508 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



tion lay in the superior congruency of the hypothesis — as contrasted 

 with the special creation doctrine — with the methodological presupposi- 

 tions of modern science and with the general view of nature which in 

 most of the other provinces of science had already been accepted. 



The basis of the doctrine of evolution consists, not in an experimental 

 demonstration — for the subject is hardly accessible to this mode of proof — but 

 in its general harmony with scientific thought. From contrast, moreover, it 

 derives enormous relative strength. On the one side we have a theory which 

 converts the Power whose garment is seen in the visible universe into an 

 artificer, fashioned after the human model, and acting by broken effects, as 

 man is seen to act. On the other side, we have the conception that all we see 

 around us and feel within us — the phenomena of physical nature as well as 

 those of the human mind — have their unsearchable roots in a cosmical life, . . . 

 an infinitesimal span of which is offered to the investigation of man. Among 

 thinking people, in my opinion, this last conception has a higher ethical value 

 than that of a personal artificer. 



Eeviewing the past triumphs of the scientific method over super- 

 naturalism, he concludes: 



We claim, and we shall wrest, from theology the entire domain of cosmolog- 

 ical theory. All schemes and systems which thus infringe upon the domain of 

 science must, in so far as they do this, submit to its control. . . . Acting other- 

 wise proved always disastrous in the past, and it is simply fatuous to-day. 



Similarly Komanes put in the fore-front of the arguments for evo- 

 lution 



The fact that it is in full accordance with what is known as the principle 

 of continuity — by which is meant the uniformity of nature, in virtue of which 

 the many and varied processes going on in nature are due to the same kind of 

 method, i. e., the method of natural causation. . . . The explanations of . . . 

 phenomena which are at first given are nearly always of the supernatural kind. 

 . . . Now, in our own day there are very few of these strongholds of the miracu- 

 lous left. . . . No one ever thinks of resorting to supernaturalism, except in the 

 comparatively few cases where science has not yet been able to explore the most 

 obscure regions of causation. . . . We are how in possession of so many of these 

 historical analogies, that all minds with any instincts of science in their com- 

 position have grown to distrust on merely antecedent grounds, any explanation 

 which embodies a miraculous element. . . . Now, it must be obvious to any mind 

 which has adopted this attitude of thought, that the scientific theory of natural 

 descent is recommended by an overwhelming weight of antecedent presumption. 



This " overwhelming weight of antecedent presumption " against 

 special creation, and in favor of evolution, was pointed out by Cham- 

 bers with entire clearness; his arguments present in part an almost 

 verbal parallel to the passages I have quoted from Tyndall and 

 Komanes. In the already established results of geology and astronomy, 

 he writes in the " Vestiges " : 



We have seen powerful evidence that the construction of the globe and its 

 associates was the result, not of any immediate or personal exertion on the part 

 of the Deity, but of natural laws which are expressions of his Will. What is to 

 hinder our supposing that the organic creation is also the result of natural 



