ARTICLE II.-EVOLUTION AS BEARING ON METHOD IN TELEOLOGY.

THE term evolution is now used to denote both a natural process and man's theory of that process, that is, it is used in both a subjective and objective sense, as are many other like terms. The term in its formation properly denotes only the process, and the theory would be properly denoted by the term evolutionism, which is, indeed, sometimes used for that purpose. However, as it is perfectly obvious from the context whether the term evolution be used in an objective or subjective sense, and as it is the prevailing usage to use it in both. significations, we shall follow the practice in this paper. We may note likewise that the term final causes may mean either final causes in the concrete or the abstract; but the term teleology is now employed to denote the doctrine of final causes, although not to the exclusion of the term final causes in the

same sense.

Evolution may be described popularly as the doctrine that all things grow. It is then a simple generalization like that of Newton, all things fall, or like that of Hegel, all is thought. Men perceived that there was such a thing as progressive physical continuity in a tree, for instance; because change of size in a tree was a sufficiently rapid process to be observed by men; but when it came to the relation of different kinds of trees, men could at first see no progressive physical continuity. There seemed great gaps, and the conception prevailed that Deity set down upon earth the first plant of every species; for individual growth was readily perceived, but racial growth was for a long time unrecognized by mankind. Herein we see the relativity of man. Man is situated in the same evolutionary level as the individual tree; his own growth and life are equal to the growth and life of a tree, or less or greater by a small multiple, and hence he may easily trace the growth of the individual and propagation from it, but the aggregation of individuals as a species is a higher level in space and time, and

hence, its origin being physically unexplained, man naturally referred its origin to the direct agency of an Unseen Being. But the progress of Paleontology and Zoology showed that the derivation of species from species was probable. Not only did biologists seize upon the idea of derivative origin as a valuable working hypothesis, but also psychologists and sociolegists and even theologians, as witness, the growth of Biblical Theology. The doctrine had already been known to physicists in the theory of the convertibility of the forces, and to astronomers in the nebular theory. It was but natural that this principle of evolution, being seen to account for so much, should be conceived sufficient to account for all, that is, that there should arise an evolutionary philosophy; and we do find that this principle was quickly applied as the key to the universe by Herbert Spencer, and so we have the evolutionary philosophy of to-day.

Evolution being made then an universal principle, it was inevitable but that it should have a great disturbing effect upon every department of knowledge and speculation, and not the least has been its influence upon Teleology. In this paper we shall endeavor to set forth its bearing on method in teleology, and particularly as completely setting aside one method which has long been in use, and which we would denominate the argument from ignorance. Various hints concerning this argument have been given from time to time, but we do not know that it has ever been distinctly and specially set forth, and so we shall make this the chief object of this paper. First we shall notice to some extent its history, and then we shall show it as unteleological, and as rendered wholly untenable by the theory of evolution. We shall then consider the service which evolution has thereby rendered to teleology and the theistic argument.

The savage hears the thunder, and, ignorant of any natural cause, ascribes it to a supernatural, the voice of a god. The untutored mind is ever inclined to interpret all the phenomena. of nature as activities of personal agents like himself; but science, continually discovering physical causes, does away with these personal agents. This conflict between mythology and science very early arose. In "The Clouds" Aristophanes

thus bolds up to ridicule the natural philosophers of his day as represented in the person of Socrates.

"Streps. Hold ! Olympian Jupiter!

Is he no god!

Socr. What Jupiter? What god?

Socr.

Prythee no more-away with him at once?

Streps. Say'st thou? Who gives us rain? Answer me that.
These give us rain; as I will straight demonstrate :
Come on now. When did you e'er see it rain

Without a cloud? If Jupiter gives rain,

Let him rain down his favor in the sunshine,
Nor ask the clouds to help him.”

Socrates as here represented seems to be of somewhat the same opinion as John Stuart Mill that the use of means by the Deity shows his lack of power. After some coarse talk on the part of both Strepsiades and Socrates, Socrates is thus made to give his theory of thunder. Speaking of the clouds

Socrates says:

"When they are charg'd with vapor full to th' bursting,
And bandied to and fro against each other,

Then with the shock they burst and crack amain.
Streps. And who is he that jowls them thus together
But Jove himself?

Strepsiades seems much inclined to admit a single second cause, but to urge that here now must be the direct action of Jove; but Socrates brings in another physical cause which Aristophanes in what follows represents with coarse irony Strepsiades as accepting. There are some theists even in this time who are, with Strepsiades, ready to employ the argument from ignorance, and to say, admitting this second cause, we still ask, what beyond? Science does not answer. There then is God himself.

The times in which Aristophanes lived bore in some respects a striking resemblance to our own times; and a perusal of the Clouds, and especially of Scene II. from which our extracts have been taken, cannot but remind one of some methods of theistic defence which are popular in our day. Mythological Greek religion strove in vain with natural science. The Greek religionist, with Socrates, considered it impious and useless to

seek for physical causes, and he would ascribe all to the direct action of the gods.

As another illustration of the tendency to conceive of God as working immediately rather than mediately, we turn to a very curious remark by Luther recorded in his Table Talk. "The reproduction of mankind is a great marvel and mystery. Had God consulted me in the matter, I should have advised him to continue the generation of the species by fashioning them of clay, in the way Adam was fashioned; as I should have counselled him also, to let the sun remain always suspended over the earth, like a great lamp, maintaining perpetual light and heat." Where second causes are at work, as in generation, Luther feels that he would work by direct personal agency. It is plainly a natural tendency to find the causes of the phenomena of nature in methods of action with which man is most familiar. Man himself in the early times used second causes, that is, machines, but very little to accomplish his purposes; his usual mode of action was by the direct use of his hands, voice, etc., and he naturally ascribed to the gods the same direct mode of action as he himself employed. The discovery of second causes in nature and their employment by man as second causes in the execution of his own design has led man to higher conceptions of divine action.

cause.

In the history of astronomy we see instances of the tendency of theists to argue from ignorance of natural cause, to absence of natural cause, and the direct presence of the supernatural The motions of the planets received for a long time only theological or metaphysical explanations; they were explained by the direct will of God, or by the presence of a vital principle, as Kepler held. When the Newtonian theory ascribed gravitation as the cause of planetary motion, it gave great alarm to theists; but still they could say: you know not the cause of gravitation, what gravitation really is; here is something unsearchable, here is the will of God. Newton himself believed in intervention, in the necessity for direct manipulation by the hand of God. In the controversy between Clarke and Leibnitz, Clarke maintained the same thesis. One not very infrequently hears in our own day gravitation ascribed to the action of the will of God moving things even as a man

moves things with his finger. The writer has heard a president of a college set forth this view with great emphasis. However it is quite certain to physicists that there is a physical cause for gravitation as surely as there is for heat motion or for electricity. Although the nature of the physical cause is unknown, yet there is little doubt but that the time is not far off when it will be known. What is now needed is some method of testing by experiment such hypotheses as that of Le Sage of Geneva and others.

Again, as with regard to the motions of the heavenly bodies, so also with regard to their origin, a fiat origin, or at least a direct personal agency in creating, has been prominently brought forward by theists. The nebular hypothesis, as advanced by La Place, greatly agitated theists; but as it became more and more entertained by scientists, and slowly advanced to the position of a theory, many theists sought a regressive position in affirming that the origination of the nebula must be ascribed to the direct act of Deity. Sir William Thompson, calculating upon the basis of Fourier's equation, has shown that there is a point where calculations stop, where unintelligi. ble values are obtained. This has been claimed by some to show a bar to science in this direction, that science has here. reached a limit which points to an origin by the direct action of God. It is simply the old argument from ignorance reappearing. The truth is, as has been remarked by some one, that this instance shows, not that science has arrived where no further progress can be made, but that, if Sir William Thomson's calculations be true, at a point where no further progress can be made by the single method employed.

This anthropomorphic tendency to argue from ignorance, and to bar science in the search for second causes, is particularly seen at this time in the treatment which is given by a class of theists to certain anthropological, psychological, and sociological questions, such as the origin and unity of man, the development of mental faculties, and the growth of religion. Theists have become tired of setting up limits to physical science only to see them brushed away, and so the class of theists who still cling to this kind of argument have ensconced themselves in the domain into which science is now fast penetrating