Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 4.djvu/735

Rh to imagine) that the present order of the universe were brought to an end, and that a chaos succeeded in which there was no fixed succession of events, and the past gave no assurance of the future, if a human being were miraculously kept alive to witness this change, he surely would soon cease to believe in any uniformity, the uniformity itself no longer existing."

It is true that in earlier times no absolute belief in the uniformity of Nature existed, even among the select few. The Greek philosophers, including Aristotle, recognized "chance" and "spontaneity" as finding a definite place in Nature, and to this extent they were not sure that the future would resemble the past. But as we have become more familiar with a wider range of natural phenomena, and with their mutual relations or order of appearance, so has the conception of chance or spontaneity disappeared from the scientific horizon—driven out of the field by the steady advance of Law and Order. Those who embrace the Evolution philosophy are foremost in this opinion—they believe that no effects of whatsoever kind can occur without adequate causes, and, the conditions being similar, that the same results will always follow the action of any given cause. Their whole creed is, in fact, preeminently based upon this assumed uniformity of Nature.

The present is essentially a time of transition in matters of opinion. Men who have been educated in one system of beliefs are gradually being converted to another, because the new system is thought to be more harmonious with the observed order of natural phenomena. This has been the case even with the chief exponents of Evolution. They have themselves had to unlearn much which they had previously learned. The doctrine of Evolution has thus been developed only by the sacrifice of many previous early beliefs and modes of thought. But it often happens that an old belief will—unknown, perhaps, to the person himself—leave decided traces of its previous influence, and thus prevent for a time the full realization of all the logical consequences of new views. This vestige of the old state of opinion or habit of thought is, more especially, apt to remain in directions where unexplained facts, or strong prepossessions and prejudices, bar the way. Some modes of this inconsistency may become obvious to one worker or thinker, and some to another, according to the particular direction which his investigations or thoughts may have taken; and such inconsistencies should be pointed out as they present themselves. So that, with the view of strengthening an hypothesis which I, in common with so many other workers in science, believe to be true, I now venture to allude to certain apparent anomalies in the declared opinions of the most prominent upholders of the doctrine of Evolution in this country. It seems all the more desirable that this should be done, since the inconsistencies may be easily shown to be wholly uncalled for, and to involve sundry unscientific conceptions.