11.

DESIGN VERSUS NECESSITY.—DISCUSSION BETWEEN TWO READERS OF DARWIN'S TREATISE ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES, UPON ITS NATURAL THEOLOGY.

(AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SCIENCE and Ante, September, 1800.)

D. T.-Is Darwin's theory atheistic or pantheistic? or, does it tend to atheism or pantheism? Beforo attempting any solution of this question, permit me to say a few words tending to obtain a definito conception of necessity und design, us the sources from which events may originate, each independent of the other; and we shall, perhaps, best attain a clear understanding of each, by the illustration of an example in which simple human designers act upon the physical powers of common matter..

Suppose, then, a squaro billiard-tablo to be placed with its corners directed to the four cardinal points. Suppose a player, standing at the north corner, to strike a red ball directly to the south, his design being to lodge the ball in the south pocket; which design, if not interfered with, must, of course be accomplished. Then suppose another player, standing at the enst corner, to direct a white ball to the west corner. This design also, if not interfered with, must be accom• plished. Next suppose both players to strike their

balls at the same instant, with like forces, in the direc tions before given. In this case the balls would not pass as before, namely, the red ball to the south, and the white ball to the west, but they must both meet and striko each other in the centre of the table, and, being perfectly elastic, the red ball must pass to the west pocket, and the white ball to the south pocket. Wo may suppose that the players acted wholly without concert with each other, indeed, they may bo ignorant of each other's design, or even of cach other's existence; still we know that the events must happen as herein described. Now, the first half of the course of these two balls is from an impulse, or proceeds from a power, acting from design. Each player has the design of driving his ball across the table in a diagonal line to accomplish its lodgment at the opposito corner of the table. Neither designed that his ball should be deflected from that course and pass to another corner of the table. The direction of this second part of the motion must be referred entirely to necessity, which directly interferes with the purpose of him who designed the rectilinear direction. We are not, in this case, to go back to find design in the creation of the powers or laws of inertia and elasticity, after the order of which the deflection, at the instant of collision, necessarily takes place. We know that these powers were inherent in the balls, and were not created to answer this special deflection. We are required, by the hypothesis, to confine attention in point of time, from the instant preceding the impact of the balls, to the time of their arrival at the opposite corners of the table. The cues are moved

by design. The impacts aro acts from design. Tho first half of the motion of each ball is under tho direction of design. Wo mean by this the particular design of cach player. But, at the instant of the col lision of the balls upon each other, direction from design ceases, and the balls no longer obey the particular designs of the players, the ends or purposes intended by them are not accomplished, but frustrated, by necessity, or by the necessary action of the powers of inertia and elasticity, which are inherent in matter, and are not made by any design of a Creator for this special action, or to servo this special purpose, but would have existed in the materials of which the balls were made, although the players had never been

born.

I have thus stated, by a simple examplo in phylcal action, what is meant by design and what by nocessity; and that the latter may exist without any dependence upon the former. If I have given tho statement with what may be thought, by some, unnecessary prolixity, I have only to say that I have found many minds to have a great difficulty in conceiving of necessity as acting altogether independent of design.

Let me now traco these principles as sources of action in Darwin's work or theory. Let us see how much there is of design acting to produce a foreseen end, and thus proving a reasoning and self-conscious Creator; and how much of mere blind power acting without rational design, or without a specifle purposo or conscious foresight. Mr. Darwin has specified in a most clear and unmistakable manner the operation of

his three great powers, or rather, the three great laws by which the organic power of life acts in the formation of an eye. (See p. 109.) Following the method he has pointed out, wo will take a number of animals of the same species, in which the eye is not developed. They may have all the other senses, with the organs of nutrition, circulation, respiration, and locomotion. They all have a brain and nerves, and some of these nerves may be sensitive to light; but have no com. bination of retinn, membranes, humors, etc., by which the distinct Imago of an object may be formed and conveyed by the optic nerve to the cognizance of the internal perception, or the mind. The animal in this enso would be merely sensible of the differenco bo tween light and darkness, lo would have no power of discriminating form, size, shape, or color, the dif ference of objects, and to gain from these a knowledge of their being useful or hurtful, friends or enemies. Up to this point there is no appearance of necessity upon the scene. The billiard-balls have not yet struck together, and we will suppose that none of the arguments that may be used to prove, from this organism, thus existing, that it could not have como into form and being without a creator acting to this end with intelligence and design, are opposed by any thing that can be found in Darwin's theory; for, fo far, Darwin's laws are supposed not to have come into operation. Give the animals, thus organized, food and room, and they may go on, from gener tion to generation, upon the same organic level. Those individuals that, from natural variation, aro born with light-nerees a little more sensitive to light

than their parents, will cross or interbreed with those who have the same organs a little less sensitivo, and thus the mean standard will bo kept up without any advancement. If our billiard-tablo wero sufficiently extensive, i. c., infinite, the balls rolled from tho cor ners would never meet, and the necessity which wo have supposed to deflect them would never act.

The moment, however, that the want of spaco or food commences natural selection begins. Here the balls meet, and all future action is governed by neces sity. The best forms, or those nerves most sensitivo to light, connected with incipient membranes and humors for corneas and lenses, are picked out and preserved by natural selection, of necessity. All cannot live and propagate, and it is a necessity, obvious to all, that the weaker must perish, if the theory be true. Working on, in this way, through countless generations, the eye is at last formed in all its beauty and excellence. It must (always assuming that this thoory is true) result from this combined action of natural variation, the struggle for life, and natural selection, with as much certainty as the balls, after collision, must pass to corners of the table different from those to which they were directed, and so far forth as the eye is formed by these laws, noting upward from the nervo merely sensitivo to light, wo can no more infer design, and from design n designer, than we can infer design in the direction of the billiard-balls after the collision. Both are sufficiently accounted for by blind powers acting under a blind necessity. Take away the struggle for life from tho one, and the collision of the balls from the other-and