Natural selection not inconsistent with natural theology : a free examination of Darwin's treatise On the origin of species, and of its American reviewers / by Asa Gray.
- Asa Gray
- Date:
- 1861
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Natural selection not inconsistent with natural theology : a free examination of Darwin's treatise On the origin of species, and of its American reviewers / by Asa Gray. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
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![equivocal or unfortunate though some of the language be — does not mply ordaining and directing intelligence, then he refutes his own . heory as effectually as any of his opponents are likely to do. He i.-isks, — “ May we not believe that [under variation proceeding long enough, ;.reneration multiplying the better variations times enough, and natural -’election securing the improvements] a living optical instrument might vje thus formed as superior to one of glass as the works of the Creator [.re to those of man ? ” This must mean one of two things: either that the living instrument irvas made and perfected under (which is the same thing as by) an in- itelligent First Cause, or that it was not. If it was, then theism is as- serted; and as to the mode of operation, how do we know, and why jiunst we believe, that, fitting precedent forms being in existence, a i'iving instrument (so different from a lifeless manufacture) would be inriginated and perfected in any other way, or that this is not the fitting rvay? If it means that it was not, if he so misuses words that by the fCreator he intends an unintelligent power, undirected force, or necessity, then he has put his case so as to invite disbelief in it. For then blind porces have produced not only manifest adaptations of means to specific i nds, — which is absurd enough — but better adjusted and more per- eect instruments or machines than intellect (that is, human intellect) a an contrive and human skill execute, — which no sane person will loelieve. On the other hand, if Darwin even admits — we will not say adopts — the theistic view, he may save himself much needless trouble in the rndeavor to account for the absence of every sort of intermediate form. Those in the line between one species and another supposed to be derived from it he maybe bound to provide; but as to “an infinite lumber of other varieties not intermediate, gross, rude, and purposeless, he unmeaning creations of an unconscious cause,” born only to perish, - vhich a relentless reviewer has imposed upon his theory,—rightly ^ -nough upon the atheistic alternative, — the theistic view rids him at ■nee of this “scum of creation.” For, as species do not now vary at .11 times and places and in all directions, nor produce crude, vague, im- perfect, and useless forms, there is no reason for supposing that they !ver did. Good-for-nothing monstrosities, failures of purpose rather han purposeless, indeed sometimes occur ; but these are just as anom- ilous and unlikely upon Darwin’s theory as upon any other. For his larticular theory is based, and even over-strictly insists, upon the most miversal of physiological laws, namely, that successive generations hall differ only slightly, if at all, from their parents; and this effect- vely excludes crude and impotent forms. Wherefore, if we believe](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22344949_0037.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
