EDITOR'S TABLE. 



555 



dogma, our critic seems quite pre- 

 pared to acknowledge. Indeed, he 

 uses language which so fully agi'ees 

 with our own that we almost won- 

 der he thought it worth while to find 

 fault with our position. We said 

 that an acceptance of the doctrine 

 of design would be the death of sci- 

 entific investigation. Mr. Clark, 

 speaking of the Darwinian doctrine 

 of natural selection, says that for 

 thirty-five years it has been " the 

 mainspring of research not merely 

 in biology, but in all the field of 

 natural science." But the two doc- 

 trines are completely opposed : so 

 that what Mr. Clark says of the one 

 is virtually a confirmation of what 

 we said of the other. Take away or 

 break " the mainspring of research," 

 and what would follow ? If the 

 metaphor is sound, arrest of move- 

 ment would follow; and what is ar- 

 rest of movement but death, for the 

 time being at least? Before Dar- 

 win's time, our critic says, " natural- 

 ists were content with statistics, and 

 did not ask for reasons." And he 

 adds, " that this was due to a belief 

 in the immutability of species and 

 the doctrine of design there can be 

 little doubt." And yet, because we 

 said what we did about the doctrine 

 of design, we are accused of display- 

 ing "illogical reasoning and un- 

 called-for prejudice" ! 



At this point Mr. Clark gives a 

 little twist to our words which does 

 not speak well for his candor or his 

 carefulness: let us trust that it was 

 the latter that was at fault. We said 

 that "the reason why the doctrine 

 of design is so popular " is, partly be- 

 cause it is such a saver of intellectual 

 toil, and partly because by making 

 knowledge impossible it glorifies ig- 

 norance." Our critic, referring to 

 this remark, says that to accuse " the 

 great men who accepted that doc- 

 trine " in pre-Darwinian times of 

 having done so for the reasons men- 



tioned, "is a gross slander." Well, 

 as we were speaking of what made 

 the doctrine " popular " in the pres- 

 ent day, and said nothing whatever 

 about the great men of the past, who 

 had hardly any choice in the matter, 

 the " gross slander " exists only in 

 Mr. Clark's imagination a faculty 

 which a man of science, such as he 

 professes to be, should learn to keep 

 in subjection. 



Our critic finds that the very suc- 

 cess of the doctrine of evolution has 

 brought in a new danger. These are 

 his w r ords: "The doctrine of evolu- 

 tion has proved so satisfactory at 

 every turn, that there is great danger 

 that the ultimate motive for scien- 

 tific research will be completely lost 

 to sight." That motive he declares 

 to be expressed in the interrogation 

 " Why ? " The older naturalists set 

 themselves to answer the question 

 "What?" In other words, they 

 sought out and classified facts. Dar- 

 win came on the scene with the 

 question "How?" and his answer 

 thereto. And now Mr. Clark steps 

 forward with the question " Why ? " 

 to which he hopes an answer will 

 some day be forthcoming. He is not 

 content to understand the processes 

 of becoming; he wants to know what 

 objects God has in view in causing 

 things to happen as they do. That 

 he declares to be the true motive for 

 scientific research, without which it 

 is a matter of " mere curiosity." As 

 to the possibility of attaining to a 

 knowledge of the why, he considers, 

 rather oddly, that the success of the 

 doctrine of evolution in answering 

 the question How ? should give us 

 great encouragement. " Is not," he 

 argues, "the doctrine of evolution 

 becoming less and less of an hypothe- 

 sis and more and more of an actu- 

 ally established law every year ? Is 

 not the evidence all tending to estab- 

 lish it completely, and to prove that 

 even the obscure problems of life 



