46 EVOLUTION, GENETICS, AND EUGENICS 



but it is significant as an influence that may serve either greatly to 

 accelerate or to retard the progress of our science. The writer's own 

 experience is that the controversy has greatly enhanced popular inter- 

 est in this subject, as evidenced by the growing demand for books on 

 evolution and allied subjects and the marked increase in the numbers 

 of students in the colleges who wish to elect courses along these lines. 



CONCLUDING REMARKS 



Now that we have traced the evolution of the science of organic 

 evolution from its crude beginnings among the Greeks up to the 

 present, we are in a position to go back and make a systematic study 

 of some of the more important phases of evolutionary science. 

 Charles Darwin found it necessary to prove the fact of organic evolu- 

 tion before attempting to discover its causes. His method of proof 

 was to marshal a great array of facts which agree with the idea of 

 descent with modification; and we shall follow Darwin's method in 

 the subsequent chapters dealing with the evidences of evolution. 



Note. — In the first half of the present historical account many short passage? 

 are. presented in quotation marks without mentioning the source of the quotation. 

 In all such cases it will be understood that these passages are from H. F. Osborn's 

 book, From the Creeks to Darwin (The Macmillan Company). 



