WITAT IS DARWimSMf 275 



tion of known secondary causes, tliis being the proper 

 business of the naturalist and physicist ; if wise, 

 they will be careful not to predicate or suggest the ab- 

 sence of intention from what conies about by degrees 

 through the continuous operation of phj^ical causes, 

 even in the organic world, lest, in their endeavor to re- 

 tain a probable excess of supernaturalism in that realm 

 of !N^ature, they cut away the grounds for recognizing 

 it at all in inorganic I^ature, and so fall into the same 

 condemnation that some of them award to the Dar- 

 winian. 



Moreover, it is not certain that Mr. Darwin would 

 very much better his case, Dr. Hodge being judge, if 

 he did propound some theory of the nexus of divine 

 causation and natural laws, or even if he explicitly 

 adopted the one or the other of the views which he is 

 charged with rejecting. Either way he might meet a 

 procrustean fate ; and, although a saving amount of 

 theism might remain, he would not be sound or com- 

 fortable. For, if he predicates "the constant and 

 everywhere operative efficiency of God," he may 

 " lapse into the same doctrine " that the Duke of Ar- 

 gyll and Sir John Herschel " seem inclined to," the 

 latter of whom is blamed for thinking " it but reason- 

 able to regard the force of gravitation as the direct or 

 indirect result of a consciousness or will existing some- 

 where," and the former for regarding "it unphilo- 

 sophical ' to think or speak as if the forces of Nature 

 were either independent of or even separate from the 

 Creator's power ' " (page 24) : while if he falls back 

 upon an " original intention of the divine mind," en- 

 dowing matter with forces which he foresaw and in- 



