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Show 278 DARWINIAN A. "Paley, indeed, says that if the constructfon of a watch be an undeniable evidence of design, it would be a still more wonderful manifestation of skill if a watch could be made to produce other watches, and, it may be added, not only other watches, but all kinds of timepieces, in endless variety. So it · has been asked, If a man can make a telescope, why cannot God make a telescope which produces others like itself? This is simply asking whether matter can be made to do the work of mind. The idea involves a contradiction. For a telescope to make a telescope supposes it to select copper and zinc in due proportions, and fuse them into brass; to fashion that brass into inter-entering tubes; to collect and combine the requisite materials for the different kinds of glass needed; to melt them, grind, fashion, and polish them, adjust their densities, fo cal distances, etc., etc. A man who can believe that brass can do all this might as well believe in God" (pp. 45, 46). If Dr. Hodge's meaning is, that matter unconstructed cannot do the work of mind, he misses the point altogether ; for original construction by an intelligent mind is given in the premises. If. he means that the machine cannot originate the power that operates it, this is conceded by all except believers in perpetual motion, and it equally misses the point; for the operating power is given in the case of the watch, and implied in that of the reproductive telescope. But if he means that matter cannot be made to do the work of mind in constructions, machines, or organisms, he is surely wrong. "Solvitur ambulando," vel soribendo; he confuted his argument in the act of writing the sentence. That is just what machines and organisms are for ; and a consistent Christian theist should maintain that it is what all matter is for. Finally, if, as we freely suppose, he means none of these, he must mean (unless we are much mistaken)" WH.4.T IS DARWINISM'! 279 that organisms originated by th Al . ht C . could not be . e mig y reator . . . endowed With the power of producing SJ.. milar orgamsms' or s1 1' gh tly dI' SS. lm.i lar Ol'D'am. sms Without su.c cess. ive interventions. Then h e bo e0' th' 0 s e vhe ry q·u estwn In dispute' and that, t 00, I. ll th e f·c LCe 0 f ~ e pnmal command," Be fruitful and multiply," and Its consequenc~s in every natural birth. If the actual facts could be Ignored, how nicely th 11 1 ld 1 " Th . e para e wou ru~. . ~ Idea involves a contradiction." For an anrmal to .make an animal, or a plant to make a plant, s~pposes It to sel~ct carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, ·and nitrogen, ~o. co~bine these into cellulose and protoplasm, to JOin With these some· phosphorus lime etc to build them into structures and usefully-adj~sted organs. A man who can believe that plants and animals can do this (not, indeed, in the crude way SUD'gested, but in the appointed way) "might as w ll b~l ie ~e 1· ~ G. od ." Yes, verily, and so he probabel y Will, m s?Ite of all that atheistical philosophers have to offer, if not harassed and confused by such arguments and statements as these. There is a long line of gradually-increasing divergence from the ultra-orthodox view of Dr. Hodge through those of such men as Sir William Thomson H.erschel, Argyll, Owen, Mivart, ·Wallace, and Dar~ wm, d?wn to .those of Strauss, Vogt, and Buchner. !o. strike the hne with telling power and good effect, It IS necessary to aim at the right place. Excellent as the present volume is in motive and clearly as it shows that Darwinism may bear an atheistic as well as a .theistic ~nterpretation, we fear that it will not co~t~Ibute m~lCh to the reconcilement of science and rehgwn. |