Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 51.djvu/424

412 an intellectual instinct which is insuperable—viz., the instinct which sees the highest explanations of Nature in the analogies of mental purpose and direction. But," he adds, "Darwin neither saw nor admitted its implications." If Darwin neither saw nor admitted its implications—by which the writer means its teleological implications—it was a very blind instinct indeed which led him to choose the term because of those implications. The fact is that Darwin had little choice in the matter. Human language is necessarily so tinctured with the idea of purpose that it is extremely difficult to find terms expressive of action which do not in some degree or other seem to imply purpose. Then we are told that "the great bulk of Darwin's admirers rejoiced in his theory for the very reason that it rested mainly on the idea of fortuity." How does this agree with the previous statement that the success of the term "natural selection" was chiefly due to the glamour it threw over men's minds as being a kind of personification of Nature? It seems as if his Lordship had not quite made up his mind as to what his views really are on this point.

We are told, not for the first time, that "it would be as rational to account for the poem of the Iliad, or for the play of Hamlet, by supposing that the words and letters were adjusted to the conceptions by some process of natural selection, as to account by the same formula for the intricate and glorious harmonies of structure with function in organic life." Statements of this kind, we must confess, seem to us rather inept. The argument is: the words of the Iliad or of Hamlet are so arranged as to render certain meanings; we know that these words were chosen by a conscious intelligent agent; wherever, therefore, we find that any arrangements in Nature are adapted to produce definite effects, we are entitled to conclude that those arrangements also had their origin in conscious and purposive effort. In other words, because results are reached in one case, or in certain cases, by purposive efforts, they must be so in all cases. Manifestly the conclusion is illicit, and yet the argument is continually being served up to us in essentially this shape. The duke talks of the "intricate and glorious harmonies" of Nature, but does he rest his argument on harmonics of this rich order? If so, where does he draw the line? How intricate and how glorious must a harmony be in order to make good its claim to a purposive origin? And may it be assumed that humbler harmonies may be the result of unconscious processes? This is no trivial logic-chopping question; it is all-important. We presume, from the duke's seeming to rest his argument on the higher harmonies, that he is prepared to abandon the lower to the reign of purely physical law; and if so, the believer in natural selection and other evolutionary formulas would like to know the extent of his conceded domain. Our impression is that, if he once gets a foot of space in the world of action and reaction, no "pent-up Utica" will long confine his powers. We may say as much of the contrary theory: once make it plain that any adaptation in Nature is distinctly purposive, and the dominion of purpose will become a universal dominion.

From our point of view, we must frankly confess, the idea of purpose is simply a drag on the interpretation of Nature. It is one of those short cuts which it does not pay to take. In so far as we assume purpose we cease to be interested in method or process. Voluntary action only comes in to do that which could not be effected by involuntary action;