98 Darwin s Mechanical Philosophy. 



reason in man, and the reflex of reason in the 

 order of the universe. Thus no case is left for 

 any hyperphysical agency, much less a creative, 

 designing intelligence. 



But neither Darwinism nor evolutionism in 

 general really necessitates, or even warrants, such 

 a speculative inference. For if everything has 

 been evolved from that impalpable nebula, either 

 it was originally more than a nebula or it has been 

 added to, in the course of its development, from 

 a source beyond itself. An effect is simply its 

 cause translated ; and nothing can be developed 

 into actuality which was not enveloped potentially 

 in the germ. If a primitive ether has turned 

 into the cosmos with all that inhabit it, this evo 

 lution was possible only by the constant addition 

 of increments which, though singly so inappreci 

 able as to pass for nothing, are in their aggregate 

 so infinite that they constitute everything but 

 ether. Power adequate to the result there must 

 have been ; and it makes no difference whether 

 it be &quot; concentrated on a moment or distributed 

 through incalculable ages.&quot; -And it surely is, as 

 Dr. Martineau has so happily observed, &quot; a mean 

 device for philosophers thus to crib causation by 

 hair s-breadths, to put it out at compound inter 

 est through all time, and then disown the debt.&quot; 



