"But if it be said, 'After all, there is no why; the doctrine of evolution,
by doing away with the theory of creation, does away with that of final
causes,' let us answer boldly, 'Not in the least.' We might accept all that
Mr. Darwin, all that Prof. Huxley, all that other most able men have so
learnedly and acutely written on physical science, and yet preserve our
natural theology on the same basis as that on which Butler and Paley left
it. That we should have to develop it I do not deny.
"Let us rather look with calmness, and even with hope and good-will, on
these new theories; they surely mark a tendency toward a more, not a less,
Scriptural view of Nature.
"Of old it was said by Him, without whom nothing is made, 'My Father
worketh hitherto, and I work.' Shall we quarrel with Science if she should
show how these words are true? What, in one word, should we have to say but
this: 'We know of old that God was so wise that he could make all things;
but, behold, he is so much wiser than even that, that he can make all
things make themselves?' "
CHARLES DARWIN: A SKETCH
(Nature, June 4, 1874, accompanying a portrait)
Two British naturalists, Robert Brown and Charles Darwin, have, more than
any others, impressed their influence upon science in this nineteenth
century. Unlike as these men and their works were and are, we may most
readily subserve the present purpose in what we are called upon to say of
the latter by briefly comparing and contrasting the two.
Robert Brown died sixteen years ago, full of years and scientific honors,
and he seems to have finished, several years earlier, all the scientific
work that he had undertaken. To the other, Charles Darwin, a fair number of
productive years may yet remain, and are earnestly hoped for. Both enjoyed
the great advantage of being all their lives long free from exacting
professional duties or cares, and so were able in the main to apply
themselves to research without distraction and according to their bent.
Both, at the beginning of their career, were attached to expeditions of
exploration in the southern hemisphere, where they amassed rich stores of
observation and materials, and probably struck out, while in the field,
some of the best ideas which they subsequently developed. They worked in
different fields and upon different methods; only in a single instance, so
far as we know, have they handled the same topic; and in this the more
penetrating insight of the younger naturalist into an interesting general
problem may be appealed to in justification of a comparison which some will
deem presumptuous. Be this as it may, there will probably be little dissent
from the opinion that the characteristic trait common to the two is an
unrivaled scientific sagacity. In this these two naturalists seem to us,
each in his way, preeminent. There is a characteristic likeness,
too--underlying much difference--in their admirable manner of dealing with
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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