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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



long to the domain of science, and 

 that scientific investigation can not 

 be arrested by any dictum uttered in 

 the name of purely theological stud- 

 ies or merely traditional opinions. 



The main question, however, 

 which his article summons us to 

 consider is whether the doctrine of 

 evolution, which he accepts, lends it- 

 self to a teleological interpretation ; 

 and upon this point we must say 

 that he, and the authors whom he 

 cites, seem to place their argument 

 on a very unsubstantial foundation. 

 How does the matter stand ? There 

 is no question that Nature abounds 

 in examples of what, for want of a 

 more suitable term, we may call 

 adaptation. The eye is "adapted" 

 for seeing, the hand for grasping, 

 the stomach for digesting, and so on. 

 The older naturalists and philoso- 

 phers, not being able to conceive of 

 any other method by which adapta- 

 tions could be brought about than 

 that of purposive action, by some 

 power capable of molding the forms 

 of life as the human mechanic shapes 

 the materials in which he works, 

 argued, naturally and reasonably 

 from their point of view, that a spe- 

 cial divine power had designedly 

 fashioned each form and each organ 

 so as to fit them for the precise place 

 they were to fill and the work they 

 were to perform in the general econ- 

 omy of things. Paley's argument 

 from a watch was considered irresisti- 

 ble in its day. If, he said, it would 

 be idle to pretend that the parts of a 

 watch, discovered by accident on a 

 common, could have come together 

 of themselves in harmonious correla- 

 tion, so as to achieve the purpose of 

 correctly measuring time, is it not 

 still more idle to pretend that the 

 vastly more numerous and complex 

 adaptations discoverable in such an 

 organ as the human eye or hand 

 could have been brought about with- 

 out the aid of an intelligent design- 



er ? It is true that certain considera- 

 tions which were obvious enough in 

 Paley's day, and had been so for cen- 

 turies before, might have suggested 

 a doubt as to whether this argument 

 was conclusive — considerations as to 

 the fashioning process which things 

 undergo by simple contact with their 

 environment, as when a man be- 

 comes polished by contact with so- 

 ciety, or exposed surfaces hardened 

 to resist the impact of external ob- 

 jects — but, speaking generally, nei- 

 ther the scientific nor the unscientific 

 world was in a position at the time 

 to deny in any effective manner the 

 force of Paley's analogy. 



To-day it is different. Father 

 Zahm himself acknowledges that 

 Paley's argument, examined in he 

 light of the doctrine of evolution, 

 becomes uutenable. Things were 

 not put together, once for all, by the 

 divine artificer in the way the wor- 

 thy dean imagined. As Topsy would 

 say, they " growed " into those con- 

 ditions of adaptation in which we at 

 present behold them through the 

 combined forces of heredity and nat- 

 ural selection — the former reproduc- 

 ing qualities once spontaneously de- 

 veloped, the latter rejecting forms 

 not fitted to thrive, or at least less 

 fitted than others to thrive, in their 

 actual environment. The question, 

 therefore, at present is, Can we as- 

 sert with confidence, on the strength 

 of some strong analogy such as that 

 to which Paley — as is now evident 

 erroneously — appealed, that the evo- 

 lutionary process was set in motion 

 with a distinct intention on the part of 

 an intelligent Creator to produce pre- 

 cisely those forms and modes of life 

 which prevail, and heretofore have 

 prevailed, in the world? Adapted 

 structures, it is conceded, exist, but is 

 it certain that intention or purpose 

 presided over their adaptation? On 

 this question it does not appear to us 

 that either Father Zahm or any of 



