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Show 362 DARWINIAN A. Chance, seems as unthankful and iniquitous as it seems absurd. Chance produces nothing in the human sphere; nothiug, a.t least, that can be relied upon for good. Design alone engenders harmony, consistency; and Chance not only never is the parent, but is constantly the enemy of these. How, then, can we suppose Chance to be the author of a system in which everything is as regular as clock-work? .... The hypothesis of Chance is inadmissible." There is, then, in Nature, an order; and, in "P. C. W.'s" sense of the word, a manifest pm·pose. Some sort of conception as to the cause of it is inevitable, that of design :first and foremost. "Why"the Westminster Reviewer repeats the question,, why, if the marks of utility and adaptation are eonelusive in the works of man, should they not be considered equally conclusive in the works of Nature~" His answer appears to us more ingenious than sound. Because, referring to Paley's watch,- " The watch-finder is not guided solely in his inference by marks of adaptation and utility; he would recognize design in half a watch, in a mere fragment of a watch, just as surely as in a whole time-keeper ..•. Two cog-wheels, grasping each other, will be thought conclusive evidence of design, quite independently of any use attaching to them. And the inference, indeed, is perfectly correct; only it is an inference, not from a mark of design, properly so called, but from a mark of human workmanship •... No more is needed for the watch-finder, since all the works of man are, at the same time, products of design; but a great deal more is requisite for us, who are cal1ed upon by Paley to recognize design in works in which this stamp, this label of human workmanship, is wanting. The mental operation required in the one case is radically different from that performed in the other; there is no parallel, and Paley's demonstration is totally irrelevant." 1 t Burne, in his "Essays," anticipated this argument. But be did EVOLUTIONARY TELEOLOGY. 363 But, surely, all human doings are not "products of design;" many are contingent or accidental. And why not suppose that the finder of the watch, or of the watch-wheel, infers both design and human workmanship~ The two are mutually exclusive only on the supposition that man alone is a designer, which is simply begging the question in discussion. If the watch-finder's attention had been arrested by not rest on it. His matured convictions appear to be expressed in statements such as the following, here cited at second hand from Jackson's "Philosophy of Natural Theology," a volume to which a friend has just called our attention: "Though the stupidity of men," writes Hume, "barbarous and uninstructed, be so great that they may not see a sovereign author in the more obvious works of Nature, to which they are so much familiarized, yet it scarce seems possible that any one of good understanding should reject that idea, when once it is suggested to him. A purpose, an intention, a design, is evident in everything; and when our comprehension is so far enlarged as to contemplate the first rise of this visible system, we must adopt, with the strongest conviction, the idea of some intelligent cause or author. The uniform maxims, too, which prevail throughout the whole frame of the universe, naturally, if not necessarily, lead us to conceive this intelligence as single and undivided, where the prejudices of education oppose not so reasonable a theory. Even the contrarieties of Nature, by discovering themselves everywhere, become proofs of some consistent plan, and establish one single purpose or. intention, however inexplicable and incomprehensible."(" Natural History of Religion,, xv.) "In many views of the universe, and of its parts, particularly the latter, the beauty and fitness of final causes strike us with such irresistible force that all objections appear (what I believe they really are) mere cavils and sophisms."-(" Dialogues concerning Natural Religion," Part X.) "The order and arrangement of Nature, the curious adjustment of final causes, the plain use and intention of every part and organ, all these bespeak in the clearest language an intelligent cause or author." -(Ibid., Part IV.) . |