94 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



the influence upon philosophy of the Darwinian method. At best, we 

 can but inquire as to its general bearing — the effect upon mental 

 temper and complexion, upon that body of half-conscious, half in- 

 stinctive intellectual aversions and preferences which determine, after 

 all, our more deliberate intellectual enterprises. In this vaguer inquiry 

 there happens to exist as a kind of touchstone one problem of great 

 historic significance that has also been much discussed in Darwinian 

 literature. I refer to the old problem of design versus chance, mind 

 versus matter, as the causal explanation, first and final, of things. 



As we have already seen, the classic notion of species carried with it 

 the idea of purpose. In all living forms, a specific type is present 

 directing the earlier stages of growth to the realization of its own per- 

 fection. Since this purposive regulative principle is not visible to the 

 senses, it follows that it must be an ideal or rational force. Since, 

 however, the perfect form is gradually approximated through the sen- 

 sible changes, it also follows that in and through a sensible realm a 

 rational ideal force is working out its own ultimate manifestation. 

 These two inferences were extended to nature: (a) She does nothing 

 in vain; but all for an ulterior purpose. (&) Within natural sensible 

 events there is therefore contained a spiritual causal force, which as 

 spiritual escapes perception, but is apprehended by an enlightened 

 reason, (c) The manifestation of this principle brings about a sub- 

 ordination of matter and sense to its own realization, and this ultimate 

 fulfilment is the goal of nature and of man. The design argument 

 thus operated in two directions. Purposefulness accounted for the in- 

 telligibility of nature and the possibility of science, while the absolute 

 or cosmic character of this purposefulness gave sanction and worth to 

 the moral and religious endeavors of man. Science was underpinned 

 and morals authorized by one and the same principle, and their mutual 

 agreement was eternally guaranteed. 



This philosophy remained, in spite of sceptical and polemic out- 

 bursts, the official and the regnant philosophy of Europe for over two 

 thousand years. The expulsion of fixed first and final causes from 

 astronomy, physics and chemistry had indeed given the doctrine 

 something of a shock. But, on the other hand, increased acquaintance 

 with the details of plant and animal life made a counterbalance and 

 perhaps even strengthened the argument from design. The mar- 

 vellous adaptations of organisms to their environment, of organs to 

 the organism, of unlike parts of a complex organ — like the eye — to 

 the organ itself; the foreshadowing by lower forms of the higher; the 

 preparation in earlier stages of growth for organs that only later had 

 their functioning — these things were increasingly recognized with the 

 progress of botany, zoology, paleontology and embryology. Together 

 they added such prestige to the design argument that by the late 



