Evolution, Old New | Page 6

more--from Isidore Geoffroy St. Hilaire.
"Whoever," says this author, "holds the doctrine of final causes, will, if
he is consistent, hold also that of the immutability of species; and again,
the opponent of the one doctrine will oppose the other also."[10]
Nothing can be plainer; I believe, however, that even without quotation
the reader would have recognized the accuracy of my contention that a
belief in the purposiveness or design of animal and vegetable organs is
commonly held to be incompatible with the belief that they have all
been evolved from one, or at any rate, from not many original, and low,
forms of life. Generally, however, as this incompatibility is accepted, it
is not unchallenged. From time to time a voice is uplifted in protest,
whose tones cannot be disregarded.
"I have always felt," says Sir William Thomson, in his address to the
British Association, 1871, "that this hypothesis" (natural selection)
"does not contain the true theory of evolution, if indeed evolution there
has been, in biology. Sir John Herschel, in expressing a favourable
judgment on the hypothesis of zoological evolution (with however
some reservation in respect to the origin of man), objected to the
doctrine of natural selection on the ground that it was too like the
Laputan method of making books, and that it did not sufficiently take
into account a continually guiding and controlling intelligence. This
seems to me a most valuable and instructive criticism. I feel profoundly
convinced that the argument of design has been greatly too much lost
sight of in recent zoological speculations. Reaction against the
frivolities of teleology such as are to be found in the notes of the
learned commentators on Paley's 'Natural Theology,' has, I believe, had
a temporary effect in turning attention from the solid and irrefragable
argument so well put forward in that excellent old book. But
overpoweringly strong proofs of intelligent and benevolent design lie
all around us,"[11] &c. Sir William Thomson goes on to infer that all
living beings depend on an ever-acting Creator and Ruler--meaning, I

am afraid, a Creator who is not an organism. Here I cannot follow him,
but while gladly accepting his testimony to the omnipresence of
intelligent design in almost every structure, whether of animal or plant,
I shall content myself with observing the manner in which plants and
animals act and with the consequences that are legitimately deducible
from their action.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] See note to Mr. Darwin, Historical Sketch, &c., 'Origin of Species,
p. xiii. ed. 1876, and Arist. 'Physicæ Auscultationes,' lib. ii. cap. viii. s.
2.
[2] See Phædo and Timæus.
[3] 'History of Creation,' vol. i. p. 18 (H. S. King and Co., 1876).
[4] Ibid. p. 19.
[5] 'History of Creation,' vol. i. p. 73 (H. S. King and Co., 1876).
[6] 'Fortnightly Review,' new series, vol. xviii. p. 795.
[7] 'Origin of Species,' p. 146, ed. 1876.
[8] 'Origin of Species,' p. 146, ed. 1876.
[9] Page 49.
[10] 'Vie et Doctrine scientifique d'Étienne Geoffroy St. Hilaire,' by
Isidore Geoffroy St. Hilaire. Paris, 1847, p. 344.
[11] Address to the British Association, 1871.
CHAPTER II
THE TELEOLOGY OF PALEY AND THE THEOLOGIANS.
Let us turn for a while to Paley, to whom Sir W. Thomson has referred

us. His work should be so well known that an apology is almost due for
quoting it, yet I think it likely that at least nine out of ten of my readers
will (like myself till reminded of it by Sir W. Thomson's address) have
forgotten its existence.
"In crossing a heath," says Paley, "suppose I pitched my foot against a
stone, and were asked how the stone came to be there; I might possibly
answer that for anything I knew to the contrary, it had lain there for
ever; nor would it perhaps be very easy to show the absurdity of this
answer. But suppose I had found a watch upon the ground, and it
should be inquired how the watch happened to be in that place; I should
hardly think of the answer I had before given--that for anything I knew
the watch might have been always there. Yet, why should not this
answer serve for the watch as well as for the stone? Why is it not as
admissible in the second case as in the first? For this reason, and for no
other, viz. that when we come to inspect the watch, we perceive (what
we could not discover in the stone) that its several parts are framed and
put together for a purpose, e. g. that they are so formed and adjusted as
to produce motion, and that motion so regulated as to point out the hour
of the day: that if the different parts had been differently shaped from
what they are, of a