DARWINISM AND THE CHRISTIAN FAITH. 213 



Haeckel's denial of teleology is thus shown to prove too 

 mnch. And the appeal to rudimentary organs against teleolo- 

 gy, Huxley points out, places the evolutionist of that day in a 

 dilemma : 



For either these rudiments are of no use to the animals, in which case . . . 

 they ought to have disappeared ; or they ai'e of some use to the animal, in which 

 case they are of no use as arguments againsb teleology.* 



We can hardly he wrong in assuming that Dr. Asa Gray had 

 this review of Huxley's in his mind when he spoke of — 



The great gain to science from Mr. Darwin's having brought back teleology 

 to natural history. In Darwinism [he adds] usefulness and purpose come to the 

 front again as working principles of the first order ; upon them, indeed, the 

 whole system rests, t 



Is there, then, no difference between the old and the new tele- 

 ology ? Is the old argument rehabilitated ? Can we say here, 

 as in the triumph of derivation over special creation, that the 

 Christian faith loses nothing and gains much ? We are by no 

 means prepared to defend this paradox. The old and rapid argu- 

 ment from Nature to an omnipotent and beneficent Author 

 was never logically valid. To a thinking man its death-knell 

 was sounded by Kant long before the death-blow was given by 

 Darwin. In spite of the reverence with which Kant treats an 

 argument, which he speaks of as " the oldest, the clearest, and 

 most in conformity with human reason," he sees that the very 

 most which could be established by it would be the existence of 

 " an Architect of the world, not a Creator." It must fall very far 

 short of its proposed aim — viz., to prove the existence of an all- 

 sufficient original Being. J Modern science has only brought out 

 in its own way and for ordinary people a truth which metaphy- 

 sicians already knew — viz., that the argument was, as Dr. Gray 

 puts it, " weighted with much more than it can carry. . . . The 

 burden which our fathers carried comfortably, with some adven- 

 titious help, has become too heavy for our shoulders." * The older 

 teleologists noted certain favorable instances, and based on them 

 an argumentative structure which the foundation was quite in- 

 sufficient to sustain ; while, if instances of apparent meaningless- 

 ness or misery were adduced, they were put on one side with 

 Dieu le veult In the present day a Christian, whether he is an 

 evolutionist or not, has to rim the gantlet with an army of 

 facts and arguments of which his forefathers knew nothing. 

 No intelligent man could now write as Paley does : 



It is a happy world after all. The air, the earth, the water teem with de- 

 lighted existence. In a spring noon, or a summer evening, on whichever side I 



* " Critiques and Addresses," p. 308. f " Darwiniana," chap. iii. 



X " Critique," Max Miiller's translation, p. 535. * " Darwiniana," p. 374. 



