Abstract
IN the Riddell Memorial Lectures for 1931, delivered before the University of Durham at Armstrong College, Newcastle-on-Tyne, Sir J. Arthur Thomson discussed the general subject of “Purpose in Evolution” (Oxford University Press, 1932, pp. 59, 2s. 6d. net). The opening lecture examined various aspects of Nature in view of the question: Is there a purpose in evolution ? It grants that often the development and ways of acting of living units are purposive, and comes to the conclusion that the scientific facts do suggest the interpretation that Nature expresses a purpose, and that since the scientifically known system of Nature, being largely unconscious, cannot be credited with a purpose, we are led to think of a Creator's purpose. The fact that the scientific ideal is limited to a naturalistic description does not in the least imply that we need refrain from idealistic, transcendental, mystical, or religious interpretation- the only kind of interpretation there is. The second lecture dealt with the disharmonies in Nature and the difficulties to which they give rise in the teleo-logical interpretation of a Creator's world, but such disharmonies, often exaggerated, need not obscure the greater fact of an overriding harmony. The final lecture, on “Lessons from Evolution”, based on the fact of a real progress in organic evolution, is a plea for a ranging of human endeavour in line with the trends which have been conspicuously progressive in the re-human ascent of life.
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Purpose in Evolution. Nature 129, 682–683 (1932). https://doi.org/10.1038/129682d0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/129682d0