littlo likelihood that this is correlato with physical force. "A few words upon the first chapter of Genesis and the Mosaic cosmogony, and I am donc," says Prof. Lo Conte, and so are we: "It might be expected by many that, after speaking of schemes of reconciliation, I should give mine also. My Christian friends, these schemes of reconciliation becoine daily more and more distasteful to me. I have used tliem in times past; but now the deliberato construction of such schemes seems to mo almost like trifling with tho words of Scripture and the teachings of Nature. They seem to me almost irreverent, and quito foreign to the true, humble, liberal spirit of Christianity; they are so evidently artificial, so evidently mero ingenious human devices. It seems to mo that if we will only regard the two books in the philosophical spirit which I have endeav ored to describo, and then simply wait and possess our souls in patience, the questions in disputo will soon adjust themselves as other similar questions have already done." VIII. WHAT IS DARWINISM I' (The Nation, May 24, 1874,) THE question which Dr. Hodge asks ho promptly and decisively answers: "What is Darwinism it is athicisin." Leaving aside all subsidiary and incidental matters, let us consider-1. What the Darwinian doctrino is, and 2. How it is proved to be atheistic. Dr. Hodgo's own statement of it cannot be very much bettered: ·་ "His [Darwin's] work on the Origin of Speeles' does not purport to be philosophical. In this aspect it is very different from the cognate works of Mr. Spencer. Darwin does not speculate on the origin of the universe, on the nature of matter or of force. He is simply a naturalist, a careful and laborious observer, skillful in his descriptions, and singularly candid in dealing with the difliculties in the way of his peculiar doctrine. Ho set before himself a single problem-namely, How are the fauna "What is Darwinism? By Charles Hodge, Princeton, N. J." New York: Seribuer, Armstrong & Co. 1871. "The Doctrine of Evolution. By Alexander Winchell, L.L. D., etc." New York: Harper & Brothers. 1874. "Darwinism and Design; or, Creation by Evolution. By Georgo St. Clair." London: Hodder & Stoughton. 1873. "Westminster Sermons. By the Rev. Charles Kingsley, F. L. 8., F. 0. 8., Canon of Westminster, etc."- London and Now York: Mao. millan & Co. 1874. ... ... and flora of our earth to be accounted for... To account for the existence of mattor and life, Mr. Darwin admits a Creator. This is dono oxplicitly and repeatedly. . . . Ho assumes the efficiency of physical causes, showing no disposition to resolce them into mind-force or into the efficiency of the First Cause.... He assumes, also, the existence of life in the form of one or more primordial germs. . . . How all living things on earth, includIng the endless variety of plants and all the diversity of animals, havo descended from the primordial animalcule, he thinks, may be accounted for by the operation of the following natural laws, viz.: First, the law of Heredity, or that by which like begets like-the offspring are like the parent. Second, the law of Variation; that is, while the offspring are in all essential characteristics like their immediate progenitor, they neverthe less vary more or less within narrow limits from their parent and from each other. Some of these variations are indifferent, some deteriorations, some improvements-that is, such as enable the plant or animal to exerciso its functions to greater advantuge. Third, the law of Over-Production. All plants and animals fond to increase in a geometrical ratio, and thereforo tend to overrun enormously the means of support. If all the moeds of a plant, all the spawn of a fish, were to arrive at maturity, in a very short time the world could not contain them. Hence, of necessity, arises a struggle for life. Only a few of the myriads born can possibly livo. Fourth, hero comes in the law of Natural Selection, or the Survival of the Fittest; that is, if any individual of a given species of plant or animal happens to have a slight deviation from the normal typo favorable to its success in the struggle for life, it will survive. This variation, by the law of heredity, will be transmitted to its offspring, and by then again to theirs. Soon these favored ones gain the ascendency, and the less favored perish, and the modification becomes established in the species. After a time, another and another of such favorable variations occur, with like results. Thus, very gradually, great changes of structure are introduced, and not only specios, but gonora, families, and orders, in the vegetable and animal world, are produced" (pp. 26-29). 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 negativo. form: Mr. Darwin shows no disposition to resolvo the efficiency of physical causes into the efficiency of the First Cause. Next (on page 48) comes the posi tive charge that "Mr. Darwin, although himself a theist," maintains that "the contrivances manifested in the organs of plants and animals . . . . are not due to the continued coöperation and control of the divino 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. Hodge'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 and 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 wo know of the laws im pressed on matter by the Creator," etc. If that does not refer the efficiency of physical causes to the First Cause, what form of words could do so! The posi tive charge appears to be equally gratuitous. In both Dr. Hodge must 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 cach 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. c., to effect it continually or at stated times-as what is supernatural or miraculous does to effect it for once." So when Mr. Darwin makes such large and free use of "natural as antithetical to supernatural" 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 jus tify or excuse a veteran divino and scholar like Dr. Hodge in his deduction of pure atheism from a system 1 These two postulate-mottoes are quoted in full in a previous article, In No. 446 of the Nation (page 259 of the present volume). |