Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 47.djvu/519

Rh hue and cry about the impiety and folly of the act; a very large number of scientific men really supposed that the question was beyond the limits of actual knowledge. And yet is not the doctrine of evolution becoming less and less of an hypothesis and more and more of an actually established law every year? Is not the evidence all tending to establish it completely, and to prove that even the obscure problems of life and heredity are all within the limits of human knowledge? Can we then be sure that the knowledge of why evolution has worked as it has is unattainable? Is not the presumption strongly in favor of the probability that some day, somewhere, some race of men, our posterity and the legatees of our knowledge, will know and understand the causes and the “reasons why” which have led to and are now leading toward that

 “. . . one far-off divine event To which the whole creation moves”?

If, then, it is granted that this knowledge is a possibility, it is fitting that we should consider whether there is any clew to the solution of the problem in the work already done, and what effect the question will have on the methods and spirit of scientific research. We have already seen how long a time the doctrine of immutability of species held in check the tendency to theorize and led students to devote themselves to the collection and tabulation of facts. Both questions, how and why, were confused together and were answered promptly and positively: “The Creator designed them so”; and there was the end beyond appeal. When it was found, however, that this was really no answer at all to the question How? and that the true answer to that question was within the immediate grasp of the scientific world, the whole argument of design was promptly thrown aside as rubbish, and we were free! But we were not long to remain so, for now we find a new limit set to our knowledge beyond which there is no appeal, and the answer to our question Why? is now given us, “Evolution evolved them so”! Distinguishing now as we do between how and why, we find this limit is equally distasteful and causes a similar feeling of restraint; and it is only natural that, having been freed from the other, we should demand emancipation from this. Why did evolution evolve some birds into objects of such marvelous beauty? Surely we can conceive of peacocks, humming birds, and birds of paradise fully as well, perhaps even better, fitted for the struggle for existence without their gleaming colors and gorgeous plumes. Why are some flowers so fragrant to our sense of smell? We certainly know that it is no advantage to them to please us, as long as they attract insects, and we also know that odor without fragrance will answer that purpose. Was it only chance that brought about these results? It seems incredible