82 



DR. ALFRED T. SCHOFIELD ON 



evolution be also the law of nature, all its products on the con- 

 trary are perfect, no evolver seems needed, and, curious to say, 

 the intermediate imperfect products are nowhere to be found I 



As we have seen, in so far as evolution connotes force, so far is 

 God excluded from His works; but God seems dropping out of 

 our thoughts altogether. At a conference on moral education the 

 other day eveiy conceivable force and method was discussed by 

 twenty leading authorities, but the fear or the knowledge of God as 

 a factor was never once mentioned. At Dundee, when the British 

 Association discussed the origin of life, ten professors named 

 every possible theory, but God was not mentioned. In evolution 

 the deteiTnined exclusion of an objective evolver is significant. 

 This exclusion leads at times to ridiculous conclusions. We see, 

 for example, a professor gazing at a flint arrowhead he has picked 

 up on the banks of the Somme. He is quick to trace the action of 

 mind, human mind, in the three converging chips on the stone, 

 making a point. It is abundantly clear to him that nothing less 

 than man's mind could impress such purpose on a stone; and yet 

 as an evolutionist he knows that he, the philosopher himself, is 

 the product of blind chance, by natural selection. In short, 

 though nothing but an objective mind can make these three 

 chips on the flint, mere chance can make a philosopher. In face 

 of all this is there not some truth in the bitter French dictum. 



God is still believed in in England, save by the city arabs and 

 the higher philosophers ' ' ? 



\Yhy the absence of a directing external mind which seems to 

 be an inherent necessity in all human evolution should be insisted 

 on in organic evolution alone, is a great mystery to outsiders, 

 when both are so obviously teleological. Modern anatomy, 

 indeed, stimulated by evolution, has given overwhelming proof 

 of minute teleology in eveiy part of the body, of which both 

 natural selection and the force of environment are alike 

 incapable. It is only right to repeat that Darwin allowed 

 that God might have started the process of evolution with one or 

 more original types ; and also that A. E. ^\'allace, who is described 

 as a seceder from the ranks of orthodox Darwinism, wrote the 

 " World of Life, a manifestation of creative povrer, directive 

 mind, and ultimate purpose." These men were far above most of 

 their disciples. 



It must be remembered here that all Darwin's evolution was 

 based on natural selection. Lamarck, on the contrary, founded 

 his evolution on environment, or change effected by surroundings 

 —a far sm'er ground, but one only touched on by Darwin in his 

 later writings, and in the sixth edition of " The Origin of 

 Species." Now, these two are mutually exclusive. I may recall 

 that in 1876 Darwin wrote to Professor Moritz Wagner that the 



