tithonus-like, when sense and force have long deserted the attean Goddess, Chance It is said that he supposes variations to come about ”by chance,” and that the fittest survive the ”chances” of the struggle for existence, and thus ”chance” is substituted for providential design

It is not a little wonderful that such an accusation as this should be brought against a writer who has, over and over again, warned his readers that when he uses the word ”spontaneous,” he norant of the cause of that which is so termed; and whose whole theory cruularity of natural causation for illies is denied But probably the best answer to those who talk of Darwinisn of ”chance,” is to ask them what they the in this universe happens without reason or without a cause? Do they really conceive that any event has no cause, and could not have been predicted by any one who had a sufficient insight into the order of Nature? If they do, it is they who are the inheritors of antique superstition and ignorance, and whose ht The one act of faith in the convert to science, is the confession of the universality of order and of the absolute validity in all times and under all circumstances, of the law of causation This confession is an act of faith, because, by the nature of the case, the truth of such propositions is not susceptible of proof But such faith is not blind, but reasonable; because it is invariably confirmed by experience, and constitutes the sole trustworthy foundation for all action

If one of these people, in whoely survives, should be within reach of the sea when a heavy gale is blowing, let him betake himself to the shore and watch the scene Let hi waves out at sea; or of the curves of their foaainst the rocks; let hile as it is cast up and torn down the beach; or look at the flakes of foam as they drive hither and thither before the wind; or note the play of colours, which answers a gleam of sunshi+ne as it falls upon the myriad bubbles Surely here, if anywhere, he will say that chance is supreme, and bend the knee as one who has entered the very penetralia of his divinity But the man of science knows that here, as everywhere, perfect order is manifested; that there is not a curve of the waves, not a note in the howling chorus, not a rainbow-glint on a bubble, which is other than a necessary consequence of the ascertained laws of nature; and that with a sufficient knowledge of the conditions, competent physico-mathematical skill could account for, and indeed predict, every one of these ”chance” events

A second very common objection to Mr Darwin's vieas (and is), that they abolish Teleology, and eviscerate the argun It is nearly twenty years since I ventured to offer souments have as yet received no refutation, I hope Ithem I observed, ”that the doctrine of Evolution is the most formidable opponent of all the coy But perhaps the y rendered by Mr Darwin is the reconciliation of Teleology and Morphology, and the explanation of the facts of both, which his views offer The teleology which supposes that the eye, such as we see it in her vertebrata, was made with the precise structure it exhibits, for the purpose of enabling the animal which possesses it to see, has undoubtedly received its death-blow

Nevertheless, it is necessary to rey which is not touched by the doctrine of Evolution, but is actually based upon the fundamental proposition of Evolution This proposition is that the whole world, living and not living, is the result of theto definite laws, of the forces (I should now like to substitute the word powers for ”forces”) possessed by the molecules of which the primitive nebulosity of the universe was composed If this be true, it is no less certain that the existing world lay potentially in the cosence could, froe of the properties of the molecules of that vapour, have predicted, say the state of the fauna of Britain in 1869, with as much certainty as one can say ill happen to the vapour of the breath on a cold winter's day

The teleological and the mechanical views of nature are not, necessarily, mutually exclusive On the contrary, the more purely a mechanist the speculator is, the ement of which all the phenomena of the universe are the consequences, and the ist, who can always defy hiement was not intended to evolve the phenoy of Animals” ('The Academy,' 1869), reprinted in 'Critiques and Addresses')

The acute cha that the ”production of things” may be the result of trains of ent appointment and kept in action by a power at the centre ('Natural Theology,' chapter xxiii), that is to say, he proleptically accepted the ht do well to follow their leader, or at any rate to attend to his weighty reasonings, before rushi+ng into an antagonisot rid of the belief in chance and the disbelief in design, as in no sense appurtenances of Evolution, the third libel upon that doctrine, that it is anti-theistic, ht perhaps be left to shi+ft for itself But the persistence hich many people refuse to draw the plainest consequences from the propositions they profess to accept, renders it advisable to remark that the doctrine of Evolution is neither Anti-theistic nor Theistic It simply has no more to do with Theism than the first book of Euclid has It is quite certain that a nor contains neither cock nor hen; and it is also as certain as any proposition in physics oris kept under proper conditions for three weeks, a cock or hen chicken will be found in it It is also quite certain that if the shell were transparent we should be able to watch the for fowl, day by day, by a process of evolution, froerm to its full size and complication of structure Therefore Evolution, in the strictest sense, is actually going on in this and analogouscreatures exist Therefore, to borrow an argument from Butler, as that which now happens must be consistent with the attributes of the Deity, if such a Being exists, Evolution must be consistent with those attributes And, if so, the evolution of the universe, which is neither more nor less explicable than that of a chicken, must also be consistent with them The doctrine of Evolution, therefore, does not even come into contact with Theism, considered as a philosophical doctrine That hich it does collide, and hich it is absolutely inconsistent, is the conception of creation, which theological speculators have based upon the history narrated in the opening of the book of Genesis

There is a great deal of talk and not a little laious difficulties which physical science has created

In theological science, as a matter of fact, it has created none Not a solitary problem presents itself to the philosophical Theist, at the present day, which has not existed frorounds and the logical consequences of Theisinary perplexities which flow from the conception of the universe as a determinate mechanism, are equally involved in the assumption of an Eternal, Oical equivalent of the scientific conception of order is Providence; and the doctrine of detere assuian, as from the universality of natural causation assuels in 'Paradise Lost' would have found the task of enlightening Adae, and Free-will,” not a whit more difficult, if their pupil had been educated in a ”Real-schule” and trained in every laboratory of a reat probleeneration is, in one sense, exactly where the prae-Darwinian generations were They ree of being better provided with theitself from the tyranny of certain sham solutions

The known is finite, the unknown infinite; intellectually we stand on an islet in the midst of an illieneration is to reclai to the extent and the solidity of our possessions And even a cursory glance at the history of the biological sciences during the last quarter of a century is sufficient to justify the assertion, that the most potent instrue which has come into men's hands, since the publication of Newton's 'Principia,' is Darwin's 'Origin of Species'

It was badly received by the generation to which it was first addressed, and the outpouring of angry nonsense to which it gave rise is sad to think upon But the present generation will probably behave just as badly if another Darwin should arise, and inflict upon theenerality oftheir convictions Let them, then, be charitable to us ancients; and if they behave no better than the men of my day to some new benefactor, let them recollect that, after all, our wrath did not coe of sanctiht-about-face, and follow the truth wherever it leads The opponents of the new truth will discover, as those of Darwin are doing, that, after all, theories do not alter facts, and that the universe reh texts crumble Or, it enuity will also discover that the neine is exactly of the sahtly viewed) the old bottles prove to have been expresslyit