700 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the outset by means of some act of which our ordinary notions of cause 

 and effect can give no account whatever. For every one of the indi- 

 viduals of which a species is made up, lie will admit the adequacy of 

 the ordinary process of generation ; but for the species as a whole, this 

 process seems to him inadequate, and he flies at once to that refuge 

 of inconsequent and timid minds miracle I 



This is really just what Prof. Agassiz's theory of the origin of spe- 

 cific forms amounts to, and this is the reason why, in spite of grave 

 heresy on minor points, he is now regarded by the evangelical Church 

 as one of its chief champions. Instead of the natural process of gen- 

 eration which is the only process by which we have ever known or- 

 ganic beings to be produced he would fain set up some unknown mys- 

 terious process, the nature of which he is careful not to define, but for 

 which he endeavors to persuade us that we have a fair equivalent in 

 sonorous phrases concerning " creative will," " free action of an intel- 

 ligent mind," and so on. In thus postponing considerations of pure 

 science to considerations of " natural theology," I have no doubt Prof. 

 Agassiz is actuated by a praiseworthy desire to do something for the 

 glory of that Power of which the phenomenal universe is the perpetual 

 but ever-changing manifestation. But how futile is such an attempt 

 as this ! How contrary to common-sense it is to say that a species is 

 produced, not by the action of blind natural forces, but by an intelli- 

 gent will ! For, although this most prominent of all facts seems to be 

 oftenest overlooked by theologians and others whom it most especially 

 concerns, we are all the time, day by day and year by year, in each 

 and every event of our lives, having experience of the workings of 

 that Divine Power which, whether we attribute to it " intelligent will " 

 or not, is unquestionably the one active agent in all the dynamic phe- 

 nomena of Nature. Little as we know of the intrinsic nature of this 

 Omnipresent Power, which, in our poor human talk, we call God, 

 we do at least know, by daily and hourly experience, what is the char- 

 acter of its working. The whole experience of our lives teaches us 

 that this Power works after a method which, in our scholastic expression, 

 we call the method of cause and effect, or the method of natural law. 

 Traditions of a barbarous and uncultivated age, in which mere gro- 

 tesque associations of thoughts were mistaken for facts, have told us 

 that this Power has, at various times in the past, worked in a different 

 way causing effects to appear without cognizable antecedents, even 

 as Aladdin's palace rose in all its wondrous magnificence, without 

 sound of carpenter's hammer or mason's chisel, in a single night. But 

 about such modes of divine action we know nothing whatever from 

 experience ; and the awakening of literary criticism, in modern times, 

 has taught us to distrust all snch accounts of divine action which con- 

 flict with the lessons we learn from what is ever going on round 

 about us. So far as we know aught concerning the works of God, 

 which are being performed in us, through us, and around us, during 



