Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 37.djvu/862

842 the Eozoön canadense; but we venture to say that, in spite of his slur upon Darwin for not having grasped this kind of knowledge, he does not himself possess one particle or scintilla of it that he could teach as fact to any human being.

Then what are we to say about the accusation against Darwin of grinding "all that is fair and beautiful in nature into a dry and formless dust"? All that we can say of it is that it is false, and, as coming from a man of recognized scientific position, deplorable. Nature to Darwin was full of interest to the last; and few men have done more than he to awaken an interest m and love of nature in others. We have only to read his correspondence with the foremost naturalists of the time to see what a center of interest he was to them, and what a living thing the study of nature under his guidance, or upon lines indicated by him, had become. The fact is that organic nature was never so interesting a subject of study as it is to-day; and few will deny that this is due, in large measure, to the influence of Darwin—the man who is now accused of turning "all that is fair and beautiful in nature into a dry and formless dust." When people who claim to "grasp the heaven above" indulge in such unfounded and uncharitable remarks about their intellectual superiors, one is apt to wonder whether their prehensile powers have really been exercised to the best advantage.

That Sir William Dawson did not write this book for a scientific public is evident by many signs. When he speaks of standing near to the "treacherous margin" of the evolution philosophy and rescuing a few grains of truth, he writes—there is but one expression for it—utter nonsense. Imagine for one moment a scientist, a philosopher, stealing gingerly to the edge of a system of philosophy and putting out a timorous hand to clutch a grain of truth, whirling, as it were, in a vortex! Imagine the scientist, the philosopher, dreading to be sucked in, and quickly retreating with his rescued grain to a safer footing! Again, when he tells us, in effect, that the controversy between Huxley and Harrison supplies "an evidence of the need of a divine revelation," we are persuaded that such an utterance could only have been intended for very shallow minds. More need for a revelation, we should say, if Harrison and Huxley agreed, for how should we know that they were not both in error? When they disagree, there is at least a probability that the errors of the one will more or less cancel those of the other, and that some residuum of truth will be left behind. It is hard to see how truth could be established except by conflict, or how minds could develop except through contact and collision with other minds. Think what a lot of simpletons we should become if, as often as a difference of opinion arose, instead of being left to weigh the arguments on either side, we were at once to hear an authoritative voice deciding the whole question! It will greatly please most of the readers of this book to be told that Darwin took a very "unscientific" position in "enthroning chance or accident or necessity as Lord and Creator"; and it will not trouble them in the least to remember—if they do remember—that, on the immediately preceding page, it was stated that "Darwin's natural turn of mind and his scientific training were not of such a character as to lead him to seek for ultimate causes; he was content with a modal evolution (i. e., with evolution considered and treated as a method); he took matter and force as he found them." The two statements are in obvious conflict, and the one on the earlier page is the correct one. Darwin did not enthrone chance; he took matter and force as he found them; and to us his position appears entirely scientific. Herbert Spencer, by a long course of reasoning, arrives at the conclusion that the First Cause is inscrutable. Darwin assumed as much without going through