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Show 142 DARWINIAN A. But are not many individuals and some races of men placed by the Creator "under unfavorable circum-sta nc es , at least und.er such as might be advabn tageously 1 . . . modified~" Surely these reviewers must e 1vmg m an ideal world, surrounded by "the faultle~s monsters which our world ne'er saw," in some e1ysmm where imperfection and distress were never heard of! s:lch ar()'uments resemble some which we often hear agamst th~ Bible holding that book responsible as if it originated cer~ain facts on the shady side of human nature or the apparently darker lines of Providential ~ealing, though the facts are facts of common observation and have to be confronted upon any theory. The North American reviewer also has a world of his own-just such a one as an idealizing philosopher would be apt to devise-that is, full of sharp and absolute distinctions: such, for instance, as the "absolute invariableness of instinct ; " an absolute want of intellige~ce in any brute animal? an~ a complete monopoly of instinct by the brute ammals, so ~hat this "instinct is a great matter" for them only, smce it sharply and perfectly distinguishes this portion of organic Nature from the vegetable kingdom on the one hand and from ·man on the other : most convenient views for argumentative purposes, but we suppose not borne out in fact. In their scientific objections the two reviewers take somewhat different lines; but their philosophical and the~logical arguments striking~y coincide. They a?ree in emphatically asserting that Darwin's hypothesis of the origination of species through variation and natural. selection "repudiates the whole doctrine of final DARWIN AND HIS REVIEWERS. 143 causes, " an d " a ll m. d I.C at.w n of d es1. gn or purpose in the organic world. . . . is neither more nor less than a formal denial of any agency beyond that of a blind chance in the developing or perfecting of the organs or instincts of created beings .... It is in vain that the apologists of this hypothesis might say that it merely attributes a different mode and time to the. Divine agency-that all the qualities subsequently appearing in their descendants must have been implanted, and have remained latent in the original pair." Such a view, the Examiner declares, "is nowhere stated in this book, and would be, we are sure, disclaimed by the author." We should like to be informed of the grounds of this sureness. The marked rejection of spontaneous generation-the statement of a belief that an ·animals have descended from four or five progenitors, and plants from an equal or lesser number, or, perhaps, if constrained to H by analogy, " from some one primordial form into which life was first breathed "-coupled with the expression, "To my mind it accords better with what we know of the laws impressed on matter by the Creator, that the production and extinction of the past . and present inhabitants of the world should have been due to secondary causes," than "that each species has been independently created "-these and similar expressions lead us to suppose that the author probably does accept the kind of view which the Examiner is sure he would disclaim. At least, we charitably see nothing in his scientific theory to hinder his adoption of Lord Bacon's " Confession of Faith" in this regard- |