Picture - Cosmic Polymath

202 DESIGN IN NATURE
Haeckel. It is seldom that such astounding assertions have been so dogmatically and unblushingly launched
upon the scientific and semi-scientific pubUc. They carry with them no proof, and have nothing whatever to
recommend them unless it be the overweening confidence of one who seeks to turn the universe, and all it con-
tains, topsy-turvy, and to obhterate all traces of law and order, design, and a Creator in favour of blind chance
and a vain behef in the potency of matter as such. Haeckel's wild speculations are not supported by even a tittle
of evidence which is worthy of the name. If his personahty and that of Darwin be ehminated there is posi-
tively nothing left which would entitle such pernicious views to be tolerated for even a single day. They destroy
faith, and cajole and coerce, rather than convince, the reasoning faculty. The conclusions arrived at, every-
thing considered, are lame, halting, and impotent. Theories which substitute chance and so-called natural forces
and mechanics for a Creator and Design and for Law and Order, and which require over one hundred millions
of years for their verification, are not hkely to find favour in the future with thoughtful, educated men. The best
intellects will refuse adherence to what are, at best, colossal hypotheses. Moreover, Haeckel contradicts himself.
At one part of his writings, as already stated, he says : " But the idea of design has a very great significance and
apphcation in the organic world. We do undeniably perceive a purpose in the structure and in the hfe of an
organism. The plant and the animal seem to be controlled by a definite design in the combination of their several
in the evolu-
parts, just as clearly as we see in the machines which man invents and constructs. . . . Nowhere
tion of animals and plants do we find any trace of design, but merely the inevitable outcome of the struggle for
existence, the bUnd controller, instead of the provident God, that effects the changes of organic forms by a mutual
action of the laws of heredity and adaptation. And there is no more tra.ce of ' design ' in the embryology of the
individual plant, animal, or man. . . . What we call design in the organic world is a special result of biological
agencies ; neither in the evolution of the heavenly bodies nor in that of the crust of our earth do we find any trace
of a controlling purpose—all is the result of chance." If evolution in its extended form has of late years found
favour with the multitude and with ordinary unscientific readers, it is because the doctrine has been tricked out
to present a new and fashionable appearance, and because it gives a free rein to the imagination. Evolution in
the widest sense cannot be proved, and is, to a large extent, unthinkable. The pubUc, in these sensational times,
swallow blindly and eagerly what stimulates the palate, especially if what is swallowed does not require to be
personally digested and assimilated.
It is important to point out in this connection, that Professor Haeckel and Mr. Darwin, and those who think
with them, obscure the issue by the inexact use of language. Thus Haeckel employs the same phraseology when
explaining his monistic, mechanical views of life as is employed by the Vitalists and Creationists in describing
their duaUstic and non-mechanical views. He attributes sensation, consciousness, a soul, likes and dislikes, and
other peculiarities of life to atoms and molecules, which, in modern times, have been invariably regarded as dead
substances. He revives an old pagan idea. In like manner, Darwin employs the phrase "natural selection"
as co-extensive with the phrase " artificial selection," which it certainly is not. Such lax use of terms is at once
confusing and misleading. Artificial selection necessitates an intelligent selector outside the thing selected
natural selection, as employed by Darwin and his disciples, means a power inhering in plants and animals (not
credited with intelhgence) by which they blindly select and perpetuate desirable structures, properties, and qualities
in themselves, to the exclusion of others which are not desirable. Plants and animals do not possess the powers
claimed for them. We have proofs of this in our own persons. We cannot add to or take from any part of
we
our body. We cannot by wishing, or even by a strong effort of will, become taller or shorter : we cannot grow
wings, however much we may desire to fly : we cannot change the colour of our skin or eyes :
cannot grow a
third set of teeth when the permanent teeth fail, or a new crop of hair when alopecia sets in : we cannot become
beautiful if nature has cast us in a homely mould. In a word, we are absolutely helpless if we attempt to change
our bodily parts, even in the slightest degree. We have certainly no power to select and perpetuate what we might
consider our better parts to the exclusion and detriment of our inferior parts. If that be so, it follows that plants
and animals have even less power in the direction indicated. To the vague language employed by Darwin in the
so-called theory of " natural selection " is to be traced the original and growing confusion which dogs it at every
step. Of the many who talk of " natural selection " very few have the faintest idea of what it actually means.
It is, at best, a mere phrase, and it is, unfortunately for science and truth, a very misleading and mischievous one.
Similar remarks are to be made of other catch phrases, such as the "struggle for existence" and "the survival
of the fittest." Nature, in normal conditions, furnishes her living things with an abundant supply of food-
no struggle being required—and it is the strongest and best which, under ordinary circumstances, perpetuate
themselves.