VIII 

 DARWINISM AND DESIGN 1 



ARGUMENT 



Question as to the Value of the Argument from Design in the light of 

 Darwinism. Its theological importance ; its intrinsic flaws. The 

 Darwinian explanation of adaptation without adapting, by Variation and 

 Natural Selection. Is it final ? I. Natural Selection proves too much ; 

 it would apply equally to automata. But if intelligence is wholly 

 inefficacious why was it developed? II. The causes of Variation lie 

 beyond the scope of Darwinism, and to explain Evolution, therefore, 

 other factors must be added. III. Natural Selection does not necessarily 

 lead to change of species, nor exclude degeneration, nor guarantee pro 

 gression. A variable factor, therefore, must be added. IV. Darwinism 

 does not explain the origin of adaptation, but presupposes it. Nor need 

 the struggle to adapt be more than the preservation of this initial adapta 

 tion. The struggle for bare existence brings no growth of adaptation ; 

 it is only when intelligence aims at ends and transforms the struggle for 

 life into one for good life that improvement conies. V. The true 

 significance of Darwinism the discovery of Natural Selection. Indefinite 

 variation a methodological assumption justified as a simplifying abstrac 

 tion. VI. But if it is understood as a description of actual fact, it rules 

 out teleology a priori and quite apart from fact. Teleology and the 

 calculus of probability. Hypothetically it is always possible to postulate 

 a non-teleological context to any apparently teleological event. Per 

 contra it is practically impossible to disprove the teleological interpreta 

 tion, and ultimately both views are postulations of a will to believe and 

 rest on an act of faith. VII. Summary : Darwinism not incompatible 

 with teleology if its assumptions are taken as methodological, and it is 

 arbitrary to take them as more. It is not necessarily hostile to teleology 

 and even indirectly furthers it by throwing into relief the miracle of pro 

 gress. Evolutionism not necessarily unteleological. 



THE question which is proposed for consideration in the 

 present essay concerns the value of what has been called 

 the Argument from Design, in the light, not so much of 



1 Published in the Contemporary Review for June 1897. It had been my 

 intention to have followed this paper up with discussions of other scientific views 

 of Evolution (which explains my success in avoiding so much as the mention of 

 Prof. Weismann s name), and finally to attempt the philosophic formulation of 

 the conception of Progress which the current science assumes and the current 



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