" (p. 30) This is very clumsy. No wonder Buechner preferred
Darwin's method. The two systems are, indeed, exactly the same, but Mr.
Darwin has a much more winning way of presenting it.
Professor Janet does not seem to have much objection to the doctrine of
evolution in itself; it is the denial of teleology that he regards as
the fatal element of Mr. Darwin's theory. "According to us," he says,
"the true stumbling-block of Mr. Darwin's theory, the perilous and
slippery point, is the passage from artificial to natural selection; it
is when he wants to establish that a blind and designless nature has
been able to obtain, by the occurrence of circumstances, the same
results which man obtains by thoughtful and well calculated industry."
(p. 174)
Towards the end of his volume he says: "We shall conclude by a general
observation. Notwithstanding the numerous objections we have raised
against Mr. Darwin's theory, we do not declare ourselves hostile to a
system of which zooelogists are the only competent judges. We are neither
for nor against the transmutation of species, neither for nor against
the principle of natural selection. The only positive conclusion of our
debate is this: no principle hitherto known, neither the action of
media, nor habit, nor natural selection, can account for organic
adaptations without the intervention of the principle of finality.
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