THE DOGMA OF EVOLUTION 



acter from the work of other historians. The human 

 bias of the historian is generally admitted and the 

 reader, from experience, soon learns to render due 

 allowance for the fallibility of desire. But the his- 

 torian of evolution bases his work on the supposedly 

 exact evidence of science ; he has imposed on the mind 

 of the reader, from the start, the impression that his 

 deductions are those of a man of science which flow 

 logically and dispassionately from an adequate reser- 

 voir of experimental observations, and that he is not 

 swayed by the predilections shown by the writers of 

 the pseudo-science of human history. From his de- 

 scriptions, the scientific artist portrays the picture of 

 a prehistoric forest or plain with an exactness of de- 

 tail equal to the canvasses of the Barbizon school of 

 painters who have preserved for us the forest of Fon- 

 tainebleau. From his bits of bones and shells and 

 rocks, and from his observations on contemporary 

 organisms, the historian of evolution arranges the 

 sequence of palaeontological animals and plants with 

 as elaborate care as the follower of the turf records 

 the pedigree of a famous horse, or as the pigeon fan- 

 cier follows the varieties of that mutable bird. One 

 cannot but feel that the palaeontologist has assumed 

 the role of the stock breeder who mates his animals 

 to produce offspring consonant with his purposes. An 

 important and even unavoidable difference between 

 the methods of stock breeder and evolutionist must 

 persist. The stock breeder follows and can to some ex- 



i: 18 3 



