CREATION BY EVOLUTION 



suns and planets, or which mould mountains and seas, or 

 which determine the formation of crystals or the accumula- 

 tion of rocks, differ in certain ways from those which modify 

 generations of life. We therefore usually treat orderly 

 change in organized beings under a special head, that of 

 organic evolution. For this a better term, bionomics, "life- 

 ways," has been suggested by Professor Patrick Geddes, of 

 Edinburgh. 



The theory of organic evolution is, in brief, that in our 

 world no living thing and no succession of living things 

 remain exactly the same for any period of time, long or 

 short; and furthermore, to repeat, that all change is orderly, 

 never the result of accident or caprice or favoritism. In 

 Huxley's words: "Nothing endures save the flow of energy 

 and the rational order that pervades it." 



As a science, organic evolution, or bionomics, comprises 

 all that we know or that we may reasonably deduce from 

 our actual knowledge of the history, development, and 

 divergence of living creatures on the earth. It involves the 

 idea of the "transmutation" of species (or kinds of animals 

 or plants) through natural causes (there are no others), 

 their characteristics varying for cause, with time and with 

 space. To one having a fair knowledge of the facts con- 

 cerned no different working hypothesis is now conceivable; 

 and a working hypothesis becomes a part of science when 

 every rival hypothesis has ceased to work. 



The evidence for organic evolution is cumulative. All 

 creatures show evidences of evolutionary processes, which 

 are revealed on every hand. Now that we have in some 

 degree the clue to life and reproduction, every plant, every 

 animal, every man, every institution appears (in its degree) 

 not alone as an argument for but as a demonstration of 

 evolution. Demonstrations precede logic and stand above 



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