8 READINGS IN EVOLUTION, GENETICS, AND EUGENICS 



"Our present state of opinion is this: we know to some extent 

 how plants and animals and man evolve; we do not know why they 

 evolve. We know, for example, that there has existed a more or less 

 complete chain of beings from nomad to man, that the one-toed horse 

 had a four-toed ancestor, that man has descended from an unknown 

 ape-like form somewhere in the Tertiary. We know not only those 

 larger chains of descent, but many of the minute details of these 

 transformations. We do not know their internal causes, for none of 

 the explanations which have in turn been offered during the last hun- 

 dred years satisfies the demands of observation, of experiment, of 

 reason. It is best frankly to acknowledge that the chief causes of the 

 orderly evolution of the germ are still entirely unknown, and that our 

 search must take an entirely fresh start." H. F. Osborn, The Origin 

 and Evolution of Life (Charles Scribner's Sons), 1918, pp. viii-x. 



WHAT ORGANIC EVOLUTION IS NOT 



[i. The evolution doctrine is not a creed to be accepted on faith, 

 as are religious faiths or creeds. It appeals entirely to the logical 

 faculties, not to the spiritual, and is not to be accepted until proved. 



2. It does not teach that man is a direct descendant of the apes 

 and monkeys, but that both man and the modern apes and monkeys 

 have been derived from some as yet unknown generalized primate 

 ancestor possessing the common attributes of all three groups and 

 lacking their specializations. 



3. It is not synonymous with Darwinism, for the latter is merely 

 one man's attempt to explain how evolution has occurred. 



4. Contrary to a very widespread idea, evolution is by no means 

 incompatible with religion. Witness the fact that the early Christian 

 Theologians, Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, were evolutionists, and 

 the majority of thoughtful theologians of all creeds are today in 

 accord with the evolution idea, many of them even applying the prin- 

 ciple to their studies of religion; for religious ideas and ideals, like 

 other human characters, have evolved from crude beginnings and are 

 still undergoing processes of refinement. 



5. The evolution idea is not degrading. Quite the contrary; it is 

 ennobling as is well brought out by the classic statement of Darwin 

 on page 4 and by that of Lyell, on page 3. 



6. The evolution doctrine does not teach that man is the goal of 

 all evolutionary process, but that man is merely the present end 

 product of one particular series of evolutionary changes. The goal 



