esign.

It is not a little wonderful that such an accusation as this should be
brought against a writer who has, over and over again, warned his
readers that when he uses the word "spontaneous," he merely means that
he is ignorant of the cause of that which is so termed; and whose whole
theory crumbles to pieces if the uniformity and regularity of natural
causation for illimitable past ages is denied. But probably the best
answer to those who talk of Darwinism meaning the reign of "chance," is
to ask them what they themselves understand by "chance"? Do they
believe that anything in this universe happens without reason or
without a cause? Do they really conceive that any event has no cause,
and could not have been predicted by any one who had a sufficient
insight into the order of Nature? If they do, it is they who are the
inheritors of antique superstition and ignorance, and whose minds have
never been illumined by a ray of scientific thought. The one act of
faith in the convert to science, is the confession of the universality
of order and of the absolute validity in all times and under all
circumstances, of the law of causation. This confession is an act of
faith, because, by the nature of the case, the truth of such
propositions is not susceptible of proof. But such faith is not blind,
but reasonable; because it is invariably confirmed by experience, and
constitutes the sole trustworthy foundation for all action.

If one of these people, in whom the chance-worship of our remoter
ancestors thus strangely survives, should be within reach of the sea
when a heavy gale is blowing, let him betake himself to the shore and
watch the scene. Let him note the infinite variety of form and size of
the tossing waves out at sea; or of the curves of their foam-crested
breakers, as they dash against the rocks; let him listen to the roar
and scream of the shingle as it is cast up and torn down the beach; or
look at the flakes of foam as they drive hither and thither before the
wind; or note the play of colours, which answers a gleam of sunshine as
it falls upon the myriad bubbles. Surely here, if anywhere, he will
say that chance is supreme, and bend the knee as one who has entered
the very penetralia of his divinity. But the man of science knows that
here, as everywhere, perfect order is manifested; that there is not a
curve of the waves, not a note in the howling chorus, not a
rainbow-glint on a bubble, which is other than