< Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 10.djvu
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EDITOR'S TABLE.

attitude of mind to which we referred, that an extract from it will be here useful. Mr. Walworth remarks:

"You say (in your critique of Dr. William M. Taylor): 'And here is the vital point between Prof. Huxley and his antagonists. It is a question of the validity of the conception of the order and uniformity of Nature. Prof. Huxley holds to it as a first principle, a truth demonstrated by all science, and just as fixed in biology as in astronomy. His antagonists hold that the inflexible order of Nature may be assorted, perhaps, in astronomy, but they deny it in biology. They here invoke supernatural intervention. Obviously there are but two hypotheses upon the subject: that of genetic derivation of existing species, through the operation of natural law, and that of creation by miraculous interference with the course of Nature. If we assume the orderly course of Nature, development is inevitable; it is evolution or nothing.'
"Very well; it is evolution or nothing. Now, if evolution is true in biology, as Prof. Huxley maintains, my inquiry relates to the matter of the beginning of that evolution, and the beginning of life. Scientists do speak of the beginning of life. Is there a new force or a new principle introduced at this point that scientists have in mind when they say 'the beginning of life?'
"If so, does that new force or principle come through a miraculous interference with the course of Nature? If not, is life in its beginning other or more than a fact, and its appearance a phenomenon both to be accounted for by evolution in conjunction with matter and its inherent forces and principles?
"Given: First, the planet without life (so called); afterward, the planet with life.
"Then, if evolution is the law of 'dead matter,' and at the same time the law of 'living matter,' is there any chasm between that evolution does not bridge over?
"In other words, if evolution is the law, is there any escape from the conclusion that the beginning of life (so called) is a product of it, unless we accept the hypothesis of miraculous intervention? And why is any scientist permitted to entertain that hypothesis (miraculous intervention), at this particular point in the course of Nature (the point of the beginning of life), while he claims the right to reject it at all the other points along the line?"

This last question implies, what is perfectly well known, that many scientific men, naturalists, and even advanced biologists like Mr. Darwin, do invoke miraculous agency to explain the origin of life upon earth; that is, after admitting generally the great principle of natural causation, at a certain point they throw it up as insufficient, and appeal to supernatural causation.

It is surely unnecessary to waste words here in showing that the conception of the order of Nature has had an historic growth; that in the early times all the operations of the world were explained on the hypothesis of supernatural agents which science has so far dispelled as imaginary that the great phenomena of the heavens, the changes of the crust of the earth, and even atmospheric disturbances, are now referred for explanation to the operation of inflexible and universal physical laws. Where explanation breaks down and difficulties remain, in these branches of inquiry, the course pursued is to attribute the unexplained effects to lack of knowledge, and to wait for further light from the sources that have already afforded it. Nor can it be necessary to multiply words in showing that it is not so in biology, the science which deals with the phenomena of life. When a formidable difficulty occurs here, such as explaining the origin of species or the first advent of living things upon the earth, there is no waiting, but the knot is cut at once by appealing to miraculous intervention—to causes that are above Nature and out of Nature, and which cannot be investigated. There are, indeed, but few, even in the circles of science, who avowedly maintain the inviolable supremacy of natural causes, here as elsewhere, in Nature. They assume it generally, but affirm its inadequacy to explain all efforts. How many are there who recognize man, in his origin, to be as strictly and essentially a part and result of the order of Nature as any other creature? Like

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