EVOLUTION— ITS MEANING 



argument. No other type of evidence, moreover, is so con- 

 vincing as the cumulative one. The question we are con- 

 sidering is not one of logic but one of fact. Logic, with its 

 specialized branch, mathematics, adds nothing to our knowl- 

 edge; its function is to clarify assumptions already accepted. 



Accepting the fact of orderly change — universal in so far 

 as we can trace the relations of cause and effect and of 

 natural sequence — ^we face a more difficult problem: How 

 are the changes brought about? Here we no longer find 

 unanimity of opinion, for in the myriad of facts at our 

 disposal no single man can master their prodigious range 

 and their diverse aspects. A forest is not the same to a 

 lumberman as to a landscape gardener. A primrose in a 

 greenhouse is not the same as one by the river's brim. "The 

 harvest of the quiet eye" is not that which is garnered by 

 the reaper. The microscope and the telescope yield knowl- 

 edge from different angles. But the lesson of all science 

 is that whatever takes place in nature is natural; not ''super- 

 natural." Indeed, to science "supernatural" is a meaning- 

 less word. It concerns either nothing at all or something 

 not yet found out. We might say that the term "super- 

 natural" can be applied only to a set of conceptions that are 

 held by minds which have not learned that all facts of 

 human experience are natural. 



Much has been written as to the possible source of life 

 in a lifeless world. It is easy to suppose some sort of "spon- 

 taneous generation" or "chemical transition." That sup- 

 position follows the line of least resistance; it is said by 

 some to be a "logical necessity." Thus one sitting in his 

 study may blithely construct "synthetic protoplasm" by "a 

 juggling of words," or by a combination of ideas drawn 

 from physics and chemistry. To state facts in simple terms, 

 life appears only in connection with carbon, oxygen, hydro- 



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