Essays on Evolution and Design

Abstract

MANY who knew the late Prof. John Young as a versatile thinker and keen critic will be interested in this posthumous volume which discloses his philosophy. To a wider. audience the book will appeal by its vigorous criticism of mechanistic interpretations, its protest against theories of fortuity, and its confession of faith in a cosmic plan. The author seems to have felt acutely that the scientific formulations which attempt to give a genetic description of how things have come about fall very far short of being adequate, and that in any case they are never explanations which will satisfy the human spirit. Prof. Young sought to show that whether we consider the fundamental concepts of matter and force, the living organism, or the mind of man, we find that the naturalistic scheme is either guilty of petitio principii or of that “materialism” which attempts to give a false simplicity to the facts. The principle of continuity breaks down at every point, and our only alternative to giving up scientific explanation (as so many have done) is to fall back on the idea of design, and to make appeal to “the regulating influence of plan of some sort.”

Essays on Evolution and Design.

By the late Prof. John Young. Edited, with an analysis and an introduction, by William Boyd. Pp. xiii + 248.(Glasgow: James Maclehose and Sons; London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1905.) Price 6s.