That Darwin was a great natural philosopher and a good and wise man
admits of no question, but to us, at this distance, it seems strange
enough that he should have thought that he had hit upon the key to the
origin of species in the slow and insensible changes which he fancied
species underwent during the course of the geologic ages, and should
thus have used the phrase as the title of his book. Had he called his
work the "Variability of Species," or the "Modification of Species," it
would not have been such a misnomer. Sudden mutations give us new
varieties, but not new species. In fact, of the origin of species we
know absolutely nothing, no more than we do about the origin of life
itself.
Of the development of species we know some of the factors that play a
part, as the influence of environment, the struggle for existence, and
the competitions of life. But do we not have to assume an inherent
tendency to development, an original impulse as the key to evolution?
Accidental conditions and circumstances modify, but do not originate
species. The fortuitous plays a part in retarding or hastening a
species, and in its extinction, but not in its origin. The record of the
rocks reveals to us the relation of species, and their succession in
geologic time, but gives no hint of their origin.
Agassiz believed that every species of animal and plant was the result
of a direct and separate act of the Creator. But the naturalist sees the
creative energy immanent in matter. Does not one have to believe in
something like this to account for the world as we see it? And to
account for us also?--a universal mind or intelligence
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man.
Agassiz was too direct and literal; he referred to the Infinite Mystery
in terms of our own wills and acts. When we think of a Creator and the
thing created as two, we are in trouble at once. They are one, as fire
and light are one, as soul and body are one. Darwin said he could not
look upon the world as the result of chance, and yet his theory of the
origin of species ushers us into a chance world. But when he said,
speaking of the infinite variety of living forms about us, that they
"have all been produced by laws acting around us," he spoke as a great
philosopher. These laws are not fortuitous, or the result of the blind
grouping of irrational forces.