There is a long line of gradually-increasing divergence from the
ultra-orthodox view of Dr. Hodge through those of such men as Sir William
Thomson, Herschel, Argyll, Owen, Mivart, Wallace, and Darwin, down to those
of Strauss, Vogt, and Buchner. To strike the line with telling power and
good effect, it is necessary to aim at the right place. Excellent as the
present volume is in motive and clearly as it shows that Darwinism may bear
an atheistic as well as a theistic interpretation, we fear that it will not
contribute much to the reconcilement of science and religion.
The length of the analysis of the first book on our list precludes the
notices which we intended to take of the three others. They are all the
production of men who are both scientific and religious, one of them a
celebrated divine and writer unusually versed in natural history. They all
look upon theories of evolution either as in the way of being established
or as not unlikely to prevail, and they confidently expect to lose thereby
no solid ground for theism or religion. Mr. St. Clair, a new writer, in his
"Darwinism and Design; or, Creation by Evolution," takes his ground in the
following succinct statement of his preface:
"It is being assumed by our scientific guides that the design-argument has
been driven out of the field by the doctrine of evolution. It seems to be
thought by our theological teachers that the best defense of the faith is
to deny evolution in toto, and denounce it as anti-Biblical. My volume
endeavors to show that, if evolution be true, all is not lost; but, on the
contrary, something is gained: the design-argument remains unshaken, and
the wisdom and beneficence of God receive new illustration."
Of his closing remark, that, so far as he knows, the subject has never
before been handled in the same way for the same purpose, we will only say
that the handling strikes us as mainly sensible rather than as
substantially novel. He traverses the whole ground of evolution, from that
of the solar system to "the origin of moral species." He is clearly a
theistic Darwinian without misgiving, and the arguments for that hypothesis
and for its religious aspects obtain from him their most favorable
presentation, while he combats the dysteleology of Hackel, Buchner, etc.,
not, however, with any remarkable strength.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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