DARWIN'S INFLUENCE UPON PHILOSOPHY 95 



eighteenth century it was, as proved by the sciences of organic life, the 

 central point of theistic and idealistic philosophy. 



The Darwinian principle of natural selection cut straight under 

 this philosophy. If all organic adaptations are due simply to constant 

 variation and the elimination of those variations that are harmful in the 

 struggle for existence which is brought about by excessive reproduction, 

 there is no call for a prior intelligent causal force to plan and preordain 

 them. Hostile critics charged Darwin with materialism and with 

 making chance the cause of the universe. 



Some naturalists, like Asa Gray, favored the Darwinian principle 

 and attempted to reconcile it with design. Gray held to what may be 

 called design on the instalment plan. If we conceive the " stream of 

 variations " to be itself intended, we may suppose that each successive 

 variation was designed from the first to be selected. In that case, 

 variation, struggle and selection simply define the mechanism of 

 " secondary causes " through which the " first cause " acts ; and the 

 doctrine of design is none the worse off because we know more of its 

 modus operandi. 



Darwin could not accept this mediating proposal. He admits or 

 rather he asserts that it is " impossible to conceive this immense and 

 wonderful universe including man with his capacity of looking far 

 backwards and far into futurity as the result of blind chance or neces- 

 sity." 1 But nevertheless he holds that since variations are in useless 

 as well as useful directions, and since the latter are sifted out simply 

 by the stress of the conditions of struggle for existence, the design 

 argument as applied to living beings is unjustifiable; and its lack of 

 support there deprives it of scientific value as applied to nature in gen- 

 eral. If the variations of the pigeon, which under artificial selection 

 give the pouter pigeon, are not preordained for the sake of the breeder, 

 by what logic do we argue that variations resulting in natural species 

 are pre-designed ? 2 



IV 



So much for some of the more obvious facts of the discussion of 

 design versus chance as causal principles of nature and of life as 

 a whole. We brought up this discussion, you recall, as a crucial in- 

 stance. "What does our touchstone indicate as to the bearing of Dar- 

 winian ideas upon philosophy? In the first place, the new logic out- 

 laws, flanks, dismisses — what you will — one type of problems and 

 substitutes for it another type. Philosophy forswears inquiry after 

 absolute origins and absolute finalities in order to explore specific values 

 and the specific conditions that generate them. 



J "Life and Letters," Vol. I., p. 282; cf. 285. 



a "Life and Letters," Vol. II., pp. 146, 170, 245; Vol. I., 283-84. See also 

 the closing portion of his " Variations of Animals and Plants under Domes- 

 tication." 



