COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



Hebrew cosmogony which still fascinates the 

 theological imagination ; as by the perception, 

 partly vague and partly definite, that in natural 

 selection there has been assigned an adequate 

 cause for the marvellous phenomena of adapta- 

 tion, which had formerly been regarded as clear 

 proofs of beneficent creative contrivance. It 

 needs but to take into the account the other 

 agencies in organic evolution besides the one so 

 admirably illustrated by Mr. Darwin, it needs 

 but to remember that life is essentially a process 

 of equilibration, both direct and indirect, in 

 order to be convinced that the Doctrine of Evo- 

 lution has once for all deprived natural theology 

 of the materials upon which until lately it sub- 

 sisted.^ 



These apparent indications of creative fore- 

 thought are just so many illustrations of the 

 scientific theorem that life, whether physical or 

 psychical, is the continuous adjustment of inner 

 relations to outer relations. " On this fact," 

 says Mr. Barratt, " depends the usual argument 

 to prove the existence of God from design or 



^ That Darwinism has given the death-blow to teleology is 

 admitted by Schleiden, — an unwilling witness. See Biichner, 

 Die Darwinsche Theorie, p. 159. Haeckel also says : **Wir 

 erblicken darin [in Darwin's discovery] den definitiven Tod 

 aller teleologischen und vitalistischen Beurtheilung der Or- 

 ganismen." Generelle Morphologic der Organismen^ torn. i. 

 p. 160. 



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