VIII.
INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE
The theory of Design is singularly tenacious of existence, as many errors and all truths are. Science still speaks of "organs," that is of "tools" (ὄργανα), and of organs as performing "functions"; for the fact remains that organs are the instruments by means of which the organism acts, and that they have each their appropriate work to do, their function to perform, though science may decline to draw the inference that the instruments were designed to perform the work they do.
The Argument from Design was a comparatively simple affair as long as the organism and the environment were assumed to have been separately created: you had only to show how marvellously and perfectly they fitted one another when brought together, and it followed that they must have been designed to fit—to say they only chanced to fit was obviously absurd. But when science discovered that organism and environment were not thus independent of one another, the marvel vanished: if the environment shaped the organism, or the organism modified the environment to suit itself, no wonder that they fitted one another. It ceases to be remarkable that rivers should always flow by great cities, when we reflect that men selected sites near rivers. And chance seemed to have been established by Evolution where Design once reigned; for, if the only forms of life which can flourish in a given spot are those which are suited to the place, all we can say is that, if one form is fit to survive, it will; and if it is not, some other will. Whatever form survives will do so, not because it was designed to do so, but because it happened to be suited to its surroundings. In fine, organisms and their organs are what they are because circumstances and their past history have made them so: they have been evolved, not designed.
A little reflection, however, is enough to show that the Argument from Design is not completely excluded by evolution: things in general are what circumstances and their past history have made them; but were not those very circumstances designed to evolve what they did? Nay, are we not compelled to assume that they were so designed, if we believe in a Designer?
If, however, we ask Natural Science to discuss these questions with us, she declines the invitation on the ground that it is not her business to do so: her business is to find out in what way, not with what purpose, animal life has come to assume the various forms in which we know it; and she can do this, her business, quite well—indeed better—without discussing such questions. If it were proved that the history of animal life upon this earth had been intended from the beginning to follow the lines on which it has actually developed, not one of the problems which Natural Science has yet to solve would be brought a whit nearer solution; nor would she be any the better off, if it were proved that there was no design. She therefore very properly declines to discuss the question: there may be a Design and a Designer, or there may not; she does not know; if it is the business of science to answer the question, it must be of some other science, not of Natural Science.
So too Physical Science, when asked whether the laws of motion and matter were not designed to produce the effects which they actually do cause, replies that they may or may not, but that the law of gravitation, for instance, is equally true for her purposes, whether bodies were or were not designed to fall to the earth at the rate of sixteen feet in the first second, and so on. It may be the business of some other science to answer such questions: it is not the business of Physical Science.
And so the inquirer may go the round of the whole family of Sciences. It is an extraordinarily industrious family. It has an enormous amount of work to do: it has to feed, clothe, and generally provide for all mankind. And it can only carry on at all by a very careful division of labour: each science has her allotted task, and can only get the day's work done in the day by strictly confining herself to that task. Each science has her own questions to answer, and can only succeed in doing so by refusing to listen to any others.
The inquirer may think it strange that, in all this vast and active organisation for answering questions, no provision should be made for answering what seem to him to be some of the most important questions of all; and if he has been brought up really to believe in science, he will think it too strange to be true; he will persist with his questions, and will be eventually rewarded for his faith by discovering that there is a science which undertakes to answer them—Theology. But he will also discover that Theology is not very cordially esteemed by her sister sciences—not that they are jealous of her because she has the presumption to profess to answer questions which they acknowledge to be too high for them, but because there are grave suspicions as to her legitimacy: it is doubted whether she is a Science at all. She is, they are afraid it must be admitted, untruthful, immoral, and certainly altogether unscientific: she says what she cannot prove, and says she believes it. But they know she only pretends to believe it: they, of course, do not believe anything on insufficient evidence; what hypocrisy, then, to pretend that anyone can really believe anything except what is proved by scientific methods! They are thankful to say that they have no "faith." However, she may improve; she is certainly very backward; still, she may grow up into a common-sense science like her sisters; and then she will give up the foolish idea that she can answer questions which they cannot.
And now what truth is there in the picture thus drawn?