9HMKJM - The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online

THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. 21
scientifically. The one naturalist, perhaps too largely
assuming the scientifically unexplained to be inexpli-
cable, views the phenomena only in their supposed
relation to the Divine mind. The other, naturally
expecting many of these phenomena to be resolvable
under investigation, views them in their relations to
one another, and endeavors to explain them as far as
he can (and perhaps farther) through natural causes.
But does the one really exclude the other ? Does
the investigation of physical causes stand opposed to
the theological view and the study of the harmonies
between mind and Nature ? More than this, is it not
most presumable that an intellectual conception re-
alized in Nature would be realized through natural
agencies ? Mr. Agassiz answers these questions affirm-
atively when he declares that " the task of science is
to investigate what has been done, to inquire if pos-
sible how it has ~been do?ie, rather than to ask what is
possible for the Deity, since we can know that only ~by
what "
actually exists
; and also when he extends the
argument for the intervention in Nature of a creative
mind to its legitimate application in the inorganic
world ; which, he remarks, " considered in the same
light, would not fail also to exhibit unexpected evidence
of thought, in the character of the laws regulat-
ing the chemical combinations, the action of physical
'
forces, etc., etc." Mr. Agassiz, however, pronounces
that " the connection between the facts is only intel-
lectual "— an opinion which the analogy of the inor-
1
Op. cit., p. 131.— One or two Bridgewater Treatises, and most
modern works upon natural theology, should have rendered the evi-
dences of thought in inorganic Nature not " unexpected."
2