PHILOSOPHICAL ASPECTS OF EVOLUTION 



in creation, did not believe in evolution. In their opinion the 

 data were too scarce to go on and they searched for philos- 

 ophical arguments to oppose the idea of evolution. For this 

 reason the nineteenth century controversy about evolution 

 gives the impre::sion that the main dispute was philosophical. 

 The scientific data seemed to be relevant only in so far as 

 they endorsed or weakened the philosophical positions. Yet 

 Lamarck and Darwin had formulated an interesting biological 

 problem, and although in their time that problem could not be 

 solved, the problem did stir the minds of the biologists, and 

 they started to work on it and gradually they found more and 

 more evidence for certain solutions or possible solutions of 

 the problem on purely scientific grounds. 



As a result there has been an evolution of the theory of 

 evolution, that is to say there has been an historical develop- 

 ment of the problem of evolution. Formerly the problem was 

 tied up with all kind of philosophical considerations, now it 

 is a problem in its own right. 



Such a development is the normal course of events. 

 Atomism, for example, also was first a philosophical doctrine, 

 albeit one with a scientific aspect. The latter aspect gradually 

 developed, slowly before the seventeenth century, rapidly 

 thereafter.^ Philosophy and science are both the result of one 

 and the same original quest of knowledge. In the beginning of 

 the rational career of man we find therefore that philosophical 

 and scientific aspects of knowledge were strongly interwoven. 

 Philosophical and scientific problems were still confused and 

 not clearly distinguished. Man hardly even knew that they 

 were distinct problems to be solved by different methods. Only 

 in the practice of research did the necessity of differentiating 

 methods and problems reveal itself, and only reluctantly man 

 resigned himself to specialism in science. For this reason it 

 is easily understood that again and again, with each new 

 problem arising in the course of history, the different aspects 

 were not clearly distinguished from the beginning, but had 

 to be found v/hile working on the problem. We have seen 

 the same kind of development in the dispute around vitalism 

 and mechanicism. We have seen there, too, that the solution 



* Cf. A. G. van Melsen, From Atomos to Atom, Pittsburgh, 1952. 

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