VIII DARWINISM AND DESIGN ¹ ARGUMENT Question as to the Value of the Argument from Design in the light of Darwinism. Its theological importance; its intrinsic flaws. The Darwinian explanation of adaptation without adapting, by Variation and Natural Selection. Is it final? I. Natural Selection proves too much; it would apply equally to automata. But if intelligence is wholly inefficacious why was it developed ? II. The causes of Variation lie beyond the scope of Darwinism, and to explain Evolution, therefore, other factors must be added. III. Natural Selection does not necessarily lead to change of species, nor exclude degeneration, nor guarantee pro- gression. A variable factor, therefore, must be added. IV, Darwinism docs not explain the origin of adaptation, but presupposes it. Nor need the struggle to adapt be more than the preservation of this initial adapta- tion. The struggle for bare existence brings no growth of adaptation ; it is only when intelligence aims at ends and transforms the struggle for life into one for good life that improvement comcs. V. The true significance of Darwinism the discovery of Natural Selection. Indefinite variation a methodological assumption justified as a simplifying abstrac- tion. VI. But if it is understood as a description of actual fact, it rules out teleology a priori and quite apart from fact. Teleology and the calculus of probability. Hypothetically it is always possible to postulate a non-teleological context to any apparently teleological event. Per contra it is practically impossible to disprove the teleological interpreta- tion, and ultimately both views are postulations of a will to believe and rest on an act of faith. VII. Summary: Darwinism not incompatible with telcology if its assumptions are taken as methodological, and it is arbitrary to take them as more. It is not necessarily hostile to teleology and even indirectly furthers it by throwing into relief the miracle of pro- gress. Evolutionism not necessarily unteleological. THE question which is proposed for consideration in the present essay concerns the value of what has been called the Argument from Design, in the light, not so much of 1 Published in the Contemporary Review for June 1897. It had been my intention to have followed this paper up with discussions of other scientific views of Evolution (which explains my success in avoiding so much as the mention of Prof. Weismann's name), and finally to attempt the philosophic formulation of the conception of Progress which the current science assumes and the current 128
