ON THE LATEST FORM OF THE DEVELOPMENT THEORY. 107 
. Every such speculation must be rejected, because it is self-contradictory. It pro- 
fesses to develop a Theory of Creation, — to explain the beginning of things; and in 
order to do so, itis obliged to assume that the present or ordinary succession of phe- 
nomena, the common sequence of causes and effects which we every day witness, has 
continued from eternity ; — that is, that there never was any Creation, and that the 
universe never began to be. It professes to untie the knot, and ends by denying that 
there is any knot to untie. Mr. Darwin is too imaginative a thinker to be a safe 
guide in natural science; he has unconsciously left the proper ground of physics and 
inductive science, and busied himself with questions of cosmogony and metaphysics. 
We are at liberty, then, to consider the relations of this Development Theory to the 
great doctrines of philosophy and theology, without shifting the question or seeking to 
place it upon any other grounds than those upon which the author himself bases it; — 
above all, without seeking to build up an argument ad invidiam, a purpose which is 
here emphatically disclaimed. 
Most interesting and important among these relations is its bearing upon the 
doctrine of Final Causes. The denial of such Causes — that is, the doctrine that 
purpose, intention, or design is nowhere discoverable in organic nature — has been 
reproachfully urged against some naturalists, on account solely of the tendency of 
such denial to weaken the arguments of the theist. Of course, it does have such an 
effect, for what has ever been the principal, most intelligible, and most popular argu- 
ment for the being of a God rests entirely upon the assumption that adaptations, 
especially if nice and complex, prove design, or must have been intended. But it is a 
mistake to suppose that Final Causes have no use or meaning in philosophy and 
science, apart from this application for a theological purpose. Aristotle ftrst described 
and designated them, distinguishing them from the three other sorts of causes (Material, 
Formal, and Efficient) without even hinting at their bearing on the doctrine of the 
theist; while Harvey successfully used the assumption of a Final Cause as an instru- 
ment of discovery, and Cuvier did the same; and it is in reference only to such use, 
viz. as instruments of physical research, that Lord Bacon condemned the study of 
Final Causes. 
And here it may be observed, that paleontologists, like Mr. Darwin and Sir Charles 
Lyell, cannot, without gross inconsistency, repudiate the doctrine of Final Sen "e 
in so doing, they deny the justice of the very inference, or assumption, call it which 
you may, on which their whole science is based. Geologists have no better reason, 
and no reason of a different kind, for affirming that fossil animals and plants did once, 
millions of years ago, exist as living animals and plants, than philosophers and theolo- 
