EDITOR'S TABLE. 



123 



ties in the way of its acceptance, but 

 gave no hint of the considerations which 

 have forced it on the belief of nearly all 

 students of zoology and biology. In 

 like manner he brought forward the ob- 

 jection urged by Sir William Thompson 

 (now Lord Kelvin) and Prof^ Tait, as re- 

 gards the time limit fixed by the laws 

 of radiation for the possible existence of 

 life on the earth, and left it to be under- 

 stood that it was of an altogether insu- 

 perable character, which is far from 

 being the case. The greatest disservice, 

 however, which he did to the cause of 

 science was in taking his stand, against 

 the theory of natural selection, upon the 

 doctrine of design. It needs but a few 

 moments of careful and candid consid- 

 eration to show that the doctrine of de- 

 sign means the death of scientific in- 

 vestigation. If things are so because 

 they were intentionally made so, or be- 

 cause certain processes were miraculous- 

 ly expedited, then the universe may be 

 the theater of Will, but not of forces 

 the operation of which we can hope to 

 understand. It is worthy of remark 

 that his lordship did not even mention 

 the familiar phenomenon of the struggle 

 for life. That is something which can 

 not be denied ; and yet nothing is plainer 

 than that the struggle for life means 

 natural selection, and must, under cer- 

 tain circumstances, tend to the forma- 

 tion of new species. Prof. Karl Pear- 

 son, discussing this point in the Fort- 

 nightly Eeview for September, well 

 observes that "every man who has 

 lived through a hard winter, every man 

 who has examined a mortality table, 

 every man who has studied the historv 

 of nations, has probably seen natural 

 selection at work." Lord Salisbury 

 himself admits that Darwin "has, as a 

 matter of fact, disposed of the doctrine 

 of the immutability of species. . . . Few " 

 (he adds) " are now found to doubt that 

 animals separated by differences far ex- 

 ceeding those that distinguish what we 

 know as species have yet descended 

 from common ancestors," Well, how 



has this been brought about? Did the 

 Divine Being, by an arbitrary act of 

 will, simply change at a given moment 

 the progeny of a given pair of animals 

 so that one or more new species, or 

 what we call species, should be origi- 

 nated, or was there some natural pro- 

 cess of physical causation at work to 

 produce the result? If the former al- 

 ternative is to be adopted, then, as we 

 have already said, all investigation ot 

 causes becomes futile : if the latter, 

 then it matters little whether we accept 

 Darwin's theory or some other; and 

 certainly no one would wish to take his 

 stand on Darwin's theory if a better 

 one which would fit the facts more 

 closely were available. The reason 

 why the doctrine of design is so popu- 

 lar is partly because it is such a saver 

 of intellectual toil, and partly because, 

 by making knowledge impossible, it 

 glorifies ignorance. It reduces biology 

 to that " merely statistical " level from 

 which, according to Lord Salisbury him- 

 self, it was the glory of Darwin to have 

 raised it. What is left for the student 

 of Nature save to record facts as he finds 

 them, when every question as to how 

 things have come to be as they are re- 

 ceives but the one reply, " The Creator 

 designed them so " ? 



The unfriendly attitude of Lord 

 Salisbury toward the doctrine of evolu- 

 tion is clearly shown by a remark he 

 dropped when talking about the ele- 

 ments. "If," he said, "they were or- 

 ganic beings, all our difficulties would 

 be solved by muttering the comfortable 

 word 'evolution' one of those indefi- 

 nite words from time to time vouchsafed 

 to humanity, which have the gift of al- 

 leviating so many perplexities and mask- 

 ing so many gaps in our knowledge." 

 Lord Salisbury was addressing a pre- 

 sumably learned audience : why should 

 men of the caliber of his hearers be 

 disposed to "mutter "the word evolu- 

 tion without regard either to its proper 

 meaning or to its application to the 

 matter in hand? What the unlearned 



