We have been considering this class of questions only as a naturalist might who sought for the proper or reasonable interpretation of the problem before him, unmingled with considerations from any other source. Weightier arguments in the last resort, drawn from the intellectual and moral constitution of man, lie on a higher plane, to which it was unnecessary for our particular purpose to rise, however indispensable this be to a full presentation of the evidence of mind in Nature. To us the evidence, judged as impartially as we are capable of judging, appears convincing. But, whatever view one unconvinced may take, it cannot remain doubtful what position a theist ought to occupy. If he cannot recognize design in Nature because of evolution, he may be ranked with those of whom it was said, "Except ye see signs and wonders ye will not believe." How strange that a convinced theist should be so prone to associate design only with miracle!
All turns, however, upon what is meant by this Nature, to which it appears more and more probable that the being and becoming—no less than the well-being and succession—of species and genera, as well as of individuals, are committed. To us it means "the world of force and movement in time and space," as Aristotle defined it—the system and totality of things in the visible universe. What is generally called Nature Prof. Tyndall names matter—a peculiar nomenclature, requiring new definitions (as he avers), inviting misunderstanding, and leaving the questions we are concerned with just where they were. For it is still to ask: whence this rich endowment of matter? Whence comes that of which all we see and know is the outcome? That to which potency may in the last resort be ascribed, Prof. Tyndall, suspending further judgment, calls mystery—using the word in one of its senses, namely, something hidden from us which we are not to seek to know. But there are also mysteries proper to be inquired into and to be reasoned about; and, although it may not be given unto us to know the mystery of causation, there can hardly be a more legitimate subject of philosophical inquiry. Most scientific men have thought themselves intellectually authorized to have an opinion about it. "For, by the primitive and very ancient men, it has been handed down in the form of myths, and thus left to later generations, that the Divine it is which holds together all Nature;" and this tradition, of which Aristotle, both naturalist and philosopher, thus nobly speaks[XIII-5]—continued through succeeding ages, and illuminated by the Light which has come into the world—may still express the worthiest thoughts of the modern scientific investigator and reasoner.
FOOTNOTES:
I-1. "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the
Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life," by Charles Darwin,
M.A., Fellow of the Royal, Geological, Linnaean, etc., Societies, Author of
"Journal of Researches during H. M. S. Beagle's Voyage round the World."
London: John Murray. 1859. 502 pp., post 8vo.
I-2. Article in this Journal, vol. xxiv., p. 305.
I-3. "Species tot sunt, quot diversas formas ab initio produxit Infinitum Ens; quae formae secundum generationis inditas leges, produxere plures, at sibi semper similes."—Linn. Phil. Bot., 99, 157.
I-4. Agassiz, "Essay on Classification; Contributions to Natural History," p. 132, et seq.
I-5. As to this, Darwin remarks that he can only hope to see the law hereafter proved true (p. 449); and p. 338: "Agassiz insists that ancient animals resemble to a certain extent the embryos of recent animals of the same classes; or that the geological succession of extinct forms is in some degree parallel to the embryological development of recent forms. I must follow Pictet and Huxley in thinking that the truth of this doctrine is very far from proved. Yet I fully expect to see it hereafter confirmed, at least in regard to subordinate groups, which have branched off from each other within comparatively recent times. For this doctrine of Agassiz accords well with the theory of natural selection."
I-6. Op. cit., p. 131.—One or two Bridgewater Treatises, and most modern works upon natural theology, should have rendered the evidences of thought in inorganic Nature not "unexpected."
I-7. Volume xvii. (2), 1854, p. 13.