XV
DARWINISM
IT must first be observed that special consideration of Mr. Darwin's theory is rendered necessary even more imperatively on account of the claims advanced on his behalf by others, than of those to which he himself made any pretence. Without question the idea prevails almost universally, that he has furnished a scientific explanation of all organic phenomena through the operation of purely natural laws, and has thus rendered obsolete the idea that any power beyond Nature is required in order to account for the totality of things, or that there are any features of the world which indicate the operation of intelligent purpose.
That such ideas should be widely prevalent amongst those who, having no special acquaintance with the subject, must depend for their knowledge on the popularizers of Science, is scarcely wonderful, for such teachers, with scarcely an exception, so declare, and occasionally real men of Science lend the weight of their authority to similar statements.[{150}]
It will be sufficient to cite Professor Haeckel, who writes thus:[177]
It seemed to Kant so impossible to explain the orderly processes in the living organism without postulating super-natural final causes (that is, a purposive creative force) that he said, "It is quite certain that we cannot even satisfactorily understand, much less elucidate, the nature of an organism and its internal faculty on purely mechanical natural principles—it is so certain, indeed, that we may confidently say: It is absurd for a man even to conceive the idea that some day a Newton will arise who can explain the origin of a single blade of grass by natural laws uncontrolled by design. Such a hope is entirely forbidden us." Seventy years afterwards this impossible Newton of the organic world appeared in the person of Charles Darwin, and achieved the great task that Kant had deemed impracticable.
It is quite impossible to understand how such an assertion can be made by any one who knows the facts. Not only did Mr. Darwin never profess to have achieved any thing of the kind,—he repeatedly and distinctly disclaimed and repudiated any such supposition. Thus at the very end of his life (August 28, 1881) he wrote concerning one who had spoken of him like Professor Haeckel:
He implies that my views explain the universe; but it is a most monstrous exaggeration. The more one[{151}] thinks, the more one feels the hopeless immensity of man's ignorance. If we consider the whole universe, the mind refuses to look at it as the outcome of chance.[178] The whole question seems to me insoluble.
But it should not be necessary to appeal to such disclaimers in order to show how absolutely unwarrantable are the pretensions made on Mr. Darwin's behalf to have solved, or to have attempted to solve, the fundamental problems which scientific research unceasingly suggests but has never been able to elucidate. It should be quite sufficient to examine his theory as it actually is, and although its scope is immensely less ambitious than has been represented, it still occupies, even in its genuine form, a position of sufficient importance to challenge investigation.
Mr. Darwin's famous and epoch-making book, published in November, 1859, was entitled On the Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection,[{152}] or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. In it he undertook to show how from one species[179] of animals or plants, another, quite distinct from it, may be derived by means of processes which go on in Nature every day, through the accumulation of minute differences occurring in successive generations, and guided to their collective result by the force of "Natural Selection." As man, he argues, has by means of selection been able to produce in a brief space such astonishing varieties among his domestic animals and plants—as dogs, pigeons, roses or apples,—Nature, with the practically unlimited ages of geological time at her disposal, must be able to produce far greater and more enduring transformations, through the accumulation of minute differences, such as those upon which man has worked,—if only a factor can be found which amid the infinity of diverse and discordant variations spontaneously occurring, could, like the breeder or the gardener, pick out those leading to one particular result, and thus secure its accomplishment. Such a force Mr. Darwin conceives is found in "Natural Selection," which he thus explains.[{153}]