Civilization, Modern -- 19th century; Literature -- History and criticism
But does this really change the question? Granting, for example, the
truth of the theory of the development of all forms of life, under the
operation of law, from a primal cell, we must then ask, "Did these
_laws_ come by chance or by design?" It is not possible to evade that
issue. If the universe resulted from non-intelligent forces, those
forces themselves must have existed as the result of chance or of
intelligence. If you put out the eyes, you leave blindness; if you
strike intelligence out of the creative mystery, you leave blind
forces, the result of accident. Whatever is not from intelligence is
from accident. To substitute law for chance is merely removing the
difficulty a little further back; it does not solve it.
To eliminate interventions from the universe is not to remove design.
The most profound theists have denied such interruptions of the course
of Nature. Leibnitz is an illustrious example of this. Janet declares
him to have been the true author of the theory of evolution, by his
"Law of Continuity," of "Insensible Perceptions," and of "Infinitely
Small Increments." Yet he also fully believed in final causes.
Descartes, who objected to some teleological statements, believed that
the Creator imposed laws on chaos by which the world emerged into a
cosmos. We know that existing animals are evolved by a continuous
process from eggs, and existing vegetables by a like process from
seeds. No one ever supposed that there was less of design on this
account in their creation. So, if all existing things came at first by
a like process from a single germ, it would not argue less, but far
more, of design in the universe.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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