THE 'ORIGIN OF SPECIES,' 



$53 



The most singular of these, perhaps immortal, fallacies, 

 which live on, Tithonus-like, when sense and force have long 

 deserted them, is that which charges Mr. Darwin with having 

 attempted to reinstate the old pagan goddess, Chance. It is 

 said that he supposes variations to come about " by chance," 

 and that the fittest survive the " chances " of the struggle fo T> 

 existence, and thus " chance " is substituted for providential 

 design. 



It is not a little wonderful that such an accusation as this 

 should be brought against a writer who has, over and over 

 again, warned his readers that when he uses the word " spon- 

 taneous," he merely means that he is ignorant of the cause of 

 that which is so termed ; and whose whole theory crumbles 

 to pieces if the uniformity and regularity of natural causation 

 for illimitable past ages is denied. But probably the best 

 answer to those who talk of Darwinism meaning the reign of 

 " chance," is to ask them what they themselves understand 

 by " chance " ? Do they believe that anything in this universe 

 happens without reason or without a cause ? Do they really 

 conceive that any event has no cause, and could not have 

 been predicted by any one who had a sufficient insight into 

 the order of Nature ? If they do, it is they who are the 

 inheritors of antique superstition and ignorance, and whose 

 minds have never been illumined by a ray of scientific 

 thought. The one act of faith in the convert to science, is 

 the confession of the universality of order and of the absolute 

 validity in all times and under all circumstances, of the law 

 of causation. This confession is an act of faith, because, 

 by the nature of the case, the truth of such propositions is 

 not; susceptible of proof. But such faith is not blind, but 

 reasonable ; because it is invariably confirmed by experience, 

 and constitutes the sole trustworthy foundation for all action. 



If one of these people, in whom the chance-worship of 

 our remoter ancestors thus strangely survives, should be 

 within reach of the sea when a heavy gale is blowing, let him 

 betake himself to the shore and watch the scene. Let him 

 note the infinite variety of form and size of the tossing waves 



