Those who protest against the popular phrase, "Design proves a Designer," say it is a temptation to assume this point—(the one point at issue)—over which it skims with such secure ease. But to any person in earnest, few things are more irritating than a piece of cool, thorough-going assumption. It is like catching a cat and persistently calling it a hare. Many visitors at certain Roman Hotels are aware that when deprived of ears and tail more Italico and well roasted, the resemblance between these two animals may give rise to questions of disputed identity. Imagine, now, a party of cat-catchers, who not only assume the Identity, but persevere in calling their mongrel curs harehounds, and themselves huntsmen. No truer claim in reality do a multitude of Design-hunters possess to any higher title than the leguleii of Natural Theology. And the blame of their discredit must in a great degree be laid upon their words. It is easy to say, "A thrown-stone implies a thrower." But suppose the stone about which you and I are talking was thrown by the fiery force of a volcano? Must we hence infer the existence of a Cyclops or a Titan?
This mode of popular speech reached the climax of absurdity when it was gravely argued that "Evolution implies an Evolver." So it might appear to the peculiar mind of the speaker; but how about the mind of him who promulgated the evolution-hypothesis? Stones (as we may observe) fly from more than one cause, and there is more than one account to be given of the theory of Evolution.
Enough has been said to show that the phrase commented on in this note, prejudices the argument it is intended to assist. It wears the appearance of embodying a foregone conclusion; and gives trouble to the honest inquirer, who, in order to estimate reasonings at their true value, must translate them into accurate forms of speech.
We may aptly finish these remarks by a quotation from Whewell's Aphorisms on the Language of Science. (Aphorism I., Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, II. 483.) "Words borrowed from common language, and converted by scientific writers into technical terms, have some advantages and some disadvantages. They possess this great convenience, that they are understood after a very short explanation, and retained in the memory without effort. On the other hand they lead to some inconvenience; for since they have a meaning in common language, a careless reader is prone to disregard the technical limitation of this meaning, and to attempt to collect their import in scientific books, in the same vague and conjectural manner in which he collects the purpose of words in common cases. Hence the language of science, when thus resembling common language, is liable to be employed with an absence of that scientific precision which alone gives it value. Popular writers and talkers, when they speak of force, momentum, action, and reaction, and the like, often afford examples of the inaccuracy thus arising from the scientific appropriation of common terms."
A similar line of reflection led Coleridge to remark (Biog. Lit., Chap. x.) that "the language of the market would be in the schools as pedantic, though it might not be reprobated by that name, as the language of the schools in the market. The mere man of the world, who insists that no other terms but such as occur in common conversation should be employed in a scientific disquisition, and with no greater precision, is as truly a pedant as the man of letters, who, either over-rating the acquirements of his auditors, or misled by his own familiarity with technical or scholastic terms, converses at the wine-table with his mind fixed on his museum or laboratory." And such pedantry is, we may add, not uncommonly just as perspicuous as the definition which, says old Glanvill, "was lately given of a Thought in a University Sermon—viz. A Repentine Prosiliency jumping into Being." (Defence of the Vanity of Dogmatizing, Actio Decima, p. 61, ed. 1.)
C.—HUME ON THE ANALOGIES OF ART AND NATURE.
[Referred to in footnote (e) in the preceding Chapter.]
The statement in the text is shaped as a not unfairly urged scientific objection of the kind which might be raised by some actual craftsman or producer. An objection identical in essence is thrown by Hume into a refined semi-metaphysical shape, and made to turn upon our general acquaintance with Human nature contrasted with our general ignorance of the Divine. It runs as follows:—
"The infinite difference of the subjects, replied he," (Hume's dramatic Epicurus,) "is a sufficient foundation for this difference in my conclusions. In works of human art and contrivance, it is allowable to advance from the effect to the cause, and returning back from the cause, to form new inferences concerning the effect, and examine the alterations which it has probably undergone, or may still undergo. But what is the foundation of this method of reasoning? Plainly this; that man is a being, whom we know by experience, whose motives and designs we are acquainted with, and whose projects and inclinations have a certain connection and coherence, according to the laws which nature has established for the government of such a creature. When, therefore, we find that any work has proceeded from the skill and industry of man; as we are otherwise acquainted with the nature of the animal, we can draw a hundred inferences concerning what may be expected from him; and these inferences will all be founded in experience and observation. But did we know man only from the single work or production which we examine, it were impossible for us to argue in this manner; because our knowledge of all the qualities, which we ascribe to him, being in that case derived from the production, it is impossible they could point to anything farther, or be the foundation of any new inference....