The work is a scientific one, rigidly restricted to its direct object; and
by its science it must stand or fall. Its aim is, probably, not to deny
creative intervention in Nature--for the admission of the independent
origination of certain types does away with all antecedent improbability of
as much intervention as may be required--but to maintain that Natural
Selection, in explaining the facts, explains also many classes of facts
which thousand-fold repeated independent acts of creation do not explain,
but leave more mysterious than ever. How far the author has succeeded, the
scientific world will in due time be able to pronounce.
As these sheets are passing through the press, a copy of the second edition
has reached us. We notice with pleasure the insertion of an additional
motto on the reverse of the title page, directly claiming the theistic view
which we have vindicated for the doctrine. Indeed, these pertinent words of
the eminently wise Bishop Butler comprise, in their simplest expression,
the whole substance of our later pages:
"The only distinct meaning of the word 'natural' is stated, fixed, or
settled; since what is natural as much requires and presupposes an
intelligent mind to render it so, i.e., to effect it continually or at
stated times, as what is supernatural or miraculous does to effect it for
once."
II
DESIGN VERSUS NECESSITY
DISCUSSION BETWEEN TWO READERS
OF DARWIN'S TREATISE ON THE
ORIGIN OF SPECIES, UPON ITS
NATURAL THEOLOGY
(American Journal of Science and Arts, September, 1860)
D.T.--Is Darwin's theory atheistic or pantheistic? or, does it tend to
atheism or pantheism? Before attempting any solution of this question,
permit me to say a few words tending to obtain a definite conception of
necessity and design, as the sources from which events may originate, each
independent of the other; and we shall, perhaps, best attain a clear
understanding of each, by the illustration of an example in which simple
human designers act upon the physical powers of common matter.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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