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Hodge, Charles, 1797-1878

"What is Darwinism?"

Mivart requires no Divine assistance till he
comes to man's soul."[25]
In the "Academy" for October, 1869, there is a review by Professor
Huxley of Dr. Haeckel's "Natuerlische Schoepfungsgeschichte," in which he
says: "Professor Haeckel enlarges on the service which the 'Origin of
Species' has done in favoring what he terms 'the causal or mechanical'
view of living nature as opposed to the 'teleological or vitalistic'
view. And no doubt it is quite true the doctrine of evolution is the
most formidable of all the commoner and coarser forms of teleology.
Perhaps the most remarkable service to the philosophy of Biology
rendered by Mr. Darwin is the reconciliation of Teleology and
Morphology, and the explanation of the facts of both which his view
offers.
"The teleology which supposes that the eye, such as we see it in man or
in the higher vertebrata, was made with the precise structure which it
exhibits, to make the animal which possesses it to see, has undoubtedly
received its death-blow. But it is necessary to remember that there is a
higher teleology, which is not touched by the doctrine of evolution, but
is actually based on the fundamental proposition of evolution. That
proposition is, that the whole world, living and not living, is the
result of the mutual interaction, according to definite laws, of forces
possessed by the molecules of which the primitive nebulosity of the
universe was composed.


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