THE HIGHER VALUES OF SCIENCE 309 



criticism. One cannot turn the pages of Buffon's encyclo- 

 paedic work without a growing respect for his knowledge of 

 animal life. Obviously, the foundation for much of our 

 comparative anatomy of vertebrates was even then estab- 

 lished. In a preceding chapter it has been shown how 

 Lamarck was the first to offer a theory of the causes of 

 evolution and how he failed to make his case as against the 

 authority of Cuvier; also how the latter, although opposing 

 the theory of evolution, accumulated some of its strongest 

 evidence, through his studies in comparative anatomy; and 

 how von Baer supplemented this by his work in embryology. 

 We saw, finally, that in Darwin's day, there were ample data 

 for the establishment of the historical fact of evolution, if not 

 for the determination of its causation. The almost immedi- 

 ate acceptance, in biological science, of Darwin's views and 

 the spread of the evolutionary concept to other fields, during 

 the remaining years of the nineteenth century, are well 

 known. We are here concerned with the effect of the evolu- 

 tionary doctrine upon human thought in the present and the 

 possible extension of its influence in the future. 



The triumph of the evolutionary concept completed the 

 overthrow of those older ideas of the universe which cul- 

 minated in medieval theology. Evolution was the final 

 extension of that enlarging mental horizon disclosed by the 

 fact of the earth's sphericity and the Copernican explanation 

 of the solar system, conceptions which are indissolubly 

 united and each of which represents a stride forward in 

 the face of resistance. Copernicus would have suffered, as 

 Galileo did later, had the full implications of his theory been 

 recognized before his death. Buffon was not in physical 

 danger, though forced to recant. Darwin, though heaped 

 with abuse, suffered no real inconvenience at the hands of 

 his critics, for he lived in a more tolerant and enlightened 

 age. 



During the three centuries involved, man's picture of 

 himself changed from that of a being, recently created and 



