Abstract
THE letter of Prof. Asa Gray (NATURE, vol. xxvii. p. 291) contains a sentence which seems to me to contain the essence of the difference between the views of organic life, as held by the supporters of Natural Selection and Natural Theology. He says: “How is this presumption negatived or impaired by the supposition of Darwin's theory, that the ancestors were not always like the offspring, but differed from time to time in small particulars, yet so as alwoys to be in compatible relations to the environment?” The italicised portion is just such a statement as “Design” would require, but cannot be held by scientific evolutionists, otherwise why are there so many extinct species? With “Design” there ought to bs a perfecting of all species; whereas we know of so many which have been ruthle-sly swept aside, owing to their having “differed (or owing to their not having sufficiently differed) from time to time in small particulars, yet” not “so as to be in compatitle relations to the environment.” Change is the evolutionist's view of life—change sometimes caused by the environment, sometimes beneficial, sometimes eventually detrimental: where beneficial, the species increases; or here detrimental, other changes or extinction must ensue. Design would never have supplied us with a “Nature red in tooth and claw with ravine,” nor would it have built up a system by the expensive and cruel mode of trial and error.
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HANNAY, J. Natural Selection and Natural Theology. Nature 27, 364 (1883). https://doi.org/10.1038/027364a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/027364a0
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