274 PROFESSOR R. L. DABNEY, D.D., LL.D. 



REMARKS ON THE FOREGOING PAPER, BY THE Rev. R. COLLINS, M.A. 



I am much indebted to the honorary secretary for sending me a proof of 

 Dr. Dabney's paper. It seems to me to be the most lucid and closely 

 reasoned essay upon the subject that I have read. 



It is instructive to observe how difficult it is for the evolutionists, though 

 they discard the doctrine of final causes, to escape its practical dominancy 

 over their reasonings and niethods. In their search after modifications in 

 the structure and functions of plants and animals, they are guided, equally 

 with Harvey, by the idea of some object to be accomplished. The evolu- 

 tionist writes as though Nature were always working up to quasi-^nal 

 causes, though his theory is that no such direct cause exists, there being no 

 intelligence to plan such intention. Nature accomplishes what Avould be 

 accomplished by an intelligence having an intention in view, and on the 

 same lines, only by a diff"erent method, namely, that wherever Nature by 

 any adventitious accidental change hits upon that which will give a plant or 

 animal a better chance in the struggle for existence, that better chance, to 

 be followed by an infinite number of better chances (though why so followed 

 we are not clearly told), establishes a new dynasty. The result in the new 

 dynasty is such as would be obtained by intelligent design. Thus the 

 language of design is continually used. For instance (to take up the first 

 evolution article that comes to hand, Mr. Grant Allen s Dispersion of Seeds, 

 m Knowledge, November, 1885), we read, "This very sedentary nature of 

 the plant kind renders necessary all sorts of curious devices and plans, on 

 the part of parents, to secure the proper start in life for their young seed- 

 lings. Or rather, to put it with stricter biological correctness, it gives an 

 extra chance in the struggle for existence to all those accidental variations 

 which happen to tell at all in the direction of better and more perfect dis- 

 persion." Now here the first intuition of the mind is towards " devices and 

 plans," which then is immediately corrected by the superior " accident " 

 theory. If " accidental variations, which liapj^en to tell " in the direction of 

 more perfect establishment, really produce what would be ijroduced by a 

 wise design, why should we refuse to believe the design, and choose the 

 incomparably more difficult theory that " accidental variations " alone, " that 

 happen to tell," have accomplished precisely what design would accomplish ? 

 What scientific advantage has the " accidental variations " theory over the 

 final cause, which is, after all, practically admitted ? How design has 

 worked is another matter. Its method may be a perfectly legitimate subject 

 of inquiry. It may have worked, perhaps, in part by variations in plants and 

 animals. But when I speak of variations as "accidental," what do I really 



