164 THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES 



But suppose we prefer to admit our ignorance rather than 

 adopt a hypothesis at variance with all the teachings of 

 Nature ? Or, suppose for a moment we admit the explana- 

 tion, and then seriously ask ourselves how much the 

 wiser are we ; what does the explanation explain ? Is 

 it any more than a grandiloquent way of announcing the 

 fact, that we really know nothing about the matter ? A 

 phenomenon is explained when it is shown to be a case cf 

 some general law of Nature ; but the supernatural inter- 

 position of the Creator can, by the nature of the case, 

 exemplify no law, and if species have really arisen in this 

 way, it is absurd to attempt to discuss their origin. 



Or, lastly, let us ask ourselves whether any amount of 

 evidence which the nature of our faculties permits us to 

 attain, can justify us in asserting that any phenomenon 

 is out of the reach of natural causation. To this end it 

 is obviously necessary that we should know all the con- 

 sequences to which all possible combinations, continued 

 through unlimited time, can give rise. If we knew these, 

 and found none competent to originate species, we should 

 have good ground for denying their origin by natural 

 causation. Till we know them, any hypothesis is better 

 than one which involves us in such miserable presumption. 



But the hypothesis of special creation is not only a mere 

 specious mask for our ignorance ; its existence in Biology 

 marks the youth and imperfection of the science. For 

 what is the history of every science, but the history of the 

 elimination of the notion of creative, or other interferences, 

 with the natural order of the phenomena which are the 

 subject-matter of that science ? When Astronomy was 

 young " the morning stars sang together for joy," and 

 the planets were guided in their courses by celestial hands. 

 Now, the harmony of the stars has resolved itself into 

 gravitation according to the inverse squares of the distances, 

 and the orbits of the plnnets are deducible from the laws 

 of the forces which allow a schoolboy's stone to break a 

 window. The lightning was the angel of the Lord ; but 

 it has pleased Providence, in these modern times, that 

 science should make it the humble messenger of man, 

 and we know that every flash that shimmers about the 

 horizon on a summer's evening is determined by ascertain- 

 able conditions, and that its direction and brightness 

 might, if our knowledge of these were great enough, have 

 been calculated. 



