convenient substitute for certainty. e.g. Thus, "I cannot doubt that the theory of descent with modification embraces all the members of the same class."1 And again: "I can indeed hardly doubt that all vertebrate animals having true lungs, have descended, by ordinary generation from an ancient prototype, of which we know nothing, furnished with a floating apparatus or swim-bladder." "It is conceivable that the now utterly lost branchiæ might have been gradually worked in by natural selection for some quite distinct purpose, in the same it is probable that organs manner as which at a very ancient period served for respiration, have been actually converted into organs of flight."2 It would be sufficiently surprising, if we had not been so long accustomed to it, to learn that the possession of lungs which constitute the fitness of the possessors for living, not in water, but in air, betrays their aquatic origin. But it is much more surprising that men illustrious in virtue of their scientific eminence should expect 1 "Origin of Species," p. 484. 2 Ibid., p. 191. 3 3 “Land animals, which in their lungs or modified swim-bladders betray their aquatic origin." (Ibid., p. 196.) a tissue of conjectures such as this to be accepted as if it possessed any scientific authority. The branchia are "now utterly lost;" that is, they are non-existent, except to the "imagination," to which "it is conceivable" that they might once have been otherwise. That "ancient mariner," the primeval ancestor of the human race, was "an ancient prototype of which we know nothing." And yet, strange to say, we do know this: that he was "furnished with a floating apparatus or swim-bladder." Something "might have been" made of the missing branchiæ "for some quite distinct purpose; for this, although not actual is at least "conceivable." Nay, it almost emerges from the realm of the ideal when we are to be shown the modus operandi,-"in the same manner as "—as what? As in some other instance of which we have tangible proof? No, not that: but only as in some other instance where "it is probable," or at least supposable, that "organs which at a very ancient period" may or may not have existed to serve a given end, would be of great service to this theory if only it could be shown, first, that they did exist, and then that they ceased to exist, by having been "actually converted" into other organs to serve another and a very different end. Mr. Spencer "supposes;" Dr. Tyndall "imagines;" Mr. Darwin "conceives." Tier on tier the towering fabric totters to its fall: no stability in the foundation, no continuity in the superstructure; "a flimsy framework of hypothesis, constructed upon imaginary or irrelevant facts, with a complete departure from every established canon of scientific investigation." Cujusvis hominis est errare, nullius, nisi insipientis, in errore perseverare."—Cic., Philip. xii. 2. The "Ethical theism is now master of the situation. attempt to lose sight of the personal God in nature, or to subordinate His Transcendence over the universe to any power immanent in the universe, and especially the tendency to deny the theology of ethics and to insist only upon the reign of force, are utterly absurd, and are meeting their just condemnation."-Fichte (to Zeller). |