At the Deathbed of Darwinism Part 1

At the Deathbed of Darwinism.

by Eberhard Dennert.

PREFACE.

The general tendency of recent scientific literature dealing with the problem of organic evolution may fairly be characterized as distinctly and prevailingly unfavorable to the Darwinian theory of Natural Selection. In the series of chapters herewith offered for the first time to English readers, Dr. Dennert has brought together testimonies which leave no room for doubt about the decadence of the Darwinian theory in the highest scientific circles in Germany. And outside of Germany the same sentiment is shared generally by the leaders of scientific thought. That the popularizers of evolutionary conceptions have any anti-Darwinian tendencies cannot, of course, be for a moment maintained. For who would undertake to popularize what is not novel or striking? But a study of the best scientific literature reveals the fact that the att.i.tude a.s.sumed by one of our foremost American zoologists, Professor Thomas Hunt Morgan, in his recent work on "Evolution and Adaptation," is far more general among the leading men of science than is popularly supposed. Professor Morgan's position may be stated thus: He adheres to the general theory of Descent, i.e., he believes the simplest explanation which has yet been offered of the structural _similarities_ between species within the same group, is the hypothesis of a common descent from a parent species. But he emphatically rejects the notion--and this is the quintessence of Darwinism--that the _dissimilarities_ between species have been brought about by the purely mechanical agency of natural selection.

To find out what, precisely, Darwin meant by the term "natural selection" let us turn for a moment, to his great work, _The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection_. In the second chapter of that work, Darwin observes that small "fortuitous" variations in individual organisms, though of small interest to the systematist, are of the "highest importance" for his theory, since these minute variations often confer on the possessor of them, some advantage over his fellows in the quest for the necessaries of life. Thus these chance individual variations become the "first steps" towards slight varieties, which, in turn, lead to sub-species, and, finally, to species. Varieties, in fact, are "incipient species." Hence, small "fortuitous" fluctuating, individual variations--i.e., those which chance to occur without predetermined direction--are the "first-steps"

in the origin of species. This is the first element in the Darwinian theory.

In the third chapter of the same work we read: "It has been seen in the last chapter that amongst organic beings in a state of nature there is some individual variability. * * * But the mere existence of individual variability and of some few well-marked varieties, though necessary as a _foundation_ of the work, helps us but little in understanding how species arise in nature. How have all those exquisite adaptations of one part of the organization to another part, and to the conditions of life, and of one organic being to another being, been perfected?

* * *" Again it may be asked, how is it that varieties, which I have called incipient species, become ultimately converted into good and distinct species, which in most cases obviously differ from each other far more than do the varieties of the same species? How do those groups of species which const.i.tute what are called distinct genera arise?

All of these results follow from the _struggle for life_. Owing to this struggle, variations, however slight and from whatever cause proceeding, if they be in any degree profitable to the individuals of a species, in their infinitely complex relations to other organic beings, and to their physical conditions of life, will tend to the preservation of such individuals and will generally be inherited by the offspring.

The offspring also will thus have a better chance of surviving, for of the many individuals of any species which are periodically born, but a small number can survive. I have called this principle by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term, "natural selection." Mr. Darwin adds that his meaning would be more accurately expressed by a phrase of Mr. Spencer's coinage, "Survival of the Fittest."

It may be observed that neither "natural selection" nor "survival of the fittest" gives very accurate expression to the idea which Darwin seems to wish to convey. Natural selection is at best a metaphorical description of a process, and "survival of the fittest" describes the result of that process. Nor shall we find the moving principle of evolution in individual variability unless we choose to regard chance as an efficient agency. Consequently, the only efficient principle conceivably connected with the process is the "struggle for existence;"

and even this has only a purely negative function in the origination of species or of adaptations. For, the "surviving fittest" owe nothing more to the struggle for existence than our pensioned veterans owe to the death-dealing bullets which did _not_ hit them. Mr. Darwin has, however, obviated all difficulty regarding precision of terms by the remark that he intended to use his most important term, "struggle for existence" in "a large and metaphorical sense."

We have now seen the second element of Darwinism, namely, the "struggle for life." The theory of natural selection, then, postulates the acc.u.mulation of minute "fortuitions" individual modifications, which are useful to the possessor of them, by means of a struggle for life of such a sanguinary nature and of such enormous proportions as to result in the destruction of the overwhelming majority of adult individuals.

These are the correlative factors in the process of natural selection.

In view of the popular identification of Darwinism with the doctrine of evolution, on the one hand, and with the theory of struggle for life, on the other hand, it is necessary to insist on the Darwinian conception of small, fluctuating, useful variations as the "first-steps" in the evolutionary process. For, this conception distinguishes Darwinism from the more recent evolutionary theory, e.g., of De Vries who rejects the notion that species have originated by the acc.u.mulation of fluctuating variations; and it is quite as essential to the Darwinian theory of natural selection as is the "struggle for life." It is, in fact, an integral element in the selection theory.

The att.i.tude of science towards Darwinism may, therefore, be conveniently summarized in its answer to the following questions:

1. Is there any evidence that such a struggle for life among mature forms, as Darwin postulates, actually occurs?

2. Can the origin of adaptive structures be explained on the ground of their _utility_ in this struggle, i.e., is it certain or even probable that the organism would have perished, had it lacked the particular adaptation in its present degree of perfection? On the contrary, is there not convincing proof that many, and presumably most, adaptations cannot be thus accounted for?

The above questions are concerned with "the struggle for life." Those which follow have to do with the problem of variations.

3. Is there any reason to believe that new species may originate by the acc.u.mulation of fluctuating individual variations?

4. Does the evidence of the geological record--which, as Huxley observed, is the only direct evidence that can be had in the question of evolution--does this evidence tell for or against the origin of existing species from earlier ones by means of minute gradual modifications?

We must be content here with the briefest outline of the reply of science to these inquiries.

1. Darwin invites his readers to "keep steadily in mind that each organic being is striving to increase in geometrical ratio." If this tendency were to continue unchecked, the progeny of living beings would soon be unable to find standing room. Indeed, the very bacteria would quickly convert every vestige of organic matter on earth into their own substance. For has not Cohn estimated that the offspring of a single bacterium, at its ordinary rate of increase under favorable conditions, would in three days amount to 4,772 billions of individuals with an aggregate weight of seven thousand five hundred tons? And the 19,000,000 elephants which, according to Darwin, should to-day perpetuate the lives of each pair that mated in the twelfth century--surely these would be a "magna pars" in the sanguinary contest. When the imagination views these and similar figures, and places in contrast to this mult.i.tude of living beings, the limited supply of nourishment, the comparison of nature with a huge slaughterhouse seems tame enough. But reason, not imagination, as Darwin observes more than once, should be our guide in a scientific inquiry.

It is observed on careful reflection that Darwin's theory is endangered by an extremely large disturbing element, viz., accidental destruction.

Under this term we include all the destruction of life which occurs in utter indifference to the presence or absence of any individual variations from the parent form. Indeed, the greatest destruction takes place among immature forms before any variation from the parent stock is discernible at all. In this connection we may instance the vast amount of eggs and seeds destroyed annually irrespective of any adaptive advantage that would be possessed by the matured form. And the countless forms in every stage of individual development which meet destruction through "accidental causes which would not be in the least degree mitigated by certain changes of structure or of const.i.tution which would otherwise be beneficial to the species." This difficulty, Darwin himself recognized. But he was of opinion that if even "one-hundredth or one-thousandth part" of organic beings escaped this fortuitous destruction, there would supervene among the survivors a struggle for life sufficiently destructive to satisfy his theory. This suggestion, however, fails to meet the difficulty. For, as Professor Morgan points out, Darwin a.s.sumes "that a second compet.i.tion takes place after the first destruction of individuals has occurred, and this presupposes that more individuals reach maturity than there is room for in the economy of nature." It presupposes that the vast majority of forms that survive accidental destruction, succ.u.mb in the second struggle for life in which the determining factor is some slight individual variation, e.g., a little longer neck in the case of the giraffe, or a wing shorter than usual in the case of an insect on an island. The whole theory of struggle, as formulated by Darwin, is, therefore, a violent a.s.sumption. Men of science now recognize that "egoism and struggle play a very subordinate part in organic development, in comparison with co-operation and social action." What, indeed, but a surrender of the paramountcy of struggle for life, is Huxley's celebrated Romanes lecture in which he supplants the cosmic process by the ethical? The French free-thinker, Charles Robin, gave expression to the verdict of exact science when he declared: "Darwinism is a fiction, a poetical acc.u.mulation of probabilities without proof, and of attractive explanations without demonstration."

2. The hopeless inadequacy of the struggle for life to account for adaptive structures has been dealt with at considerable length by Professor Morgan in the concluding chapters of the work already mentioned. We cannot here follow him in his study of the various kinds of adaptations, e.g., form and symmetry, mutual adaptation of colonial forms, protective coloration, organs of extreme perfection, tropisms and instincts, etc., in regard to the origin of each of which he is forced to abandon the Darwinian theory. It will suffice to call attention to his conclusions concerning the phenomena of regeneration of organs. By his research in this special field Professor Morgan has won international recognition among men of science. It was while prosecuting his studies in this field that he became impressed with the utter bankruptcy of the theory of natural selection which Darwinians put forward to explain the acquisition by organisms of this most useful power of regeneration. It is not difficult to show that regeneration could not in many cases, and presumably in none, have been acquired through natural selection (p. 379). If an earth worm (_allolobophora foctida_) be cut in two in the middle, the posterior piece regenerates at its anterior cut end, not a head but a tail. "Not by the widest stretch of the imagination can such a result be accounted for on the selection theory." Quite the reverse case presents itself in certain planarians. If the head of _planaria lugubris_ is cut off just behind the eyes, there develops at the cut surface of the head-piece another head turned in the opposite direction. "These and other reasons," concludes Professor Morgan (p. 381), "indicate with certainty that regeneration cannot be explained by the theory of natural selection."

The ingenuity of the Darwinian imagination, however, will hardly fail to a.s.sign some reason why two heads are more useful than one in the above instance, and thus reconcile the phenomenon with Darwinism. For, according to Professor Morgan "to imagine that a particular organ is useful to its possessor and to account for its origin because of the imagined benefit conferred, is the general procedure of the followers of the Darwinian school." "Personal conviction, mere possibility,"

writes Quatref.a.ges, "are offered as proofs, or at least as arguments in favor of the theory." "The realms of fancy are boundless," is Blanchard's significant comment on Darwin's explanation of the blindness of the mole. "On this cla.s.s of speculation," says Bateson in his "Materials for the Study of Variation," referring to Darwinian speculation as to the beneficial or detrimental nature of variations, "on this cla.s.s of speculation the only limitations are those of the ingenuity of the author." The general form of Darwin's argument, declared the writer of a celebrated article in the North British Review, is as follows: "All these things may have been, therefore my theory is possible; and since my theory is a possible one, all those hypotheses which it requires are rendered probable."

3. We pa.s.s now to the question of the possibility of building up a new species by the acc.u.mulation of chance individual variations. That species ever originate in this way is denied by the advocates of the evolutionary theory which is now superseding Darwinism. Typical of the new school is the botanist Hugo De Vries of Amsterdam. The "first-steps" in the origin of new species according to De Vries are not fluctuating individual variations, but mutations, i.e., definite and permanent modifications. According to the mutation theory a new species arises from the parent species, not gradually but suddenly. It appears suddenly "without visible preparation and without transitional steps." The wide acceptance with which this theory is meeting must be attributed to the fact that men of science no longer believe in the origin of species by the acc.u.mulation of slight fluctuating modifications. To quote the words of De Vries, "Fluctuating variation cannot overstep the limits of the species, even after the most prolonged selection--still less can it lead to the production of new, permanent characters." It has been the wont of Darwinians to base their speculations on the a.s.sumption that "an inconceivably long time" could effect almost anything in the matter of specific transformations. But the evidence which has been ama.s.sed during the past forty years leaves no doubt that there is a limit to individual variability which neither time nor skill avail to remove. As M. Blanchard a.s.serts in his work, _La vie des etres animes_ (p. 102), "All investigation and observation make it clear that, while the variability of creatures in a state of nature displays itself in very different degrees, yet, in its most astonishing manifestations, it remains confined within a circle beyond which it cannot pa.s.s."

It is interesting to observe how writers of the Darwinian school attempt to explain the origin of articulate language as a gradual development of animal sounds. "It does not," observes Darwin, "appear altogether incredible that some unusually wise ape-like animal should have thought of imitating the growl of a beast of prey, so as to indicate to his fellow monkeys the nature of the expected danger. And this would have been a first step in the formation of a language." But what a tremendous step! An ape-like animal that "thought" of imitating a beast must certainly have been "unusually wise." In bridging the chasm which rational speech interposes between man and the brute creation, the Darwinian is forced to a.s.sume that the whole essential modification is included in the first step. Then he conceals the a.s.sumption by parcelling out the accidental modification in a supposed series of transitional stages. He endeavors to veil his inability to explain the first step, as Chevalier Bunsen remarked, by the easy but fruitless a.s.sumption of an infinite s.p.a.ce of time, destined to explain the gradual development of animals into men; as if millions of years could supply the want of an agent necessary for the first movement, for the first step in the line of progress. "How can speech, the expression of thought, develop itself in a year or in millions of years, out of unarticulated sounds which express feelings of pleasure, pain, and appet.i.te? The common-sense of mankind will always shrink from such theories."

4. The hopes and fears of Darwinians have rightly been centered on the history of organic development as outlined in the geological record. It has been pointed out repeatedly by the foremost men of science that if the theory of genetic descent with the acc.u.mulation of small variations be the true account of the origin of species, a complete record of the ancestry of any existing species would reveal no distinction of species and genera. Between any two well-defined species, if one be derived from the other, there must be countless transition forms. But palaeontology fails to support the theory of evolution by minute variations. Darwinism has been shattered on the geologic rocks. "The complete absence of intermediate forms," says Mr. Carruthers, "and the sudden and contemporaneous appearance of highly organized and widely separated groups, deprive the hypothesis of genetic evolution of any countenance from the plant record of these ancient rocks. The whole evidence is against evolution (i.e., by minute modification) and there is none for it." (cf. _History of Plant Life and its Bearing on Theory of Evolution_, 1898). Similar testimony regarding the animal kingdom is borne by Mr. Mivart in the following carefully worded statement: "The ma.s.s of palaeontological evidence is indeed overwhelmingly against minute and gradual modification." "The Darwinian theory," declared Professor Fleischmann of Erlangen, recently, "has not a single fact to confirm it in the realm of nature. It is not the result of scientific research, but purely the product of the imagination."

On one occasion Huxley expressed his conviction that the pedigree of the horse as revealed in the geological record furnished demonstrative evidence for the theory of evolution. The question has been entered into in detail by Professor Fleischmann in his work, _Die Descendenstheorie_. In this book the Erlangen professor makes great capital out of the "trot-horse" (Paradepferd) of Huxley and Haeckel; and as regards the evolutionary theory, easily claims a verdict of "not proven." In this connection the moderate statement of Professor Morgan is noteworthy: "When he (Fleischmann) says there is no absolute proof that the common plan of structure must be the result of blood relationship, he is not bringing a fatal argument against the theory of descent, for no one but an enthusiast sees anything more in the explanation than a very probable theory that appears to account for the facts. To demand an absolute proof is to ask for more than any reasonable advocate of the descent theory claims for it." (Professor Morgan, as we have already seen, rejects Darwinism, and inclines to the mutation theory of De Vries.) The vast majority of Darwinians must, therefore, be cla.s.sed as "enthusiasts" who are not "reasonable advocates of the descent theory." For has not Professor Marsh told his readers that "to doubt evolution is to doubt science?" And similar a.s.sertions have been so frequently made and reiterated by Darwinians that the claim that Darwinism has become a dogma contains, as Professor Morgan notes, more truth than the adherents of that school find pleasant to hear.

More interesting, however, than Huxley's geological pedigree of the horse is Haeckel's geological pedigree of man. One who reads Haeckel's _Natural History of Creation_ can hardly escape the impression that the author had actually seen specimens of each of the twenty-one ancestral forms of which his pedigree of man is composed. Such, however, was not the case. Quatref.a.ges, speaking of this wonderful genealogical tree which Haeckel has drawn up with such scientific accuracy of description, observes: "The first thing to remark is that _not one_ of the creatures exhibited in this pedigree has ever been seen, either living or in fossil. Their existence is based entirely upon theory." (_Les Emules de Darwin_, ii. _p._ 76). "Man's pedigree as drawn up by Haeckel," says the distinguished savant, Du Bois-Reymond, "is worth about as much as is that of Homer's heroes for critical historians."

In constructing his genealogies Haeckel has frequent recourse to his celebrated "Law of Biogenesis." The "Law of Biogenesis" which is the dignified t.i.tle Haeckel has given to the discredited recapitulation theory, a.s.serts that the embryological development of the individual (ontogeny), is a brief recapitulation, a summing up, of the stages through which the species pa.s.sed in the course of its evolution in the geologic past, (phylogeny). Ontogeny is a brief recapitulation of phylogeny. This, says Haeckel, is what the "fundamental Law of Biogenesis" teaches us. (The reader of Haeckel and other Darwinians will frequently find laws put forward to establish facts: whereas other men of science prefer to have facts establish laws). When, therefore, as Quatref.a.ges remarks, the transition between the types which Haeckel has incorporated into his genealogical tree, appears too abrupt, he often betakes himself to ontogeny and describes the embryo in the corresponding interval of development. This description he inserts in his genealogical mosaic, by virtue of the "Law of Biogenesis."

Many theories have been constructed to explain the phenomena of embryological development. Of these the simplest and least mystical is that of His in the great cla.s.sic work on embryology, "Unsere Koerperform." His tells us: "In the entire series of forms which a developing organism runs through, each form is the necessary antecedent step of the following. If the embryo is to reach the complicated end-form, it must pa.s.s, step by step, through the simpler ones. Each step of the series is the physiological consequence of the preceding stage, and the necessary condition for the following." But whatever theory be accepted by men of science, it is certainly not that proposed by Haeckel. Carl Vogt after giving Haeckel's statement of the "Law of Biogenesis" wrote: "This law which I long held as well-founded, is absolutely and radically false." Even Oskar Hertwig, perhaps the best known of Haeckel's former pupils, finds it necessary to change Haeckel's expression of the biogenetic law so that "a contradiction contained in it may be removed." Professor Morgan, finally, rejects Haeckel's boasted "Law of Biogenesis" as "_in principle, false_."

And he furthermore seems to imply that Fleischmann merits the reproach of men of science, for wasting his time in confuting "the antiquated and generally exaggerated views of writers like Haeckel."

"Antiquated and generally exaggerated views." Such is the comment of science on Haeckel's boast that Darwin's pre-eminent service to science consisted in pointing out how purposive adaptations may be produced by natural selection without the direction of mind just as easily as they may be produced by artificial selection and human design. And yet the latest and least worthy production from the pen of this Darwinian philosopher, _The Riddle of the Universe_, is being scattered broad-cast by the anti-Christian press, in the name and guise of _popular_ science. It is therein that the evil consists. For the discerning reader sees in the book itself, its own best refutation. The pretensions of Haeckel's "consistent and monistic theory of the eternal cosmogenetic process" are best met by pointing to the fact that its most highly accredited and notorious representative has given to the world in exposition and defense of pure Darwinian philosophy, a work, which, for boldness of a.s.sertion, meagerness of proof, inconsequence of argument, inconsistency in fundamental principles and disregard for facts which tell against the author's theory, has certainly no equal in contemporary literature. In the apt and expressive phrase of Professor Paulsen, the book "fairly drips with superficiality" (von Seichtigkeit triefen). If the man of science is to be justified, as Huxley suggested, not by faith but by verification, Haeckel and his docile Darwinian disciples have good reason to tremble for their scientific salvation.

EDWIN V. O'HARA.

St. Paul, Minn.

_INTRODUCTION._

During the last few years I have published under this t.i.tle short articles dealing with the present status of Darwinism. In view of the kind reception which has been accorded to these articles by the reading public I have thought it well to bring them together in pamphlet form.

Indeed, the Darwinian movement and its present status are eminently deserving of consideration, especially on the part of those before whom Darwinism has. .h.i.therto always been held up triumphantly as a scientific disproof of the very foundations of the Christian faith.

By way of introduction and explanation some general preliminary remarks may not be amiss here. Previous to twenty or thirty years ago, it was justifiable to identify Darwinism with the doctrine of Descent, for at that time Darwinism was the only doctrine of Descent which could claim any general recognition. Consequently, one who was an adherent of the doctrine of Descent was also a Darwinian. Those to whom this did not apply were so few as to be easily counted. The dispute then hinged primarily on Darwinism; hence, for those who did not admit the truth of that theory, the doctrine of Descent was for the most part also a myth.

I say, for the most part; for there were already even at that time a few clear-sighted naturalists (Wigand, Naegeli, Koelliker and others) who saw plainly the residue of truth that would result from the discussion. But to the overwhelming majority, the alternatives seemed to be: Either Darwinism or no evolution at all. Today, however, the state of things is considerably altered. The doctrine of Descent is clearly and definitely distinguished from Darwinism at least by the majority of naturalists. It is therefore of the utmost importance that this luminous distinction should likewise become recognized in lay circles.

My object in these pages is to show that Darwinism will soon be a thing of the past, a matter of history; that we even now stand at its death-bed, while its friends are solicitous only to secure for it a decent burial.

Out of the chaos of controversy which has obtained during the last four decades there has emerged an element of truth--for there lurks a germ of truth in most errors--which has gained almost universal recognition among contemporary men of science, namely, the doctrine of Descent. The fact that living organisms form an ascending series from the less perfect to the more perfect; the further fact that they also form a series according as they display more or less h.o.m.ology of structure and are formed according to similar types; and, lastly, that the fossil remains of organisms found in the various strata of the earth's surface likewise represent an ascending series from the simple to the more complex--these three facts suggested to naturalists the thought that living organisms were not always as we find them to-day, but that the more perfect had developed from simpler forms through a series of modifications. These thoughts were at first advanced with some hesitation, and were confined to narrow circles. They received, however, material support when, during the fourth decade of the 19th century the splendid discovery was made (by K. E. von Baer) that every organism is slowly developed from a germ, and in the process of development pa.s.ses through temporary lower stages to a permanent higher one. Even at that time many naturalists believed in a corresponding development of the whole series of organisms, without of course being able to form a clear conception of the process. Such was the state of affairs when Darwin in the year 1859 published his princ.i.p.al work, _The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection_. In this work for the first time an exhaustive attempt was made to sketch a clear and completely detailed picture of the process of development.

Darwin started with the fact that breeders of animals and growers of plants, having at their disposal a large number of varieties, always diverging somewhat from each other, choose individuals possessing characteristics which they desired to strengthen, and use only these for procreation. In this manner the desired characteristic is gradually made more prominent, and the breeder appears to have obtained a new species. Similar conditions are supposed to prevail in Nature, only that there is lacking the selecting hand of the breeder. Here the so-called principle of Natural Selection holds automatic sway by means of the Struggle for Existence. All the various forms of life are warring for the means of subsistence, each striving to obtain for itself the best nourishment, etc. In this struggle those organisms will be victorious which possess the most favorable characteristics; all others must succ.u.mb. Hence those only will survive which are best adapted to their environment. But between those which survive, the struggle begins anew, and when the favoring peculiarities become more p.r.o.nounced in some, (by chance, of course) these in turn win out. Thus Nature gradually improves her various breeds through the continued action of a self-regulating mechanism. Such are the main features of Darwinism, its real kernel, about which of course,--and this is a proof of its insufficiency,--from the very beginning a number of auxiliary hypotheses attached themselves.

Darwin's theory sounds so clear and simple, and seems at first blush so luminous that it is no wonder if many careful naturalists regarded it as an incontrovertible truth. The warning voice of the more prudent men of science was silenced by the loud enthusiasm of the younger generation over the solution of the greatest of the world-problems: the genesis of living beings had been brought to light, and--a thing which admitted of no doubt--man as well as the brute creation was a product of purely natural evolution. The doctrine which materialism had already proclaimed with prophetic insight, had at length been irrefragably established on a scientific basis: G.o.d, Soul and Immortality were contemptuously relegated to the domain of nursery tales. What further use was there for a G.o.d when, in addition to the Kant-Laplacian theory of the origin of the planetary system, it had been discovered that living organisms had likewise evolved spontaneously? How could man who had sprung from the irrational brute possess a soul? And thus, finally, disappeared the third delusion, the hope of immortality. For with death the functions of the body simply cease, as also do those of the brain, which people had foolishly believed to be something more than an aggregation of atoms. The body dissolves into its const.i.tuent elements and serves in its turn to build up other organisms: but as a human body it all turns to dust nor 'leaves a wrack behind'. Thus Darwinism was made the basis first for a materialistic, and then for a monistic, view of the world, and hence came to be rigorously opposed to every form of Theism. But since, at that time, Darwinism was the only theory of evolution recognized by the world of science, the opposition of the Christian world was directed not specifically against Darwinism, but against the theory of evolution as such. The wheat was rooted up with the tares.

I will not discuss here which of the two views concerning creation; the origin of the world in one moment of time, or a gradual evolution of the world and its potentialities, is the more worthy of the creative power of G.o.d. Manifestly the greatness and magnificence of creation will in no way be compromised by the concept of evolution. This, of course, is simply my opinion. Any further statement would be out of place here.

But what is the Darwinian position?

It is merely a special form of the evolutionary theory, one of the various attempts to explain how the process of development actually took place. Darwinism as understood in the following chapters possesses the following characteristic traits:

(1) Evolution began and continues without the aid or intervention of a Creator.