20 DARWINISM AND HUMAN LIFE 



that the theory of evolution suggests a modal 

 interpretation within the scientific universe of 

 discourse, while the other view gives up even 

 the possibility of scientific re-description, and 

 suggests a transcendental formula as alone possible. 

 It is quite certain that there is no manner of 

 use in pitting a scientific formula against a trans- 

 cendental one : that always means a false anti- 

 thesis and intellectual fog. They are incom- 

 mensurables. The true antithesis is between a 

 scientific interpretation and maintaining that it 

 is impossible to give one. 



There is an intricate, beautiful, rational pattern 

 before us in nature : are we to think of it as woven, 

 thread by thread, by invisible hands in a way 

 past finding out scientifically; or was there so 

 much mind put into the original institution of 

 things — an apparently simple loom — that thence- 

 forth the web has been worked out automatically 

 in a manner that admits of scientific formulation ? 

 When we finally discover that the doctrine of 

 descent and all the theories of evolution do not 

 fundamentally explain what they formulate,^ we 



* This expresses the common view that science is re-description 

 in " simpler terms " — which, however, are not themselves " ex- 

 plained." In regard to complexities such as development and 

 behaviour we formulate sequences, but we cannot flatter ourselves 

 that our notations are more than symbols of the realities. In 

 his " L'Evolution Cr^atrice," Prof. Henri Bergson states this 

 position (which he does not hold) in the following sentence : 

 " Ce n'est plus la r^aUtd meme, dit-elle, qu'eUe recomposera, mais 

 seulement une imitation du r6el, ou plut6t, une image symbolique ; 

 I'essence des choses nous 6chappe et nous ^chappera toujours, nous 

 nous mouvons parmi des relations, I'absolu n'est pas de notre 

 ressort, arretons-nous devant I'lnoonnaissable." For an exposition 

 of this scientiiio position see " The Bible of Nature," by J. Arthur 

 Thomson (1908). 



