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Show 268 JJ.AR WINI.AN .A. Now, the truth or the probability of Darwin's hypothesis is not here the question, but only its congru ·ity or incongruity with theism. We need take only one exception to this abstract of it, but that is an important one for the present investigation. It is to the sentence which we have italicized in the earlier part of Dr. Hodge's own statement of what Darwinism is. With it begins our inquiry as to how he proves the doctrine to be atheistic. First, if we rightly apprehend it, a suggestion of atheism is infused into the premises in a negative form: Mr. Darwin shows no dispo~ition to resolve the efficiency of physical cause·s into the efficiency of the First Cause. Next (on page 48) comes the positive charge that" :Mr. Darwin, although himself a theist," maintains that "the contri~ances manifested in the organs of plants and animals .... are not du·e to the continued cooperation and control of the divine mind, nor to the original purpose of God in the constitution of the universe." As to the negative statement, it might suffice to recall Dr. I-Iodge's truthful remark that Darwin" is simply a naturalist," and that "his work on the origin of species does not purport to be philosophical." In physical arid physiological treatises, the most religious men rarely think it necessary to postulate the First Cause, nor are they misjudged by the omission. But surely Mr. Darwin does show the disposition which our author denies him, not only by implication in many instances, but most explicitly where· one would naturally look for it, namely-at the close of the volume in question : " To my mind, it accords better with what we know of the laws im- WHAT IS DARWINISM! 269 pressed on matter by the Creator," etc. If that does not refer the efficiency of physical cauRes to the First Cause, what form of words could do so~ The positive charg~ appears to be equally gratuitous. In both Dr. Hodge m~st have overlooked the beginning as well as the end of the volume which he judges so hardly. Just as mathematicians and physicists, in their systems, are wont to postulate the fundamental and undeniable truths they are concerned with, or what they take for such and require to be taken for granted, so Mr. Darwin postulates, upon the first page .of his notable work, and in the words of Whewell and Bishop Butler : 1. The. establishment by divine power of general laws, according to which, rather than by insulated interpositions in each particular case, events are brought about in the material world; and 2. That by the word "natural" is meant "stated, fixed, or settled," by this same power, " since what is natural as much requires and presupposes an intelligent agent to render it so.-i. e., to effect it continually or at stated times-as what is supernatural or miraculous does to effect it for once." 1 So when Mr. Darwin makes such large and free use of "natural as antithetical to supern~ tural" causes, we are left in no doubt as to the ultimate source which he refers them to. Rather let us say there ought to be no doubt, unless there are other grounds for it to rest upon. Such ground there must be, or seem to be, to justify or excuse a veteran divine and scholar like Dr. .Hodge in his deduction of pure atheism from a system 1 These two postulate-mottoes are quoted in fuU in a previous article in No. 446 of the Nation (page 259 of the present volume). . ' |