Evolution and Ethics, and Other EssaysHuxley, Thomas Henry
Philosophy
Evolution and Ethics, and Other Essays
Huxley, Thomas Henry
Capital; Ethics, Evolutionary; Salvation Army
supported by such indirect evidence as can be had.
Even when the upholders of the former and more popular system mix up
revelation with scientific discussion--which we decline to do--they by
no means thereby render their view other than hypothetical. Agreeing
that plants and animals were produced by Omnipotent fiat does not
exclude the idea of natural order and what we call secondary causes.
The record of the fiat--"Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb
yielding seed," etc., "and it was so;" "let the earth bring forth the
living creature after his kind, cattle and creeping thing and beast of
the earth after his kind, and it was so"--seems even to imply them.
Agreeing that they were formed of "the dust of the ground," and of thin
air, only leads to the conclusion that the pristine individuals were
corporeally constituted like existing individuals, produced through
natural agencies. To agree that they were created "after their kinds"
determines nothing as to what were the original kinds, nor in what
mode, during what time, and in what connections it pleased the Almighty
to introduce the first individuals of each sort upon the earth.
Scientifically considered, the two opposing doctrines are equally
hypothetical.
The two views very unequally divide the scientific world; so that
believers in "the divine right of majorities" need not hesitate which
side to take, at least for the present. Up to a time quite within the
memory of a generation still on the stage, two hypotheses about the
nature of light very unequally divided the scientific world. But the
small minority has already prevailed: the emission theory has gone
out; the undulatory or wave theory, after some fluctuation, has reached
high tide, and is now the pervading, the fully-established system.
There was an intervening time during which most physicists held their
opinions in suspense.
The adoption of the undulatory theory of light called for the extension
of the same theory to heat, and this promptly suggested the hypothesis
of a correlation, material connection, and transmutability of heat,
light, electricity, magnetism, etc.; which hypothesis the physicists
held in absolute suspense until very lately, but are now generally
adopting. If not already established as a system, it promises soon to
become so. At least, it is generally received as a tenable and probably
true hypothesis.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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