Theism; being the Baird Lecture of 1876Flint, Robert
Religion
Theism; being the Baird Lecture of 1876
Flint, Robert
Theism
The considerations which have already been brought forward should
enable us to answer all reasonings of this kind. An organ is not to be
pronounced useless because its uses have not yet been discovered. To
the extent that evolutionism is true, rudimentary and obsolete organs
are accounted for, and the wisdom displayed in them amply vindicated;
and if evolutionism be not true, they can still be explained on the
theory of types. They are stages in the realisation of the Divine
conception; indications of an order which comprehends and conditions
the law of use and contrivance for use; keys to the understanding
of the Divine plan. Theism cannot have much to fear from the fact
that all human eyes are limited in their range and finite in their
perfections, or even from the fact that a great many persons have very
bad eyesight. Whatever may be its imperfections, the eye, if viewed
with a comprehensive regard to its manifold uses and possibilities,
must be admitted by every unprejudiced judge to be incomparably
superior to every other optical instrument: indeed it is the only
real optical instrument; all so-called optical instruments are merely
aids and supplements to it. If the eye had been absolutely perfect,
its modification or evolution could only have been deterioration,
artificial optical instruments would not have been needed, and all
man's relations to creation must have been essentially different
from what they are. Who can rationally assure us that this was to be
desired? Abortions and monsters are at least exceptions. If mind were
not what is ultimate in the universe--if nature worked blindly--if
there were any truth in what Lange and Huxley have said of her
procedure, that it is "like shooting a million or more loaded guns in a
field to kill one hare,"--this could not be the case; the bullets which
miss would then be incalculably more numerous than those which hit,
and the evidence of her failures ought to be strewn far more thickly
around us than the remains of her successes; there would be, as it
were, no course of nature because of the multitude of deviations, no
rule in nature because of the multitude of exceptions. But what are
the facts? These: the lowest organisms are as perfectly adapted to
their circumstances as the highest, the earliest as the latest; there
is a vast amount of death and a vast amount of life in the world,
but, whatever some men may thoughtlessly assert, no man can show that
there is too much of either, any real waste, if the wants of creation
as a whole are to be provided for; abortions and monsters, which
are the only things in nature which can be plausibly characterised
as "failures," as "bullets which have fallen wide of the mark," are
comparatively few and far between; and the monsters, even, are not
really exceptions to law and order, are not strictly monsters. The
labours of teratologists have scientifically established the grand
general result that there are no monsters in nature in the sense which
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.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account