EVOLUTION AND THE DESTINY OF MAN. 467 



of observation, it is well to keep the two as separate as possible. The 

 method of science is a gradual method : little by little, we widen the 

 circle of our knowledge ; little by little, we improve our hypotheses. 

 Theology makes from the first the most comprehensive statements, 

 and offers solutions of the profoundest problems. To apply, there- 

 fore, the dicta or the general conceptions of theology to the prov- 

 ince of science is to run much risk of injuring the work of science 

 by the forcing of premature conclusions ; admitting that theology has 

 nothing to teach that is positively erroneous. That loyalty to truth 

 so fittingly referred to by our author requires us to content ourselves 

 with such conclusions as we can reach by lawful and appropriate 

 methods. If we see a law of natural selection at work, let us try to 

 get as clear an understanding as possible of the manner of its work- 

 ing ; but let us be very careful how we personify it, and how we im- 

 pute to our personification feelings and purposes which correspond 

 with nothing in the facts as we know them. Nothing could be more 

 opposed to the human idea of " work " than the process of natural 

 selection as described by our author himself, yet he constantly speaks 

 of the " work " of natural selection. He tells us that " in the desperate 

 struggle for existence no peculiarity has been too insignificant for 

 natural selection to seize and enhance " ; just as if natural selection 

 were some vigilant intelligence watching for opportunities to advance 

 its designs. The same fact which is thus expressed in, as I think, 

 misleadingly metaphorical language could have been expressed in 

 honest prose by saying that "in the desperate struggle for existence 

 no peculiarity was too insignificant to contribute to survival or de- 

 struction as the case might be." There we have the fact without any 

 illegitimate implications ; and it is thus, as it strikes me, that scien- 

 tific facts should be described. Species were formed, if the theory of 

 natural selection is sound, in very much the same way in which the 

 corners are ground off bowlders carried down by glaciers or swept 

 away by torrents. Whatever projections happen to be in the way are 

 knocked off ; finally, the stone is reduced to a shape in which it is com- 

 paratively safe from further injury by friction. So with species. Dar- 

 win has discovered no law in nature by which good qualities (as such) 

 are produced ; he has simply discovered a law by which all kinds of 

 qualities (differentiations), good, bad, and indifferent, are produced, 

 and by which the bad ones (bad, i. e., in relation to the environment) 

 are knocked off, like so many projecting angles, by the destruction of 

 the individuals manifesting them. Mr. Fiske tells us that, for a long 

 time past, so far as man is concerned, natural selection has been un- 

 able by itself to "rectify any particular unfitness." It never could 

 rectify unfitness at any time ; as Mr. Fiske tells us, on the very next 

 page, " it always works by death." We might compare it to a physi- 

 cian who went about " rectifying " diseases by cutting the throats of 

 his patients. Such drastic surgery might doubtless improve the aver- 



