If we admit a directive power, the order of nature becomes capricious
and unintelligible. Excuse my saying all this. But that is the dilemma
as it presents itself to _my_ mind. If it does not trouble other people,
I can only say, so much the better for them. Briefly, I am afraid I must
say that it is ultra-scientific. I think that would have been pretty
much Darwin's view.
I do not think that it is quite fair to say that biologists shirk the
problem. In my opinion they are not called upon to face it. Bastian, I
suppose, believed that he had bridged the gulf between lifeless and
living matter. And here is a man, of whom I know nothing, who has
apparently got the whole thing cut and dried.--Yours sincerely,
W.T. THISELTON-DYER.
* * * * *
TO PROF. POULTON
_Old Orchard, Broadstone, Dorset. May 28, 1912._
My dear Poulton,--Thanks for your paper on Darwin and Bergson.[39] I
have read nothing of Bergson's, and although he evidently has much in
common with my own views, yet all vague ideas--like "an internal
development force"--seem to me of no real value as an explanation of
Nature.
I claim to have shown the necessity of an ever-present Mind as the
primal cause both of all physical and biological evolution. This Mind
works by and through the primal forces of nature--by means of Natural
Selection in the world of life; and I do not think I could read a book
which rejects this method in favour of a vague "law of sympathy.
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