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Show 250 DARWINIAN A. for the explanation of the facts. Whether the philosophy of Herbert Spencer (which is not to our liking) is here fairly presented, we have little occasion and no time to consider. In this regard, the close of his article No. 12 in the Contemporary Review shows, at least, his expectation of the entire permanence of our ideas of cause, origin, and religion, and predicts the futility of the expectation that the "religion of humanity" will be the religion of the future, or "can ever more than temporarily shut out the thought of a Power, of which humanity is but a small and fugitive product, which was in its course of ever-changing manifestation before humanity was, and will continue through other manifestations when humanity has ceased to be." If, on the one hand, the philosophy of the unknowable of the Infinite may be held in a merely quasi-theistic or even atheistic way, were not its ablest expounders and defenders Hamilton and Dean Mansel~ One would suppose that Dr. Dawson might discern at least as much of a divine foundation to Nature as Herbert Spencer and Matthew Arnold; might recognize in this power that " something not ourselves that makes" for order as well as " for righteousness," and which he fitly terms supreme creative will; and, resting in this, en.dure with more complacency and faith the inevitable prevalence of evolutionary views which he is powerless to hinder. Although he cannot arrest the stream, he might do something toward keeping it in safe channels. We wished to say something about the way in which scientific men, worthy of the name, hold hypotheses and theories, using them for the purpose of investigation and the collocation of facts, yielding or ATTITUDE OF WORKING NATURALISTS. 251 w. ithholding as. sent in de(o) 'rees or pr.o vi.s i.o na ll y, accord-mg :o ~he am~unt of verification or likelihood, or holdmg It long m suspense.' whi'ch I·s q m' te m. con t rast to that of amateurs and general speculators (not that we .reckon Dr. Dawson in this class), whose assent or demal . seldom waits ' or endure. s q ua lI'f ic a tw' n. w·I t1 I the~ It must on all occasions be yea or nay only, accordmg to the letter of the Scriptural I. . t' d h . . nJunc wn, an w atsoever IS less than this or betw th t cometh of evil. ' een e wo, |
