Testimony of the Advocates of the Theory.

It is time to turn to the exposition of Darwinism by its avowed advocates, in proof of the assertion that it excludes all teleology.

The first of these witnesses is Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace, himself a distinguished naturalist. Mr. Darwin informs his readers that as early as 1844, he had collected his material and worked out his theory, but had not published it to the world, although it had been communicated to some of his friends. In 1858 he received a memoir from Mr. Wallace, who was then studying the natural history of the Malay Archipelago. From that memoir he learnt that Mr. Wallace had "arrived at almost exactly the same conclusions as I (he himself) have on the origin of species." This led to the publishing his book on that subject contemporaneously with Mr. Wallace's memoir. There has been no jealousy or rivalry between these gentlemen. Mr. Wallace gracefully acknowledges the priority of Mr. Darwin's claim, and attributes to him the credit of having elaborated and sustained it in a way to secure for it universal attention. These facts are mentioned in order to show the competency of Mr. Wallace as a witness as to the true character of Darwinism.

Mr. Wallace, in "The Theory of Natural Selection," devotes a chapter to the consideration of the objections urged by the Duke of Argyll, in his work on the "Reign of Law," against that theory. Those objections are principally two: first, that design necessarily implies an intelligent designer; and second, that beauty not being an advantage to its possessor in the struggle for life, cannot be accounted for on the principle of the survival of the fittest. The Duke, he says, maintains that contrivance and beauty indicate "the constant supervision and interference of the Creator, and cannot possibly be explained by the unassisted action of any combination of laws. Now, Mr. Darwin's work," he adds, "has for its main object to show that all the phenomena of living things—all their wonderful organs and complicated structures, their infinite variety of form, size, and color, their intricate and involved relations to each other—may have been produced by the action of a few general laws of the simplest kind, laws which are in most cases mere statements of admitted facts." (p. 265) Those laws are those with which we are familiar: Heredity, Variations, Over Production, Struggle for Life, Survival of the Fittest. "It is probable," he says, "that these primary facts or laws are but results of the very nature of life, and of the essential properties of organized and unorganized matter. Mr. Herbert Spencer, in his 'First Principles' and in his 'Biology,' has, I think, made us able to understand how this may be; but at present we may accept these simple laws, without going further back, and the question then is, Whether the variety, the harmony, the contrivance, and the beauty we perceive, can have been produced by the action of these laws alone, or whether we are required to believe in the incessant interference and direct action of the mind and will of the Creator." (p. 267)* Mr. Wallace says, that the Duke of Argyll maintains that God "has personally applied general laws to produce effects which those laws are not in themselves capable of producing; that the universe alone with all its laws intact, would be a sort of chaos, without variety, without harmony, without design, without beauty; that there is not (and therefore we may presume that there could not be) any self-developing power in the universe. I believe, on the contrary, that the universe is so constituted as to be self-regulating; that as long it contains life, the forms under which that life is manifested have an inherent power of adjustment to each other and to their surroundings; and that this adjustment necessarily leads to the greatest amount of variety and beauty and enjoyment, because it does depend on general laws, and not on a continual supervision and rearrangement of details." (p. 268) "The strange springs and traps and pitfalls found in the flowers of Orchids, cannot," he says, "be necessary per se, since exactly the same end is gained in ten thousand other flowers which do not possess them. Is it not then an extraordinary idea, to imagine the Creator of the universe contriving the various complicated parts of these flowers, as a mechanic might contrive an ingenious toy or a difficult puzzle? Is it not a more worthy conception, that they are the results of those general laws which were so coordinated at the first introduction of life upon the earth as to result necessarily in the utmost possible development of varied forms." (p. 270) "I for one," he says, "cannot believe that the world would come to chaos if left to law alone.... If any modification of structure could be the result of law, why not all? If some self-adaptations should arise, why not others? If any varieties of color, why not all the varieties we see? No attempt is made to explain this except by reference to the fact that 'purpose' and 'contrivance' are everywhere visible, and by an illogical deduction they could only have arisen by the direct action of some mind, because the direct action of our minds produce similar 'contrivances;' but it is forgotten that adaptation, however produced, must have the appearance of design." (p. 280)** After referring to the fact that florists and breeders can produce varieties in plants and animals, so that, "whether they wanted a bull-dog to torture another animal, a greyhound to catch a hare, or a bloodhound to hunt down their oppressed fellow-creatures, the required variations have always appeared," he adds: "To be consistent, our opponents must maintain that every one of the variations that have rendered possible the changes produced by man, have been determined at the right time and place by the Creator. Every race produced by the florist or breeder, the dog or the pigeon fancier, the rat-catcher, the sporting man, or the slave-hunter, must have been provided for by varieties occurring when wanted; and as these variations were never withheld, it would prove that the sanction of an all-wise and all powerful Being has been given to that which the highest human minds consider to be trivial, mean, or debasing." (p. 290)***

The Nebular Hypothesis, as propounded by La Place, proposed to account for the origin of the universe, by a process of evolution under the control of mere physical forces. That hypothesis has, so far as evolution is concerned, been adopted by men who sincerely believe in God and in the Bible. But they hold not only that God created matter and endowed it with its properties, but that He designed the universe, and so controlled the operation of physical laws that they accomplished his purpose. So there are Christian men who believe in the evolution of one kind of plants and animals out of earlier and simpler forms; but they believe that everything was designed by God, and that it is due to his purpose and power that all the forms of vegetable and animal life are what they are. But this is not the question. What Darwin and the advocates of his theory deny, is all design. The organs, even the most complicated and wonderful, were not intended. They are said to be due to the undirected and unintended operation of physical laws. This is Mr. Wallace's argument. He endeavors to show that it is unworthy of God that He should be supposed to have contrived the mechanism of the orchids, as a mechanist contrives a curious puzzle.

We recently heard Prof. Joseph Henry, in a brief address, say substantially: "If I take brass, glass, and other materials, and fuse them, the product is a slag. This is what physical laws do. If I take those same materials, and form them into a telescope, that is what mind does." This is the whole question in a nutshell. That design implies an intelligent designer, is a self evident truth. Every man believes it; and no man can practically disbelieve it. Even those naturalists who theoretically deny it, if they find in a cave so simple a thing as a flint arrow-head, are as sure that it was made by a man as they are of their own existence. And yet they want us to believe that an eagle's eye is the product of blind natural causes. No combination of physical forces ever made a ship or a locomotive. It may, indeed, be said that they are dead matter, whereas plants and animals live. But what is life but one form of the organizing efficiency of God?

Mr. Wallace does not go as far as Mr. Darwin. He recoils from regarding man either as to body or soul as the product of mere natural causes. He insists that "a superior intelligence is necessary to account for man." (p. 359) This of course implies that the agency of no such higher intelligence is admitted in the production of plants or of animals lower than man.

 

Professor Huxley

The second witness as to the character of Mr. Darwin's theory is Professor Huxley. We have some hesitation in including the name of this distinguished naturalist among the advocates of Darwinism.# On the one hand, in his Essay on the Origin of Species, printed in the "Westminster Review," in 1860, and reprinted in his "Lay Sermons," etc., in 1870, he says: "There is no fault to be found with Mr. Darwin's method, but it is another thing whether he has fulfilled all the conditions imposed by that method. Is it satisfactorily proved that species may* be originated by selection? that none of the phenomena exhibited by species are inconsistent with the origin of species in this way? If these questions can be answered in the affirmative, Mr. Darwin's view steps out of the rank of hypotheses into that of theories; but so long as the evidence at present adduced falls short of enforcing that affirmative, so long, to our minds, the new doctrine must be content to remain among the former,—an extremely valuable, and in the highest degree probable, doctrine; indeed, the only extant hypothesis which is worth anything in a scientific point of view; but still a hypothesis, and not yet a theory of species. After much consideration," he adds, "and assuredly with no bias against Mr. Darwin's views, it is our clear conviction that, as the evidence now stands, it is not absolutely proven that a group of animals, having all the characters exhibited by species in Nature, has ever been originated by selection, whether artificial or natural."**

# Mr. Huxley, if we may judge from what he says of himself, is somewhat liable to be misunderstood. He says he was fourteen years laboring to resist the charge of Positivism made against the class of scientific men to which he belongs. He also tells us in his letter to Professor Tyndall, prefixed to his volume of Lay Sermons and Addresses, that the "Essay on the Physical Basis of Life," included in that volume, was intended as a protest, from the philosophical side, against what is commonly called Materialism. It turned out, however, that the public regarded it as an argument in favor of Materialism. This we think was a very natural, if not an unavoidable mistake, on the part of the public. For in that Essay, he says that Protoplasm, or the physical basis of life, "is a kind of matter common to all living beings, that the powers or faculties of all kinds of living matter, diverse as they may be in degree, are substantially of the same kind." Protoplasm as far as examined contains the four elements,—carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen. These are lifeless bodies, "but when brought together under certain conditions, they give rise to the still more complex body Protoplasm; and this protoplasm exhibits the phenomena of life." There is no more reason, he teaches, for assuming the existence of a mysterious something called vitality to account for vital phenomena, than there is for the assumption of something called Aquasity to account for the phenomena of water. Life is said to be "the product of a certain disposition of material molecules." The matter of life is "composed of ordinary matter, differing from it only in the manner in which its atoms are aggregated. I take it," he says, "to be demonstrable that it is utterly impossible to prove that anything whatever may not be the effect of a material and necessary cause, and that human logic is equally incompetent to prove that any act is really spontaneous. A really spontaneous act is one, which, by the assumption, has no cause; and the attempt to prove such a negative as this, is on the face of the matter absurd. And while it is thus a philosophical impossibility to demonstrate that any given phenomenon is not the effect of a material cause, any one who is acquainted with the history of science will admit that its progress has, in all ages, meant, and now more than ever means, the extension of what we call matter and causation, and the concomitant gradual banishment from all regions of human thought of what we call spirit and spontaneity."

Again, in his work on "Man's Place in Nature," he expresses himself much to the same effect: "A true physical cause is admitted to be such only on one condition, that it shall account for all the phenomena which come within the range of its operation. If it is inconsistent with any one phenomenon it must be rejected; if it fails to explain any one phenomenon it is so far to be suspected, though it may have a perfect right to provisional acceptance.... Our acceptance, therefore, of the Darwinian hypothesis must be provisional so long as one link in the chain of evidence is wanting; and so long as all the animals and plants certainly produced by selective breeding from a common stock are fertile, and their progeny are fertile one with another, that link will be wanting. For so long selective breeding will not be proved to be competent to all that is required if it produce natural species."*** In immediate connection with the above passage, there is another which throws a clear light on Professor Huxley's cosmical views. "The whole analogy of natural operations furnish so complete and crushing an argument against the intervention of any but what are called secondary causes, in the production of all the phenomena of the universe; that, in view of the intimate relations of man and the rest of the living world, and between the forces exerted by the latter and all other forces, I can see no reason for doubting that all are coordinate terms of nature's great progression, from formless to formed, from the inorganic to the organic, from blind force to conscious intellect and will."##

## Since writing the above paragraph our eye fell on the following note on the 89th page of the Duke of Argyle's Reign of Law, which it gives us pleasure to quote. It seems that a writer in the Spectator had charged Professor Huxley with Atheism. In the number of that paper for February 10, 1866, the Professor replies: "I do not know that I care very much about popular odium, so there is no great merit in saying that if I really saw fit to deny the existence of a God I should certainly do so, for the sake of my own intellectual freedom, and be the honest atheist you are pleased to say I am. As it happens, however, I cannot take this position with honesty, inasmuch as it is, and always has been, a favorite tenet, that Atheism is as absurd, logically speaking, as Polytheism." In the same paper he says, "The denying the possibility of miracles seems to me quite as unjustifiable as speculative Atheism." How this can be reconciled with the passages quoted above, we are unable to see.

Ought not this to settle the matter? Are we to give up the Bible and all our hopes for the sake of an hypothesis that all living things, including man, on the face of the earth, are descended from a primordial animalcule, by natural selection, when such a man as Huxley, who (as Voltaire said of the prophet Habbakuk) is capable de tout, says that it has not been proved that any one species has thus originated?

But on the other hand, while he honestly admits that Darwin's doctrine is a mere hypothesis and not a theory, he has nevertheless written at least three essays or reviews in its exposition and vindication. He is freely referred to on the continent of Europe, at least, as an ardent advocate of the doctrine; and he quotes without protest such designations of himself. At any rate, as he assures his readers that he has no bias against Mr. Darwin's views, as he has devoted much time and attention to the subject, and as he is one of the most prominent naturalists of the age, there can be no question as to his competency as a witness as to what Darwinism is.

His testimony that Mr. Darwin's doctrine excludes all teleology, or final causes, is explicit. In his review of the "Criticisms on the Origin of Species," he says, "that when he first read Mr. Darwin's book, that which struck him most forcibly was the conviction that teleology, as commonly understood, had received its death-blow at Mr. Darwin's hands. For the teleological argument runs thus: An organ is precisely fitted to perform a function or purpose; therefore, it was specially constructed to perform that function. In Paley's famous illustration, the adaptation of all the parts of a watch to the function or purpose of showing the time, is held to be evidence that the watch was specially contrived to that end; on the ground that the only cause we know of competent to produce such an effect as a watch which shall keep time, is a contriving intelligence adapting the means directly to that end."* This, Mr. Huxley tells us, is precisely what Darwin denies with reference to the organs of plants and animals. The eye was not formed for the purpose of seeing, or the ear for hearing. It so happened that a nerve became sensitive to light; then in course of time, it happened that a transparent tissue came over it; and thus in "millions of years" an eye, as we have seen above, happened to be formed. No such organ was ever intended or designed by God or man. "An apparatus," says Professor Huxley, "thoroughly adapted to a particular purpose, might be the result of a method of trial and error worked by unintelligent agents, as well as by the application of means appropriate to the end by an intelligent agent." "For the notion that every organism has been created as it is and launched straight at a purpose, Mr. Darwin substitutes the conception of something, which may fairly be termed a method of trial and error. Organisms vary incessantly; of these variations the few meet with surrounding conditions which suit them, and thrive; the many are unsuited, and become extinguished." "For the teleologist an organism exists, because it was made for the conditions in which it is found; for the Darwinian an organism exists, because, out of many of its kind, it is the only one which has been able to persist in the conditions in which it is found." "If we apprehend," Huxley further says, "the spirit of the 'Origin of Species' rightly, then, nothing can be more entirely and absolutely opposed to teleology, as it is commonly understood, than the Darwinian theory." (p. 303)

It has already been stated that Mr. Wallace does not apply the doctrine of evolution to man; neither does Mr. Mivart, a distinguished naturalist, who is a member of the Latin Church. The manner in which Professor Huxley speaks of these gentlemen shows how thoroughly, in his judgment, Mr. Darwin banishes God from his works: "Mr. Wallace and Mr. Mivart are as stout evolutionists as Mr. Darwin himself; but Mr. Wallace denies that man can have been evolved from a lower animal by that process of natural selection, which he, with Mr. Darwin, holds to be sufficient for the evolution of all animals below man; while Mr. Mivart, admitting that natural selection has been one of the conditions of the animals below man, maintains that natural selection must, even in their case, have been supplemented by some other cause,—of the nature of which, unfortunately, he does not give us any idea. Thus Mr. Mivart is less of a Darwinian than Mr. Wallace, for he has faith in the power of natural selection. But he is more of an evolutionist than Mr. Wallace, because Mr. Wallace thinks it necessary to call in an intelligent agent, a sort of supernatural Sir John Sebright, to produce even the animal frame of man; while Mr. Mivart requires no Divine assistance till he comes to man's soul."###

### Contemporary Review, vol. xviii. 1871, p. 444. In this same article Mr. Huxley says: "Elijah's great question, Will ye serve God or Baal? Choose ye, is uttered audibly enough in the ears of every one of us as we come to manhood. Let every man who tries to answer it seriously ask himself whether he can be satisfied with the Baal of authority, and with all the good things his worshippers are promised in this world and the next. If he can, let him, if he be so inclined, amuse himself with such scientific implements as authority tells him are safe and will not cut his fingers; but let him not imagine that he is, or can be, both a true son of the Church and a loyal soldier of science." "And, on the other hand, if the blind acceptance of authority appear to him in its true colors, as mere private judgment in excelsis, and if he have courage to stand alone face to face with the abyss of the Eternal and Unknowable, let him be content, once for all, not only to renounce the good things promised by 'Infallibility,' but even to bear the bad things which it prophesies; content to follow reason and fact in singleness and honesty of purpose, wherever they may lead, in the sure faith that a hell of honest men will to him be more endurable than a paradise full of angelic shams." There can be no doubt that the Apostle Paul believed in the infallibility of the Scriptures. Imagine Professor Huxley calling St. Paul to his face, a sham! What are all the Huxleys who have ever lived or ever can live, to that one Paul in power for good over human thought, character, and destiny!

In the "Academy" for October, 1869, there is a review by Professor Huxley of Dr. Haeckel's "Natürlische Schöpfungsgeschichte," in which he says: "Professor Haeckel enlarges on the service which the 'Origin of Species' has done in favoring what he terms 'the causal or mechanical' view of living nature as opposed to the 'teleological or vitalistic' view. And no doubt it is quite true the doctrine of evolution is the most formidable of all the commoner and coarser forms of teleology. Perhaps the most remarkable service to the philosophy of Biology rendered by Mr. Darwin is the reconciliation of Teleology and Morphology, and the explanation of the facts of both which his view offers.

"The teleology which supposes that the eye, such as we see it in man or in the higher vertebrata, was made with the precise structure which it exhibits, to make the animal which possesses it to see, has undoubtedly received its death-blow. But it is necessary to remember that there is a higher teleology, which is not touched by the doctrine of evolution, but is actually based on the fundamental proposition of evolution. That proposition is, that the whole world, living and not living, is the result of the mutual interaction, according to definite laws, of 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 cosmic vapor; and that a sufficient intelligence could, from a knowledge of the properties of that vapor, have predicted, say, the state of fauna of Great Britain in 1869, with as much certainty as one can say what will happen to the vapor of the breath on a cold winter's day." This is the doctrine of the self-evolution of the universe. We know not what may lie behind this in Mr. Huxley's mind; but we are very sure that there is not an idea in the above paragraph which Epicurus of old, and Büchner, Vogt, Haeckel, and other "Materialisten von Profession," would not cheerfully adopt. His distinction between a higher and lower teleology is of no account in this discussion. What is the teleology to which, he says, Mr. Darwin has given the death-blow, the extracts given above clearly show. The eye, Huxley says, was not made for the purpose of seeing, or the ear for the purpose of hearing. "According to teleology," he says, "each organism is like a rifle bullet fired straight at a mark; according to Darwin, organisms are like grapeshot, of which one hits something and the rest fall wide."**

Professor Huxley goes on in the next paragraph to say: "Mr. Mivart asserts that 'without belief in a personal God there is no religion worthy of the name.' This is a matter of opinion. But it may be asserted, with less reason to fear contradiction, that the worship of a personal God, who, on Mr. Mivart's hypothesis, must have used words studiously calculated to deceive his creatures and worshippers, is 'no religion worthy of the name.' 'Incredibile est, Deum illis verbis ad populum fuisse locutum quibis deciperetur,' is a verdict in which for once Jesuit casuistry concurs with the healthy moral sense of all mankind." (p. 458). Mr. Huxley calls believers in the Scriptures, and (apparently) believers in a personal God, bigots, old ladies of both sexes, bibliolators, fools, etc., etc.

Büchner

Dr. Louis Büchner, president of the medical association of Hessen-Darmstadt, etc., etc., is not only a man of science but a popular writer. Perhaps no book of its class, in our day, has been so widely circulated as his volume on "Kraft und Stoff," Matter and Force. It has been translated into all the languages of Europe. He holds that matter and force are inseparable; there cannot be the one without the other; both are eternal and imperishable; neither can be either increased or diminished; life originated spontaneously by the combination of molecules of matter under favorable conditions; all the phenomena of the universe, inorganic and organic, whether physical, vital, or mental, are due to matter and its forces. Consequently there is no God, no creation, no mind distinct from matter, no conscious existence of man after death. All this is asserted in the most explicit terms. Dr. Büchner has published a work on Darwinism in two volumes. Darwin's theory, he says, "is the most thoroughly naturalistic that can be imagined, and far more atheistic than that of his decried predecessor Lamarck, who admitted at least a general law of progress and development; whereas, according to Darwin, the whole development is due to the gradual summation of innumerable minute and accidental operations."***

 

Carl Vogt

In his preface to his work on the "Descent of Man," Mr. Darwin quotes this author as a high authority. We see him elsewhere referred to as one of the first physiologists of Germany. Vogt devotes the concluding lecture of the second volume of his work on Man, to the consideration of Darwinism. He expresses his opinion of it, after high commendation, in the following terms. He says that it cannot be doubted that Darwin's "theory turns the Creator—and his occasional intervention in the revolutions of the earth and in the production of species—without any hesitation out of doors, inasmuch as it does not leave the smallest room for the agency of such a Being. The first living germ being granted, out of it the creation develops itself progressively by natural selection, through all the geological periods of our planets, by the simple law of descent—no new species arises by creation and none perishes by divine annihilation—the natural course of things, the process of evolution of all organisms and of the earth itself, is of itself sufficient for the production of all we see. Thus Man is not a special creation, produced in a different way, and distinct from other animals, endowed with an individual soul and animated by the breath of God; on the contrary, Man is only the highest product of the progressive evolution of animal life springing from the group of apes next below him."*

After this no one can be surprised to hear him say, that "the pulpits of the orthodox, the confessionals of the priests, the platforms of the interior missions, the presidential chairs of the consistories, resound with protestations against the assaults made by Materialism and Darwinism against the very foundations of society." (p. 286) This he calls "Das Wehgeschrei der Moralisten" (the Wail of the Moralists). The designation Moralists is a felicitous one, as applied to the opponents of Vogt and his associates. It distinguishes them as men who have not lost their moral sense; who refuse to limit their faith to what can be proved by the five senses; who bow to the authority of the law written by the finger of God, on the hearts of men, which neither sophistry nor wickedness can effectually erase. All Vogt thinks it necessary to reply to these Moralists is, "Lasst sie bellen, bis sie ausgebellt haben" (Let them bark till they are tired). "Ende."

 

Haeckel

Dr. Ernst Haeckel, Professor in the University of Jena, is said to stand at the head of the living naturalists of Germany. His work on "Natural History of Creation" contains a course of lectures delivered to the professors, students, and citizens of Jena. It is, therefore, somewhat popular in its character. The ability of the writer is manifest on every page. The distinctness of his perceptions, precision of language, perspicuity of style, and the strength of his convictions, give the impression of a man fully master of his subject, who has thought himself through, and is perfectly satisfied with the conclusions at which he has arrived. At the same time it is the impression of a man who is developed only on one side; who never looks within; who takes no cognizance of the wonders revealed in consciousness; to whom the intuitions of reason and of the conscience, the sense of dependence on a will higher than our own—the sense of obligation and responsibility are of no account,—in short a man to whom the image of God enstamped on the soul of man is invisible. This being the case, he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.

Haeckel admits that the title of his book, "Natural Creation," i. e. creation by natural laws, is a contradiction. He distinguishes, however, between the creation of substance and the creation of form. Of the former he says science knows nothing. To the scientist matter is eternal. If any one chooses to assume that it was created by an extramundane power, Haeckel says he will not object. But that is a matter of faith; and "where faith begins, science ends." The very reverse of this is true. Science must begin with faith. It cannot take a single step without it. How does Haeckel know that his senses do not deceive him? How does he know that he can trust to the operations of his intellect? How does he know that things are as they appear? How does he know that the universe is not a great phantasmagoria, as so many men have regarded it, and man the mere sport of chimeras? He must believe in the laws of belief impressed on his nature. Knowledge implies a mind that knows, and confidence in the act of knowing implies belief in the laws of mind. "An inductive science of nature," says President Porter, "presupposes a science of induction, and a science of induction presupposes a science of man."** Haeckel, however, says faith is the mere product of the poetic imagination; science, of the understanding; if its conclusions come into conflict with the creations of the imagination, the latter, of course, must give way.***

He says, there have ever been two conflicting theories of the universe: the one, monistic; the other, dualistic. The one admits of only one substance, matter; the other of two, matter and mind. He prefers to call the former monism rather than materialism, because the latter term often includes the idea of moral materialism, i. e. the doctrine that sensual pleasure is the end of life; a doctrine, he says, much more frequently held by princely church-men than by men of science. He maintains, however, that "all knowable nature is one; that the same eternal, immutable (ehernen, brazen) laws are active in the life of animals and plants, in the formation of crystals, and the power of steam; in the whole sphere of biology, zoology, and botany. We have, therefore, the right to hold fast the monistic and mechanical view, whether men choose to brand the system as Materialism or not. In this sense, all natural science, with the law of causation at its head, is thoroughly materialistic." (p. 32)

The monistic theory he calls "mechanical or causal," as distinguished from the dualistic theory, which he calls "teleological or vitalistic." According to the latter, "the vegetable and animal kingdoms are considered as the products of a creative agency, working with a definite design. In looking on an organism, the conviction seems unavoidable that so skilfully constructed a machine, such a complicated working apparatus, as an organism is, could be produced only by an agency analogous to, although far more perfect than the agency of man." "This," he says, "supposes the Creator to be an organism analogous to man, although infinitely more perfect; who contemplates his formative powers, lays the plan of the machine, and then, by the use of appropriate means, produces an effect answering to the preconceived plan.... However highly the Creator may be exalted, this view involves the ascription to Him of human attributes, in virtue of which he can form a plan, and construct organisms to correspond with it. That is the view to which Darwin's doctrine is directly opposed, and of which Agassiz is, among naturalists, the most important advocate. The famous work of Agassiz, 'Essay on Classification,' which is in direct opposition to Darwin's, and appeared about the same time, has carried out logically to the utmost the absurd anthropomorphic doctrine of a Creator." (p. 17)

The monistic theory is called "mechanical and causal," because it supposes that all the phenomena of the universe, organic and inorganic, vegetable and animal, vital and mental, are due to mechanical or necessarily operating causes (causæ efficientes); just as the dualistic theory is called "teleological or vitalistic," because it refers natural organisms to causes working for the accomplishment of a given end (causæ finales). (p. 67)

The grand difficulty in the way of the mechanical or monistic theory was the occurrence of innumerable organisms, apparently at least, indicative of design. To get over this difficulty, Haeckel says, some who could not believe in a creative and controlling mind adopted the idea of a metaphysical ghost called vitality. The grand service rendered by Darwin to science is, that his theory enables us to account for the appearances of design in nature without assuming final causes, or, a mind working for a foreseen and intended end. "All that had appeared before Darwin," he says, "failed to secure success, and to meet with general acceptance of the doctrine of the mechanical production of vegetable and animal organisms. This was accomplished by Darwin's theory." (p. 20)

The precise difficulty which Mr. Darwin's doctrine has, according to Haeckel, enabled men of science to surmount, is thus clearly stated on p. 633. It is, "that organs for a definite end should be produced by undesigning or mechanical causes." This difficulty is overcome by the doctrine of evolution. "Through the theory of descent, we are for the first time able to establish the monistic doctrine of the unity of nature, that a mechanic-causal explanation of the most complicated organisms, e. g. the formation and constitution of the organs of sense, have no more difficulty for the common understanding, than the mechanical explanation of any physical process, as, for example, earthquakes, the direction of the winds, or the currents of the sea. We thus arrive at the conviction of the last importance, that all natural bodies with which we are acquainted are equally endowed with life (gleichmässig belebt sind); that the distinction between living and dead matter does not exist. When a stone is thrown into the air and falls by certain laws to the ground, or when a solution of salt forms a crystal, the result is neither more nor less a mechanical manifestation of life, than the flowering of a plant, the generation or sensibility of animals, or the feelings or the mental activity of man. In thus establishing the monistic theory of nature lies the highest and most comprehensive merit of the doctrine of descent, as reformed by Darwin." (p. 21) "As to the much vaunted design in nature, it is a reality only for those whose views of animal and vegetable life are to the last degree superficial. Any one who has gone deeper into the organization and vital activity of animals and plants, who has made himself familiar with the action and reaction of vital phenomena, and the so-called economy of nature, comes of necessity to the conclusion, that design does not exist, any more than the vaunted goodness of the Creator" (die vielgerühmte Allgüte des Schöpfers). (p. 17)

Professor Huxley, in his review of this work of Haeckel, already quoted, says: "I do not like to conclude without reminding the reader of my entire concurrence with the general tenor and spirit of the work, and of my high estimate of its value." If you take out of Haeckel's book its doctrine of Monism, which he himself says means Materialism, it has no "tenor or spirit" in it. It is not, however, for us to say how far Professor Huxley intended his indorsement to go.

Haeckel says that Darwin's theory of evolution leads inevitably to Atheism and Materialism. In this we think he is correct. But we have nothing to do with Haeckel's logic or with our own. We make no charge against Mr. Darwin. We cite Haeckel merely as a witness to the fact that Darwinism involves the denial of final causes; that it excludes all intelligent design in the production of the organs of plants and animals, and even in the production of the soul and body of man. This first of German naturalists would occupy a strange position in the sight of all Europe, if, after lauding a book to the skies because it teaches a certain doctrine, it should turn out that the book taught no such doctrine at all.

 

** It is, therefore, clear that design is what Mr. Darwin and Mr. Wallace repudiate.

 

*** That God permits men in the use of the laws of nature to distil alcohol and brew poisons, does not prove that He approves of drunkenness or murder.

** The Science of Nature versus the Science of Man. By Noah Porter, President of Yale College. New York, 1871, p. 29.

 

*** Natürlische Schöpfungs-geschichte. Von Dr. Ernst Haeckel, Professor in der Universität Jena. Zweite Auflage, Berlin, 1873, pp. 8, and 9.