THE DOGMA OF EVOLUTION 



winism quickly made progress ; only the French were 

 clear-sighted enough to see the insufficient character 

 of the proofs.** 



Darwin was singularly uninterested in the influ- 

 ence of natural selection on thought in general. After 

 assuming it, as an hypothesis, with no real inquiry 

 into the soundness of its philosophical basis but rather 

 from the appositeness of two catch-phrases, he de- 

 voted a long period to the accumulation of facts. But 

 it does not follow that an accumulation of facts may 

 be classified into a law, and it is still less certain that 

 they will verify an hypothesis. For example, the facts 

 bearing on the subject may be so numerous and so 

 complex that no final decision can be attained. And 

 also, if a law can be derived and an hypothesis be 

 verified, yet, if the law be extended to a field which 

 cannot properly be included in the investigation, the 



6 The letter of Sedgwick {Life and Letters, vol. II, p. 42) should be 

 read in its entirety. — To confirm my statement of the attitude of the 

 French, see the same volume, p. 400. Darwin was not elected a 

 member of the French Academy until 1878 and then in the Botan- 

 ical Section. He writes to Dr. Gray that it was something of a joke 

 as his knowledge of botany was rudimentary. Lyell always spoke 

 of it as a scandal that he was so long kept out of the Academy. It 

 appears that an eminent member of the Academy wrote to Les 

 Mondes to the following effect: "What has closed the doors of the 

 Academy to Mr. Darwin is that the science of those of his books 

 which have made his chief title to fame — the Origin of Species and 

 still more the Descent of Man — is not science, but a mass of asser- 

 tions and absolutely gratuitous hypotheses, often evidently fal- 

 lacious. This kind of publication and these theories are a bad ex- 

 ample, which a body that respects itself cannot encourage." It is but 

 too evident that time is slowly justifying this opinion and that 

 ultimately Darwin's reputation will rest on his botanical work 

 rather than on his hypotheses of natural selection and pangenesis ; 

 the value of the former is already fading and the latter is totally 

 discredited. 



I 1963 



