202 DESIGN IN NATURE 



Haeckel. It is seldom that such astounding assertions have been so dogmatically and unblushingly launched 

 upon the scientific and semi-scientific pubUc. They carry with them no proof, and have nothing whatever to 

 recommend them unless it be the overweening confidence of one who seeks to turn the universe, and all it con- 

 tains, topsy-turvy, and to obhterate all traces of law and order, design, and a Creator in favour of blind chance 

 and a vain behef in the potency of matter as such. Haeckel's wild speculations are not supported by even a tittle 

 of evidence which is worthy of the name. If his personahty and that of Darwin be ehminated there is posi- 

 tively nothing left which would entitle such pernicious views to be tolerated for even a single day. They destroy 

 faith, and cajole and coerce, rather than convince, the reasoning faculty. The conclusions arrived at, every- 

 thing considered, are lame, halting, and impotent. Theories which substitute chance and so-called natural forces 

 and mechanics for a Creator and Design and for Law and Order, and which require over one hundred millions 

 of years for their verification, are not hkely to find favour in the future with thoughtful, educated men. The best 

 intellects will refuse adherence to what are, at best, colossal hypotheses. Moreover, Haeckel contradicts himself. 

 At one part of his writings, as already stated, he says : " But the idea of design has a very great significance and 

 apphcation in the organic world. We do undeniably perceive a purpose in the structure and in the hfe of an 

 organism. The plant and the animal seem to be controlled by a definite design in the combination of their several 

 parts, just as clearly as we see in the machines which man invents and constructs. . . . Nowhere in the evolu- 

 tion of animals and plants do we find any trace of design, but merely the inevitable outcome of the struggle for 

 existence, the bUnd controller, instead of the provident God, that effects the changes of organic forms by a mutual 

 action of the laws of heredity and adaptation. And there is no more tra.ce of ' design ' in the embryology of the 

 individual plant, animal, or man. . . . What we call design in the organic world is a special result of biological 

 agencies ; neither in the evolution of the heavenly bodies nor in that of the crust of our earth do we find any trace 

 of a controlling purpose — all is the result of chance." If evolution in its extended form has of late years found 

 favour with the multitude and with ordinary unscientific readers, it is because the doctrine has been tricked out 

 to present a new and fashionable appearance, and because it gives a free rein to the imagination. Evolution in 

 the widest sense cannot be proved, and is, to a large extent, unthinkable. The pubUc, in these sensational times, 

 swallow blindly and eagerly what stimulates the palate, especially if what is swallowed does not require to be 

 personally digested and assimilated. 



It is important to point out in this connection, that Professor Haeckel and Mr. Darwin, and those who think 

 with them, obscure the issue by the inexact use of language. Thus Haeckel employs the same phraseology when 

 explaining his monistic, mechanical views of life as is employed by the Vitalists and Creationists in describing 

 their duaUstic and non-mechanical views. He attributes sensation, consciousness, a soul, likes and dislikes, and 

 other peculiarities of life to atoms and molecules, which, in modern times, have been invariably regarded as dead 

 substances. He revives an old pagan idea. In like manner, Darwin employs the phrase "natural selection" 

 as co-extensive with the phrase " artificial selection," which it certainly is not. Such lax use of terms is at once 

 confusing and misleading. Artificial selection necessitates an intelligent selector outside the thing selected : 

 natural selection, as employed by Darwin and his disciples, means a power inhering in plants and animals (not 

 credited with intelhgence) by which they blindly select and perpetuate desirable structures, properties, and qualities 

 in themselves, to the exclusion of others which are not desirable. Plants and animals do not possess the powers 

 claimed for them. We have proofs of this in our own persons. We cannot add to or take from any part of 

 our body. We cannot by wishing, or even by a strong effort of will, become taller or shorter : we cannot grow 

 wings, however much we may desire to fly : we cannot change the colour of our skin or eyes : we cannot grow a 

 third set of teeth when the permanent teeth fail, or a new crop of hair when alopecia sets in : we cannot become 

 beautiful if nature has cast us in a homely mould. In a word, we are absolutely helpless if we attempt to change 

 our bodily parts, even in the slightest degree. We have certainly no power to select and perpetuate what we might 

 consider our better parts to the exclusion and detriment of our inferior parts. If that be so, it follows that plants 

 and animals have even less power in the direction indicated. To the vague language employed by Darwin in the 

 so-called theory of " natural selection " is to be traced the original and growing confusion which dogs it at every 

 step. Of the many who talk of " natural selection " very few have the faintest idea of what it actually means. 

 It is, at best, a mere phrase, and it is, unfortunately for science and truth, a very misleading and mischievous one. 

 Similar remarks are to be made of other catch phrases, such as the "struggle for existence" and "the survival 

 of the fittest." Nature, in normal conditions, furnishes her living things with an abundant supply of food- 

 no struggle being required— and it is the strongest and best which, under ordinary circumstances, perpetuate 

 themselves. 



