But then it is not only this particular argument that perishes, but all
possibility of arguing at all, all faith in our mental faculties, except
so far as they minister to the finding of food and the propagation of
life. Thus the very attempt to prove such a system of Evolution is a
contradiction, since it cuts away all basis of proof. On this I need not
dwell longer, since it has been worked out so fully and clearly by
others. We get rid of the argument from adaptability, by a conception of
the order of Nature that reduces us to mental and moral chaos.
In its semblance of simplicity this form of Evolution-philosophy shows
itself kin to those other old-world attempts to dispense with a
governing mind, and to educe the existing cosmos from the blind strife
of primordial atoms. It has indeed a more plausible basis, seeing how
many things, too quickly attributed to design in a theological age, can
really be explained by the struggle for existence. But in trying to make
an occasional and partial cause universal and ultimate, it has
undertaken the impossible task of bringing the greater out of the less;
which really means bringing their difference out of nothing--and this is
creation with the First Cause left out; that is, spontaneous creation.
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