12 DARWINISM AND PHILOSOPHY 



is no call for a prior intelligent causal force to 

 plan and preordain them. Hostile critics charged 

 Darwin with materialism and with making chance 

 the cause of the universe. 



Some naturalists, like Asa Gray, favored the 

 Darwinian principle and attempted to reconcile 

 it with design. Gray held to what may be called 

 ,. design on the installment plan. If we conceive 

 the &quot; stream of variations &quot; to be itself intended, 

 we may suppose that each successive variation was 

 designed from the first to be selected. In that 

 case, variation, struggle, and selection simply de 

 fine the mechanism of &quot; secondary causes &quot; through 

 which the &quot; first cause &quot; acts ; and the doctrine 

 of design is none the worse off because we know 

 more of its modus operandi. 



Darwin could not accept this mediating pro 

 posal. He admits or rather he asserts that it 

 is &quot; impossible to conceive this immense and won 

 derful universe including man with his capacity 

 of looking far backwards and far into futurity 

 as the result of blind chance or necessity.&quot; - 1 But 

 nevertheless he holds that since variations are in 

 useless as well as useful directioilvand since the 

 latter are sifted out simply by the stress of the 

 conditions of struggle for existence, the design 

 argument as applied to living beings is unjustifi 

 able; and its lack of support there deprives it 

 &quot;Life and Letters,&quot; Vol. I., p. 282; cf. 285. 



