Erasmus Darwin--then
the wideness of the difference between the Darwinism of eighty years ago
and the Darwinism of to-day becomes immediately apparent, and it also
becomes apparent, how important and interesting is the issue which is
raised between them.
According to the older Darwinism the lungs are just as purposive as the
corkscrew. They, no less than the corkscrew, are a piece of mechanism
designed and gradually improved upon and perfected by an intelligent
creature for the gratification of its own needs. True there are many
important differences between mechanism which is part of the body, and
mechanism which is no such part, but the differences are such as do not
affect the fact that in each case the result, whether, for example, lungs
or corkscrew, is due to desire, invention, and design.
And now I will ask one more question, which may seem, perhaps, to have
but little importance, but which I find personally interesting. I have
been told by a reviewer, of whom upon the whole I have little reason to
complain, that the theory I put forward in "Life and Habit," and which I
am now again insisting on, is pessimism--pure and simple. I have a very
vague idea what pessimism means, but I should be sorry to believe that I
am a pessimist. Which, I would ask, is the pessimist? He who sees love
of beauty, design, steadfastness of purpose, intelligence, courage, and
every quality to which success has assigned the name of "worth" as having
drawn the pattern of every leaf and organ now and in all past time, or he
who sees nothing in the world of nature but a chapter of accidents and of
forces interacting blindly?
BUFFON--MEMOIR.
Pages:
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187