EX-PRESIDENT PORTER ON EVOLUTION 579 



feeling at the outset doubtless was, and perhaps still is, that science 

 and philosophy ought to be amenable to some higher control ; but he 

 has totally failed to show that such is the case. He finds that only 

 by talking the language of science can he come into contact with 

 science ; and so with philosophy ; and that there is no higher bar 

 than their own before which these can be summoned. The result is 

 instructive for all who lean to the opinion that Theology is still queen 

 of the sciences, and that her writ runs through the whole domain of 

 human knowledge. The return made to that writ in the most flour- 

 ishing portions of the intellectual world to-day is : " No jurisdiction ! 

 Come down to facts ! " 



The ex-President of Yale is not opposed, he tells us, to evolution 

 in every aspect : " Evolution or development, in their [sic] noblest and 

 fullest signification, may spiritualize nature, ennoble man, and honor 

 God. The evolution which we criticise is a composite of scientific 

 theories some true, others doubtful, and others false which are held 

 together and wrought into a fanciful philosophy by the very slenderest 

 threads of analogy, and elevated into a negative theology by a daring 

 flight of professedly modest or agnostic reserve." Recognizing that 

 this "fanciful philosophy " is made up of several distinct elements, 

 the critic announces that he will take up these in the order of their 

 production and show their genetic connection. To our great sur- 

 prise, after reading this declaration, we find that the following is the 

 order in which the " elements " in question are placed : 



1. Darwinism, as applied to contemporary species. 



2. The same extended into the region of paleontology. 



3. The arguments drawn from biological study. 



4. The doctrine of the conservation of force. 



5. The doctrine of the development of the organic from the inor- 

 ganic. 



6. The extension of No. 5 so as to include the phenomena of sen- 

 sibility among the developed products. 



7. Its further extension so as to include the sense of personality. 



8. The arguments drawn from the development of language and of 

 human society. 



9. The wider theory of cosmical development as suggested by the 

 nebular hypothesis. 



10. A materialistic interpretation of the universe. 



11. Agnosticism. 



How it could occur to Dr. Porter that this arrangement represents 

 in any degree " the order of time and thought after which they " (i. e., 

 the several elements of the prevailing evolution philosophy) "have suc- 

 cessively come into form or being," we can not imagine. There is 

 really not the least vestige of an historical order discernible. Instead 

 of Darwinism being put first, it ought rather to have been put last. It 

 was the apparent immutability of species that for a long time stood 



