Darwiniana : Essays — Volume 02Huxley, Thomas Henry
Science
Darwiniana : Essays — Volume 02
Huxley, Thomas Henry
Darwin, Charles, 1809-1882; Evolution (Biology)
The Teleology which supposes that the eye, such as we see it in man or one
of the higher _Vertebrata_, was made with the precise structure which
it exhibits, for the purpose of enabling the animal which possesses it to
see, has undoubtedly received its death-blow. Nevertheless it is necessary
to remember that there is a wider Teleology, which is not touched by the
doctrine of Evolution, but is actually based upon the fundamental
proposition of Evolution. That proposition is, that the whole world, living
and not living, in the result of the mutual interaction, according to
definite laws, of the forces possessed by the molecules of which the
primitive nebulosity of the universe was composed. If this be true, it is
no less certain that the existing world lay, potentially, in the cosmic
vapour; and that a sufficient intelligence could, from a knowledge of the
properties of the molecules of that vapour, have predicted, say the state
of the Fauna of Britain in 1869, with as much certainty as one can say what
will happen to the vapour of the breath in a cold winter's day.
Consider a kitchen clock, which ticks loudly, shows the hours, minutes, and
seconds, strikes, cries "cuckoo!" and perhaps shows the phases of the moon.
When the clock is wound up, all the phenomena which it exhibits are
potentially contained in its mechanism, and a clever clockmaker could
predict all it will do after an examination of its structure.
If the evolution theory is correct, the molecular structure of the cosmic
gas stands in the same relation to the phenomena of the world as the
structure of the clock to its phenomena.
Now let us suppose a death-watch, living in the clock-case, to be a learned
and intelligent student of its works. He might say, "I find here nothing
but matter and force and pure mechanism from beginning to end," and he
would be quite right. But if he drew the conclusion that the clock was not
contrived for a purpose, he would be quite wrong. On the other hand,
imagine another death-watch of a different turn of mind. He, listening to
the monotonous "tick! tick!" so exactly like his own, might arrive at the
conclusion that the clock was itself a monstrous sort of death-watch, and
that its final cause and purpose was to tick. How easy to point to the
clear relation of the whole mechanism to the pendulum, to the fact that the
one thing the clock did always and without intermission was to tick, and
that all the rest of its phenomena were intermittent and subordinate to
ticking! For all this, it is certain that kitchen clocks are not contrived
for the purpose of making a ticking noise.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account