The Metaphysics of Darwinism. 75 



in the right in refusing to recognize supernatural 

 activity as a relevant explanation of natural phe 

 nomena. 



But it was a dogma of this kind which Darwin 

 found in the biology of his day regarding the ori 

 gin of species. He substituted for it a scientific 

 hypothesis of the development of life by means 

 of purely natural causes. He did not deny the 

 ultimate creative or preservative agency of God, 

 with which as a biologist he was not called upon 

 to deal ; nor is his theory at bottom a contradic 

 tion of the essence of that theological doctrine, 

 for the two belong to totally different orders of 

 interpretation. With complete neutrality towards 

 such speculative matters, he asserted merely that 

 the manifestation of life on our globe was 

 through a process of evolution, of which natural 

 selection was the proximate cause, be the ulti 

 mate cause what it may. &quot;Whether this hypoth 

 esis be true or not, it is at least an attempt to 

 solve the scientific problem which, on the other 

 hand, is simply overleaped by the transcendental 

 doctrine of divine creation. It is the only kind 

 of explanation that science can consider legiti 

 mate. 



The phenomenon to be accounted for the ori 

 gin of species is by Darwin referred to vercs 



