THE DOGMA OF EVOLUTION 



ical or causal. It may also be called the monistic^ or 

 single- principle theory, as opposed to the two-fold 

 principle, or dualistic theory, which is necessarily im- 

 plied in the teleological conception of the universe. 

 The mechanical view of nature has for many years 

 been so firmly established in certain domains of nat- 

 ural science, that it is here unnecessary to say much 

 about it. It no longer occurs to physicists, chemists, 

 mineralogists, or astronomers, to seek to find in the 

 phenomena which continually appear before them in 

 their scientific domain the action of a Creator acting 

 for a definite purpose. They universally, and without 

 hesitation, look upon the phenomena which appear in 

 their different departments of study as the necessary 

 and invariable effects of physical and chemical forces 

 which are inherent in matter. Thus far their view is 

 purely materialistic, in a certain sense of that 'word 

 of many meanings.' '"* While we might wonder why 

 it is so remarkable that physicists should rely on mat- 

 ter and mechanical forces as adequate to explain 

 mechanical phenomena, and that it would be quite as 

 logical for biologists to add a biotic force in order to 

 explain the additional phenomena of life, we must 

 conclude that Haeckel and his class of biologists in- 

 sist upon bridging the gap between the organic and 

 inorganic because of the obsession of the human 

 mind to explain all phenomena by one principle, even 

 when it can find no real bridge connecting the two 



* History of Creation, vol. I, p. 20. 



C 254 3 



