WHY WAS EVOLUTION THE METHOD CHOSEN. 37 



would both have given us the world as it is ? The 

 answer of modern natural theology has been that the 

 evolutionary method is the infinitely nobler scheme. 

 A spectacular act, it is said, savors of the magician. 

 As a mere exhibition of power it appeals to the lower 

 nature ; but a process of growth suggests to the 

 reason the work of an intelligent Mind. No doubt 

 this intellectual gain is real. While a catastrophe 

 puts the universe to confusion at the start, a gradual 

 rise makes the beginning of Nature harmonious with 

 its end. How the surpassing grandeur of the new 

 conception has filled the imagination and kindled to 

 enthusiasm the soberest scientific minds, from Darwin 

 downwards, is known to every one. As the memo- 

 rable words which close the Origin of /Species recall : 

 " There is a grandeur in this view of life, with its sev- 

 eral powers, having been originally breathed by the 

 Creator into a few forms or into one ; and that whilst 

 this planet has gone cycling on, according to the fixed 

 law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless 

 forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, 

 and are being evolved." 1 



But can an intellectual answer satisfy us any more 

 than the mechanical answer which it replaced ? As 

 there was clearly a moral purpose in the end to be 

 achieved by Evolution, should we not expect to find 

 some similar purpose in the means ? Can we perceive 

 no high design in selecting this particular design, no 

 worthy ethical result which should justify the concep- 

 tion as well as the execution of Evolution ? 



We go too far, perhaps, in expecting answers to 

 questions so transcendent. But one at least suggests 

 1 Origin of Species, p. 429. 



