Chapter II: The Mechanistic Hypothesis

Extract

I have spoken of variations sometimes as if they were due to chance. This is a wholly incorrect expression; it merely serves to acknowledge plainly our ignorance of the cause of each particular variation.—DARWIN.

Both the mechanistic and the organic hypotheses agree that in the world as it stands at present we find not only matter, but also life, mind, and purpose. The mechanistic hypothesis, however, as I understand it, holds that this earth was originally a purely inorganic world without life, mind, or purpose, governed by purely mechanical laws alone; and that at some point of time in the relatively recent past, life got started upon the surface of this mechanical world by some kind of ‘biological accident,’ and having got started in ‘one or more primordial forms’ it then set out on a course of evolution impelled by a strong reproductive impulse, presumably co-accidental with life itself; and with a strong tendency to reproduce or repeat the type, coupled with a lesser tendency to slight variations and an occasional tendency to a great variation, it gradually differentiated its ‘one or more primordial forms’ into many genera and species of life, each species or genus then moving forward towards greater and greater perfection under the operation of ‘natural selection,’ until we have the multi-variegated organic world as we find it to-day.