
"It is this which has made me so long hesitate, always feeling that the
case of Man and his Races, and of other animals, and that of plants, is one
and the same, and that if a vera causa be admitted for one instant,
[instead] of a purely unknown and imaginary one, such as the word
'creation,' all the consequences must follow."

To Darwin, March 15, 1863 (volume ii. page 365).

"I remember that it was the conclusion he [Lamarck] came to about man that
fortified me thirty years ago against the great impression which his
arguments at first made on my mind, all the greater because Constant
Prevost, a pupil of Cuvier's forty years ago, told me his conviction 'that
Cuvier thought species not real, but that science could not advance without
assuming that they were so.'"

To Hooker, March 9, 1863 (volume ii. page 361), in reference to Darwin's
feeling about the 'Antiquity of Man.'

"He [Darwin] seems much disappointed that I do not go farther with him, or
do not speak out more.	I can only say that I have spoken out to the full
extent of my present convictions, and even beyond my state of FEELING as to
man's unbroken descent from the brutes, and I find I am half converting not
a few who were in arms against Darwin, and are even now against Huxley."
He speaks of having had to abandon "old and long cherished ideas, which
constituted the charm to me of the theoretical part of the science in my
earlier day, when I believed with Pascal in the theory, as Hallam terms it,
of 'the arch-angel ruined.'"

See the same sentiment in the letter to Darwin, March 11, 1863, page 363:--

"I think the old 'creation' is almost as much required as ever, but of
course it takes a new form if Lamarck's views improved by yours are
adopted.") that, if Sir Charles could have avoided the inevitable corollary
of the pithecoid origin of man--for which, to the end of his life, he
entertained a profound antipathy--he would have advocated the efficiency of
causes now in operation to bring about the condition of the organic world,
as stoutly as he championed that doctrine in reference to inorganic nature.

The fact is, that a discerning eye might have seen that some form or other
of the doctrine of transmutation was inevitable, from the time when the
truth enunciated by William Smith that successive strata are characterised
by different kinds of fossil remains, became a firmly established law of
nature.  No one has set forth the speculative consequences of this
generalisation better than the historian of the 'Inductive Sciences':--

"But the study of geology opens to us the spectacle of many groups of
species which have, in the course of the earth's history, succeeded each
other at vast intervals of time; one set of animals and plants
disappearing, as it would seem, from the face of our planet, and others,
which did not before exist, becoming the only occupants of the globe.  And
the dilemma then presents itself to us anew:--either we must accept the
doctrine of the transmutation of species, and must suppose that the
organized species of one geological epoch were transmuted into those of
another by some long-continued agency of natural causes; or else, we must
believe in many successive acts of creation and extinction of species, out
of the common course of nature; acts which, therefore, we may properly call
miraculous."  (Whewell's 'History of the Inductive Sciences.'  Edition ii.,
1847, volume iii. pages 624-625.  See for the author's verdict, pages 638-
39.)

Dr. Whewell decides in favour of the latter conclusion.  And if any one had
plied him with the four questions which he puts to Lyell in the passage
already cited, all that can be said now is that he would certainly have
rejected the first.  But would he really have had the courage to say that a
Rhinoceros tichorhinus, for instance, "was produced without parents;" or
was "evolved from some embryo substance;" or that it suddenly started from
the ground like Milton's lion "pawing to get free his hinder parts."  I
permit myself to doubt whether even the Master of Trinity's well-tried
courage--physical, intellectual, and moral--would have been equal to this
feat.  No doubt the sudden concurrence of half-a-ton of inorganic molecules
into a live rhinoceros is conceivable, and therefore may be possible.  But
does such an event lie sufficiently within the bounds of probability to
justify the belief in its occurrence on the strength of any attainable, or,
indeed, imaginable, evidence?

In view of the assertion (often repeated in the early days of the
opposition to Darwin) that he had added nothing to Lamarck, it is very
interesting to observe that the possibility of a fifth alternative, in
addition to the four he has stated, has not dawned upon Dr. Whewell's mind.
The suggestion that new species may result from the selective action of
external conditions upon the variations from their specific type which
individuals present--and which we call "spontaneous," because we are
ignorant of their causation--is as wholly unknown to the historian of
scientific ideas as it was to biological specialists before 1858.  But that
suggestion is the central idea of the 'Origin of Species,' and contains the
quintessence of Darwinism.

Thus, looking back into the past, it seems to me that my own position of
critical expectancy was just and reasonable, and must have been taken up,
on the same grounds, by many other persons.  If Agassiz told me that the
forms of life which had successively tenanted the globe were the
incarnations of successive thoughts of the Deity; and that he had wiped out
one set of these embodiments by an appalling geological catastrophe as soon
as His ideas took a more advanced shape, I found myself not only unable to
admit the accuracy of the deductions from the facts of paleontology, upon
which this astounding hypothesis was founded, but I had to confess my want
of any means of testing the correctness of his explanation of them.  And
besides that, I could by no means see what the explanation explained.
Neither did it help me to be told by an eminent anatomist that species had
succeeded one another in time, in virtue of "a continuously operative
creational law."  That seemed to me to be no more than saying that species
had succeeded one another, in the form of a vote-catching resolution, with
"law" to please the man of science, and "creational" to draw the orthodox.
So I took refuge in that "thatige Skepsis" which Goethe has so well
defined; and, reversing the apostolic precept to be all things to all men,
I usually defended the tenability of the received doctrines, when I had to
do with the transmutationists; and stood up for the possibility of
transmutation among the orthodox--thereby, no doubt, increasing an already
current, but quite undeserved, reputation for needless combativeness.

I remember, in the course of my first interview with Mr. Darwin, expressing
my belief in the sharpness of the lines of demarcation between natural
groups and in the absence of transitional forms, with all the confidence of
youth and imperfect knowledge.	I was not aware, at that time, that he had
then been many years brooding over the species-question; and the humorous
smile which accompanied his gentle answer, that such was not altogether his
view, long haunted and puzzled me.  But it would seem that four or five
years' hard work had enabled me to understand what it meant; for Lyell
('Life and Letters,' volume ii. page 212.), writing to Sir Charles Bunbury
(under date of April 30, 1856), says:--

"When Huxley, Hooker, and Wollaston were at Darwin's last week they (all
four of them) ran a tilt against species--further, I believe, than they are
prepared to go."

I recollect nothing of this beyond the fact of meeting Mr. Wollaston; and
except for Sir Charles' distinct assurance as to "all four," I should have
thought my "outrecuidance" was probably a counterblast to Wollaston's
conservatism.  With regard to Hooker, he was already, like Voltaire's
Habbakuk, "capable du tout" in the way of advocating Evolution.

As I have already said, I imagine that most of those of my contemporaries
who thought seriously about the matter, were very much in my own state of
mind--inclined to say to both Mosaists and Evolutionists, "a plague on both
your houses!" and disposed to turn aside from an interminable and
apparently fruitless discussion, to labour in the fertile fields of
ascertainable fact.  And I may, therefore, further suppose that the
publication of the Darwin and Wallace papers in 1858, and still more that
of the 'Origin' in 1859, had the effect upon them of the flash of light,
which to a man who has lost himself in a dark night, suddenly reveals a
road which, whether it takes him straight home or not, certainly goes his
way.  That which we were looking for, and could not find, was a hypothesis
respecting the origin of known organic forms, which assumed the operation
of no causes but such as could be proved to be actually at work.  We
wanted, not to pin our faith to that or any other speculation, but to get
hold of clear and definite conceptions which could be brought face to face
with facts and have their validity tested.  The 'Origin' provided us with
the working hypothesis we sought.  Moreover, it did the immense service of
freeing us for ever from the dilemma--refuse to accept the creation
hypothesis, and what have you to propose that can be accepted by any
cautious reasoner?  In 1857, I had no answer ready, and I do not think that
any one else had.  A year later, we reproached ourselves with dullness for
being perplexed by such an inquiry.  My reflection, when I first made
myself master of the central idea of the 'Origin,' was, "How extremely
stupid not to have thought of that!"  I suppose that Columbus' companions
said much the same when he made the egg stand on end.  The facts of
variability, of the struggle for existence, of adaptation to conditions,
were notorious enough; but none of us had suspected that the road to the
heart of the species problem lay through them, until Darwin and Wallace
dispelled the darkness, and the beacon-fire of the 'Origin' guided the
benighted.

Whether the particular shape which the doctrine of evolution, as applied to
the organic world, took in Darwin's hands, would prove to be final or not,
was, to me, a matter of indifference.  In my earliest criticisms of the
'Origin' I ventured to point out that its logical foundation was insecure
so long as experiments in selective breeding had not produced varieties
which were more or less infertile; and that insecurity remains up to the
present time.  But, with any and every critical doubt which my sceptical
ingenuity could suggest, the Darwinian hypothesis remained incomparably
more probable than the creation hypothesis.  And if we had none of us been
able to discern the paramount significance of some of the most patent and
notorious of natural facts, until they were, so to speak, thrust under our
noses, what force remained in the dilemma--creation or nothing?  It was
obvious that, hereafter, the probability would be immensely greater, that
the links of natural causation were hidden from our purblind eyes, than
that natural causation should be incompetent to produce all the phenomena
of nature.  The only rational course for those who had no other object than
the attainment of truth, was to accept "Darwinism" as a working hypothesis,
and see what could be made of it.  Either it would prove its capacity to
elucidate the facts of organic life, or it would break down under the
strain.  This was surely the dictate of common sense; and, for once, common
sense carried the day.	The result has been that complete volte-face of the
whole scientific world, which must seem so surprising to the present
generation.  I do not mean to say that all the leaders of biological
science have avowed themselves Darwinians; but I do not think that there is
a single zoologist, or botanist, or palaeontologist, among the multitude of
active workers of this generation, who is other than an evolutionist,
profoundly influenced by Darwin's views.  Whatever may be the ultimate fate
of the particular theory put forth by Darwin, I venture to affirm that, so
far as my knowledge goes, all the ingenuity and all the learning of hostile
critics have not enabled them to adduce a solitary fact, of which it can be
said, this is irreconcilable with the Darwinian theory.  In the prodigious
variety and complexity of organic nature, there are multitudes of phenomena
which are not deducible from any generalisations we have yet reached.  But
the same may be said of every other class of natural objects.  I believe
that astronomers cannot yet get the moon's motions into perfect accordance
with the theory of gravitation.

It would be inappropriate, even if it were possible, to discuss the
difficulties and unresolved problems which have hitherto met the
evolutionist, and which will probably continue to puzzle him for
generations to come, in the course of this brief history of the reception
of Mr. Darwin's great work.  But there are two or three objections of a
more general character, based, or supposed to be based, upon philosophical
and theological foundations, which were loudly expressed in the early days
of the Darwinian controversy, and which, though they have been answered
over and over again, crop up now and then to the present day.

The most singular of these, perhaps immortal, fallacies, which live on,
Tithonus-like, when sense and force have long deserted them, is that which
charges Mr. Darwin with having attempted to reinstate the old pagan
goddess, Chance.  It is said that he supposes variations to come about "by
chance," and that the fittest survive the "chances" of the struggle for
existence, and thus "chance" is substituted for providential design.

It is not a little wonderful that such an accusation as this should be
brought against a writer who has, over and over again, warned his readers
that when he uses the word "spontaneous," he merely means that he is
ignorant of the cause of that which is so termed; and whose whole theory
crumbles to pieces if the uniformity and regularity of natural causation
for illimitable past ages is denied.  But probably the best answer to those
who talk of Darwinism meaning the reign of "chance," is to ask them what
they themselves understand by "chance"?  Do they believe that anything in
this universe happens without reason or without a cause?  Do they really
conceive that any event has no cause, and could not have been predicted by
any one who had a sufficient insight into the order of Nature?	If they do,
it is they who are the inheritors of antique superstition and ignorance,
and whose minds have never been illumined by a ray of scientific thought.
The one act of faith in the convert to science, is the confession of the
universality of order and of the absolute validity in all times and under
all circumstances, of the law of causation.  This confession is an act of
faith, because, by the nature of the case, the truth of such propositions
is not susceptible of proof.  But such faith is not blind, but reasonable;
because it is invariably confirmed by experience, and constitutes the sole
trustworthy foundation for all action.

If one of these people, in whom the chance-worship of our remoter ancestors
thus strangely survives, should be within reach of the sea when a heavy
gale is blowing, let him betake himself to the shore and watch the scene.
Let him note the infinite variety of form and size of the tossing waves out
at sea; or of the curves of their foam-crested breakers, as they dash
against the rocks; let him listen to the roar and scream of the shingle as
it is cast up and torn down the beach; or look at the flakes of foam as
they drive hither and thither before the wind; or note the play of colours,
which answers a gleam of sunshine as it falls upon the myriad bubbles.
Surely here, if anywhere, he will say that chance is supreme, and bend the
knee as one who has entered the very penetralia of his divinity.  But the
man of science knows that here, as everywhere, perfect order is manifested;
that there is not a curve of the waves, not a note in the howling chorus,
not a rainbow-glint on a bubble, which is other than a necessary
consequence of the ascertained laws of nature; and that with a sufficient
knowledge of the conditions, competent physico-mathematical skill could
account for, and indeed predict, every one of these "chance" events.

A second very common objection to Mr. Darwin's views was (and is), that
they abolish Teleology, and eviscerate the argument from design.  It is
nearly twenty years since I ventured to offer some remarks on this subject,
and as my arguments have as yet received no refutation, I hope I may be
excused for reproducing them.  I observed, "that the doctrine of Evolution
is the most formidable opponent of all the commoner and coarser forms of
Teleology.  But perhaps the most remarkable service to the Philosophy of
Biology rendered by Mr. Darwin is the reconciliation of Teleology and
Morphology, and the explanation of the facts of both, which his views
offer.	The teleology which supposes that the eye, such as we see it in
man, or one of the higher vertebrata, was made with the precise structure
it exhibits, for the purpose of enabling the animal which possesses it to
see, has undoubtedly received its death-blow.  Nevertheless, it is
necessary to remember that there is a wider teleology which is not touched
by the doctrine of Evolution, but is actually based upon the fundamental
proposition of Evolution.  This proposition is that the whole world, living
and not living, is the result of the mutual interaction, according to
definite laws, of the forces (I should now like to substitute the word
powers for "forces.") possessed by the molecules of which the primitive
nebulosity of the universe was composed.  If this be true, it is no less
certain that the existing world lay potentially in the cosmic vapour, and
that a sufficient intelligence could, from a knowledge of the properties of
the molecules of that vapour, have predicted, say the state of the fauna of
Britain in 1869, with as much certainty as one can say what will happen to
the vapour of the breath on a cold winter's day...

...The teleological and the mechanical views of nature are not,
necessarily, mutually exclusive.  On the contrary, the more purely a
mechanist the speculator is, the more firmly does he assume a primordial
molecular arrangement of which all the phenomena of the universe are the
consequences, and the more completely is he thereby at the mercy of the
teleologist, who can always defy him to disprove that this primordial
molecular arrangement was not intended to evolve the phenomena of the
universe."  (The "Genealogy of Animals" ('The Academy,' 1869), reprinted in
'Critiques and Addresses.')

The acute champion of Teleology, Paley, saw no difficulty in admitting that
the "production of things" may be the result of trains of mechanical
dispositions fixed beforehand by intelligent appointment and kept in action
by a power at the centre ('Natural Theology,' chapter xxiii.), that is to
say, he proleptically accepted the modern doctrine of Evolution; and his
successors might do well to follow their leader, or at any rate to attend
to his weighty reasonings, before rushing into an antagonism which has no
reasonable foundation.

Having got rid of the belief in chance and the disbelief in design, as in
no sense appurtenances of Evolution, the third libel upon that doctrine,
that it is anti-theistic, might perhaps be left to shift for itself.  But
the persistence with which many people refuse to draw the plainest
consequences from the propositions they profess to accept, renders it
advisable to remark that the doctrine of Evolution is neither Anti-theistic
nor Theistic.  It simply has no more to do with Theism than the first book
of Euclid has.	It is quite certain that a normal fresh-laid egg contains
neither cock nor hen; and it is also as certain as any proposition in
physics or morals, that if such an egg is kept under proper conditions for
three weeks, a cock or hen chicken will be found in it.  It is also quite
certain that if the shell were transparent we should be able to watch the
formation of the young fowl, day by day, by a process of evolution, from a
microscopic cellular germ to its full size and complication of structure.
Therefore Evolution, in the strictest sense, is actually going on in this
and analogous millions and millions of instances, wherever living creatures
exist.	Therefore, to borrow an argument from Butler, as that which now
happens must be consistent with the attributes of the Deity, if such a
Being exists, Evolution must be consistent with those attributes.  And, if
so, the evolution of the universe, which is neither more nor less
explicable than that of a chicken, must also be consistent with them.  The
doctrine of Evolution, therefore, does not even come into contact with
Theism, considered as a philosophical doctrine.  That with which it does
collide, and with which it is absolutely inconsistent, is the conception of
creation, which theological speculators have based upon the history
narrated in the opening of the book of Genesis.

There is a great deal of talk and not a little lamentation about the so-
called religious difficulties which physical science has created.  In
theological science, as a matter of fact, it has created none.	Not a
solitary problem presents itself to the philosophical Theist, at the
present day, which has not existed from the time that philosophers began to
think out the logical grounds and the logical consequences of Theism.  All
the real or imaginary perplexities which flow from the conception of the
universe as a determinate mechanism, are equally involved in the assumption
of an Eternal, Omnipotent and Omniscient Deity.  The theological equivalent
of the scientific conception of order is Providence; and the doctrine of
determinism follows as surely from the attributes of foreknowledge assumed
by the theologian, as from the universality of natural causation assumed by
the man of science.  The angels in 'Paradise Lost' would have found the
task of enlightening Adam upon the mysteries of "Fate, Foreknowledge, and
Free-will," not a whit more difficult, if their pupil had been educated in
a "Real-schule" and trained in every laboratory of a modern university.  In
respect of the great problems of Philosophy, the post-Darwinian generation
is, in one sense, exactly where the prae-Darwinian generations were.  They
remain insoluble.  But the present generation has the advantage of being
better provided with the means of freeing itself from the tyranny of
certain sham solutions.

The known is finite, the unknown infinite; intellectually we stand on an
islet in the midst of an illimitable ocean of inexplicability.	Our
business in every generation is to reclaim a little more land, to add
something to the extent and the solidity of our possessions.  And even a
cursory glance at the history of the biological sciences during the last
quarter of a century is sufficient to justify the assertion, that the most
potent instrument for the extension of the realm of natural knowledge which
has come into men's hands, since the publication of Newton's 'Principia,'
is Darwin's 'Origin of Species.'

It was badly received by the generation to which it was first addressed,
and the outpouring of angry nonsense to which it gave rise is sad to think
upon.  But the present generation will probably behave just as badly if
another Darwin should arise, and inflict upon them that which the
generality of mankind most hate--the necessity of revising their
convictions.  Let them, then, be charitable to us ancients; and if they
behave no better than the men of my day to some new benefactor, let them
recollect that, after all, our wrath did not come to much, and vented
itself chiefly in the bad language of sanctimonious scolds.  Let them as
speedily perform a strategic right-about-face, and follow the truth
wherever it leads.  The opponents of the new truth will discover, as those
of Darwin are doing, that, after all, theories do not alter facts, and that
the universe remains unaffected even though texts crumble.  Or, it may be,
that, as history repeats itself, their happy ingenuity will also discover
that the new wine is exactly of the same vintage as the old, and that
(rightly viewed) the old bottles prove to have been expressly made for
holding it.





End of Project Gutenberg's Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I

