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Show 86 DARWINIAN A. appears, the argument for design, as presented by the natural theologians, is just as good now, if we accept Darwin's theory, as it was before that theory was promulgated ; and that the skeptical juryman, who was about to join the other eleven in a unanimous verdict in favor of design, finds no good excuse for keeping the court longer waiting.1 [1 To parry an adversary's thrust at a vulnerable part, or to show that it need not be fatal, is an incomplete defense. If the discussion bad gone on, it might, perhaps, have been made to appear that the Darwinian hypothesis, so far from involving the idea of necessity (except in the sense that everything is of necessity), was based npon the opposite idea, that of contingency.] · III. NATURAL SELECTION NOT INCONSISTENT WITII NATURAL THEOLOGY. ATLANTIO Mo:N'l'HLY FOR July, .August, AND October, 1860, REPRINTED :xN 1861. I. NOVELTIES are enticing to most people ; to us they are simply annoying. We cling to a long-accepted theory, just as we cling to an old suit of clothes. A new theory, like a new pair of breeches (the Atlantic still affects the older type of nether garment), is sure to have hard-fitting places; or, even when no particular fault can be found with the article, it oppresses with a sense of general discomfort. New notions and new styles worry us, till we get well used to them, which is only by slow degrees. Wherefore, in Galileo's time, we might have helped to proscribe, or ·to burn-had he been stubborn enough to warrant cremation-even the great pioneer of inductive research; although, when we had fairly recovered our composure, and had leisurely excogitated the matter, we might have come to conclude that the new doctrine was better than the old one, after all, at least for those who had nothing to unlearn. · Such being our habitual state of mind, it may well |
