196 WISCO]S"SIN" ACADEMY SCIENCES, ARTS, AND LETTERS. 



AN EXAMINATTON OF PROF. S. H. CARPENTER'S POSI- 

 TION IN REGARD TO EVOLUTION. 



BY HERBERT P. HUBBELL, WIN"ONA, MINN". 



If we were called upon to define the position occupied by Dr. 

 Carpenter, in his paper before the February meeting of the Acade- 

 my of Sjience, Arts and Litters, we should say that he ^vas an Evo- 

 lutionist but not a Darwinian. 



To make this distinction plain, and to show more clearly his po- 

 sition, we should say that an eyolutionist, as generally understood, 

 is one- who believes in evolution as taught by Spencer; that is to 

 say, that mattei', inorganic and organic, has arrived at its present 

 degree of complexity b}' evolution from a simple state through a 

 series of differentiations governed by some unknown law. That 

 countless facts in natui'e substantiate this position, and that whilst 

 recognizing the present state of nature as forming one extreme of 

 the series, it finds, at present at least, in nebulous matter the other 

 extreme. 



Starting as it does with matter in its highest state of complexity it 

 pursues it, by a process of strict inductive reasoning through its ever- 

 varying phases of decreasing complexity until the mind loses itself in 

 an an illimitable expanse of nebulous matter. Darwinism is an at- 

 tempt Lo show that in so far as organic nature is concerned, evolution 

 is dependent upon some occult law of generation co-operating with 

 those conditions in nature necessary to its developmen. Evolution 

 and Darwinianism, then, are in one sense materialistic; they deal 

 wholly with the facts of nature and look to material causes to pro- 

 duce material effects. But Dr. Carpenter does not do this. 

 Though he believes that in nature there is an evolution of matter, 

 the recognition of this fact does not suffice: he goes beyond matter, 

 beyond its nebulous state and finds there a Supreme Intelligence 

 *' which is the highest generalization of which matter and mind are 

 capable of." This Intelligence, like all intelligences, must be, and 

 is, governed by the laws of rationality, and must in its mental ac- 



