viii DARWINISM AND DESIGN 129 



the very various and widely spread modes of thought 

 grouped together under the name of Evolutionism, but 

 rather of the particular form of Evolutionism which has 

 been popularized by the labours of Charles Darwin, and not 

 undeservedly bears his name. In face of the Darwinian 

 theory, and the account it gives of the pedigree of life, 

 are we any longer entitled to entertain the notion that a 

 more than human intelligence has anywhere or in any 

 way contributed to the making of what now exists ? Is 

 there any evidence to be found in the constitution or 

 working of any part of nature which directly testifies to 

 a divine creator ? These are old questions which, in 

 some form or other, men have probably asked ever since 

 they were men, and will probably continue to ask until 

 they have become beasts or angels. Their practical 

 importance will readily be admitted. For clearly our 

 attitude towards life will be very different, according as 

 we believe it to be inspired and guided by intelligence, 

 or hold it to be the fortuitous product of blind 

 mechanisms, whose working our helpless human intelli 

 gence can observe but in no wise control. 



Although the Argument from Design has been taken 

 as a rough description of the subject to be treated, it will 

 yet be convenient, at the outset, both to restrict and 

 to expand its scope. It will be restricted in that the 

 discussion will turn exclusively on the argument as based 

 on living nature ; it will be expanded, in that its 

 subject will include the question of the action of intelli 

 gence generally in producing the present condition of 1 

 things. That is to say, the possibility that though no 

 traces of a divine intelligence are to be found in the 

 history of the organic world, there has yet to be admitted 

 the action of human and animal intelligence, will not be 

 overlooked. For the world may have been brought into 

 its present shape by intelligent efforts, if not by intelligent 



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

 metaphysic denies, without comprehending its nature. But dis aliter visum, and 

 the paper (to which IV. and the end of VI. are additions), seemed worth 

 including even as a fragment. For a discussion of the ultimate philosophic 

 significance of Teleology, cp. Axioms as Postulates, 45. 



K 



