WHAT IS DARWINISM? 147 



ural force to take their place. Darwin has 

 provided or indicated this natural force, this 

 process of nature ; he has opened the door"' 

 through which a happier posterity may eject 

 miracles forever." Then follows the sentence' 

 just quoted, " He who knows what hangs on 

 miracle, will applaud Darwin as one of the 

 greatest benefactors of the human race." With 

 Strauss and others of his class, miracles and 

 design are identical, because one as well as 

 the other assumes supernatural agency. He 

 quotes Helmholtz, who says, " Darwin's theory, 

 that adaptation, in the formation of organisms 

 may arise without the intervention of intelH- 

 gence, by the blind operation of natural law ; " 

 and then adds, " As Helmholtz distinguishes 

 the English naturalist as the man who has ban- 

 ished design from nature, so we have praised 

 him as the man who has done away with mir- 

 acles. Both mean the same thin^.^ Design is 

 the miracle-worker in nature, which has put 

 the world upside down ; or as Spinoza says, has 

 placefl the last first, the effect for the cause, 

 and thus destroyed the very idea of nature. 



* This short but significant sentence is omitted in the excel- 

 lent translation of Strauss's book, by Mathilde Blind, republished 

 in New York, by Henry Holt & Company, 1873. 



