Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 47.djvu/569

Rh dogma, our critic seems quite prepared to acknowledge. Indeed, he uses language which so fully agrees with our own that we almost wonder he thought it worth while to find fault with our position. We said that an acceptance of the doctrine of design would be the death of scientific investigation. Mr. Clark, speaking of the Darwinian doctrine of natural selection, says that for thirty-five years it has been "the mainspring of research not merely in biology, but in all the field of natural science." But the two doctrines are completely opposed: so that what Mr. Clark says of the one is virtually a confirmation of what we said of the other. Take away or break "the mainspring of research," and what would follow? If the metaphor is sound, arrest of movement would follow; and what is arrest of movement but death, for the time being at least? Before Darwin's time, our critic says, "naturalists were content with statistics, and did not ask for reasons." And he adds, "that this was due to a belief in the immutability of species and the doctrine of design there can be little doubt." And yet, because we said what we did about the doctrine of design, we are accused of displaying "illogical reasoning and uncalled-for prejudice"!

At this point Mr. Clark gives a little twist to our words which does not speak well for his candor or his carefulness: let us trust that it was the latter that was at fault. We said that "the reason why the doctrine of design is so popular" is, partly because it is such a saver of intellectual toil, and partly because by making knowledge impossible it glorifies ignorance." Our critic, referring to this remark, says that to accuse "the great men who accepted that doctrine" in pre-Darwinian times of having done so for the reasons mentioned, "is a gross slander." Well, as we were speaking of what made the doctrine "popular" in the present day, and said nothing whatever about the great men of the past, who had hardly any choice in the matter, the "gross slander" exists only in Mr. Clark's imagination—a faculty which a man of science, such as he professes to be, should learn to keep in subjection.

Our critic finds that the very success of the doctrine of evolution has brought in a new danger. These are his words: "The doctrine of evolution has proved so satisfactory at every turn, that there is great danger that the ultimate motive for scientific research will be completely lost to sight." That motive he declares to be expressed in the interrogation "Why?" The older naturalists set themselves to answer the question "What?" In other words, they sought out and classified facts. Darwin came on the scene with the question "How?" and his answer thereto. And now Mr. Clark steps forward with the question "Why?" to which he hopes an answer will some day be forthcoming. He is not content to understand the processes of becoming; he wants to know what objects God has in view in causing things to happen as they do. That he declares to be the true motive for scientific research, without which it is a matter of "mere curiosity." As to the possibility of attaining to a knowledge of the why, he considers, rather oddly, that the success of the doctrine of evolution in answering the question How? should give us great encouragement. "Is not," he argues, "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