DARWINISM AND PHILOSOPHY 13 



of scientific value as applied to nature in general. 

 If the variations of the pigeon, which under arti 

 ficial selection give the pouter pigeon, are not pre 

 ordained for the sake of the breeder, by what logic 

 do we argue that variations resulting in natural 

 species are pre-designed? * 



IV 



So much for some of the more obvious facts 

 of the discussion of design versus chance, as causal 

 principles of nature and of life as a whole. We 

 brought up this discussion, you recall, as a crucial 

 instance. What does our touchstone indicate as 

 to the bearing of Darwinian ideas upon philoso 

 phy ? In the first place, the new logic outlaws, 

 flanks, dismisses what you will one type of 

 problems and substitutes for it another type. 

 Philosophy forswears inquiry after absolute origins 

 and absolute finalities in order to explore specific 

 values and the specific conditions that generate 

 them. 



Darwin concluded that the impossibility^ of 

 assigning the world to chance as a whole and to 

 design in its parts indicated the insolubility of 

 the question. Two radically different reasons, 



lu Life and Letters,&quot; Vol. II., pp. 146, 170, 245; Vol. I., 

 pp. 283*84. See also the closing portion of his &quot; Variation* 

 of Animals and Plants under Domestication.&quot; 



